Last Post of the year!!!!!

I truly did try to get a post in earlier but things have been busy this holiday season. With family, baking, gift making and all the things that December is know for I just never found the time. I think we are back to normal......whatever normal is, now. 😁

Beings it is the end of the year I wanted to look back and see what kind of progress I made this year. I felt I had not really completed much stitching until I went to my files and looked. Thank goodness I take pictures of all my finishes.
The List:
8 Mug Rugs with matching napkin (sewing)
4 Wallets (sewing)
7 Purses (sewing)
10 Thread Catcher w/ pin cushion (sewing)
1 Crocheted Blanket and a second one has been started about 1/3 finished
1 Counted Canvas"Joy" Embroidery
Autumn Ala Round (cross stitch)
Playing Cards (cross stitch)
Owls w/ Quote (cross stitch)
Lighthouse (cross stitch)
Poof w/shoes (cross stitch)
Snowman Banner (cross stitch)
10 JBW Designs (cross stitch)
4 other Miscellaneous Mini's (cross stitch)
2 Bags Reindeer and Skull (cross stitch)
1 Wreath (crafting)
2 Fall Wall Hangings (crafting)
5 Fall Jar Decorations (crafting)
7 Christmas Jar Decorations (crafting)
Along with working on HAED Christmas Cottage. Death By Cross Stitch, Spring Village, Army Emblem, Pumpkin Splendor Table Topper, and Christmas Tree 2004 Counted Canvas .
I wanted to do a few collages of the list but my collage maker is on the fritz. 🙁Oh well I will work on it and see if I can get it working and try again later.

Do you make a New Years List/Resolution list of your stitching plans? I do what I cal a soft list. I try to know what I would like to do but if I do not get to it no big deal it just gets moved to the following year. So how did I do I wanted 4 WIPS to be finished only got 3 finished. I did not start my Pixie as I had hoped and only got 1 square for my son started. But I did start and finish 14 projects that are all for me. And my Etsy shop is up but the selling was not as much as I had hoped. All in all it was a good year. Next post I will put my list for 2018. 

We had our annual Stitching Group Christmas party. We do a gift exchange. We pick #'s and then choose from the bags in the order of the numbers. I was # 3.

Then for Christmas a friend stitched me a table topper.  They are oh so adorable. These were my stitching gifts this year.

As mentioned earlier it has been a busy month and not much time for stitching. I only made progress on my HAED Christmas Cottage. And then I had a quick finish with this little reindeer bag. It was a kit with 2 gnomes in red and this deer.

The mug rugs are gifts for friends for sets of 2. Husband and wives Each rug has a pocket that holds a napkin I made that matches to match and I found some really cool gold spoons so I added those in.
A cook and a card player
A pilot and his wife

Dog lovers

A hunter and baseball fan

This is just so you can see how well my snowman card holder worked. 

And finally I was at Michael's to get some picker holders and to check out the after Christmas specials. I got a few things for next year 70% off. And got a rope of flowers, I had a sting of those lights that are battery operated and also bought some white sparkled leaves and made a decoration for January. Blue, white, and copper. 

I wish you all a happy, safe, healthy New Year and hope to see you in the next year.

December has snuck in

Yes indeed December has come and snuck in to surprise us all. The day after Thanksgiving is my day to start the Christmas decorations. I put up 2 trees, my collection of snowmen, a Christmas village and all the other decorations that you collect over the years.

 

I then started to assemble new decorations for myself, and gifts for friends. The wreath and blue star jar decoration are mine.

These other jars are all gifts for friends. 

 My Snowmen that I finished earlier this year are now FFO'ed and are holding my Christmas Cards. It came out exactly as I had it envisioned. 

I have had very little time to do any actual stitching but I have gotten a few stitches in.The Pumpkin Topper is 3/4 done. The Spring Village has a good portion of the Needlework Shop complete. And the Counted Canvas 2004 Tree has another section worked.

 

I hope to have another update before the end of the year, but December is so ful of things I am not sure what is going to happen. 

November Continues

Update on puppy, 2 weeks after the attack and he is well on the way to recovery. It has been long and frustrating but the wounds have finally stopped leaking and things look so much better. Poor boy, he has been so good with all of this. Now when i get the bandages and cleaning supplies out he hides. I know he is just tired of it all but it does make it longer to get it done when I have to track him down. I did not want the pictures to be too graphic So I took a few at the correct angle.

I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving with good food, good people and good health!!!!!!!

 This is my only WIP update, making fabulous progress and it really comes together amazing when you get the BS in. See you next month!!!!!!!

A month of Thankfulness

I had meant to make this post last week but unfortunately we had a bit of an issue. The Monday after we turned our clocks back my poor puppy was attacked. The animals do not understand the time change, they are used to getting up and going out. We have a system where I go out and check the front yard because of the darkness for critters, mainly skunks as we do not want a situation first thing in the morning. I did this and then I let the boys out they go around the front of the house water all the bushes and then go to an area to poop. I stay on the front porch check the hummingbird feeders and just wait for them to return so we can go in and have breakfast. My boy did not have his collar on this day, as he had a bath the night before and I had not got it back on. This is important because the tags on his collar jingle when he moves so you know where he is. I can only assume, as I did not see the incident but he must have startled the coyote that morning, it was dark, he was silent moving around and they just came upon each other. He never cried out, he never barked, no noise to alert me there was a problem. I went to see what was holding him up and as I came around the corner he was coming back and I could see blood on his neck. I grabbed him up and got him in the house checked the damage and called my vet. Oh course at 10 to 7 they were not open and the closest emergency vet was a 2 hour drive away. My vet would open in 1 hour, so I called the emergency and they walked me through some triage for him and agreed that is was okay to wait for the closer location to open. He has done well with the recovery but of course there were set backs swelling, some infection, no appetite, and stitches not holding. I am happy to say we are past the worst of it and he is no worse for wear but it was a bad week of nursing him and worry. 

I did get some stitching done and it helped me calm down during a trying time. So lets have an update with the WIP's In the last post I mentioned going to my LNS and having a fun time well I did not post pictures of what I worked on that day. I pulled out the counted canvas piece that I was gifted. I have not worked this on some time so it was nice to get it out and put some stitches in. I will show a before and after set since it has been so long since this one was a focus.

I also put time on HAED Christmas Cottage by Dona Gelsinger. This is about 1/3 of the page done. There is a load of confetti in those trees and lights as you can well imagine.

I also pulled out Death by Cross Stitch from Long Dog Sampler Finished up the boarder along the bottom of the Lion and then found a boarder for the right side of him, the stars and diamonds seem to work well with this. I got it out of the book Cross Stitch Silhouettes by Adele Welsby. And then a bit of a start on the next section. This is fun figuring out the best place for the colors I am working with.

I FFO'd the lighthouse for my daughter. Got material from Joann's that I think really set off the finished stitching, added the charms found some twine in my stash that looked like rope and I looked on the internet for some sailor knots and tied a few to add as embellishments. They may not be correctly done but they work for this situation. I will wrap it up and Christmas present is done.

Finally some Thread Porn. When I was in Virginia for our latest visit I came across some thread that was just gorgeous. A lady at one of the shops was stitching with it. She bought it off of Etsy from a couple in Australia, she gave me the shop name and I could just not resist. I came is a very short amount of time even from Oz and it is beautiful.

Happy stitching to you all. With the cooler weather I hope that you are finding a bit more stitching time. Hope to see you back with my next post.

Halloween Fun

It is the night before Halloween and all the creepy, crawlies, scary, go bump in the night things are out and ready to party tomorrow. Sunday my LNS had a come and stitch with us and have some fun. The owners and some of the regulars cooked. There was chili, cornbread, cupcakes, and treats. Each stitcher was able to choose a goodie bag, you got several pieces of candy and also a coupon good for Sunday only with anything from 10 to 50% off. Mine had a 20% coupon. There was also a lottery draw for any in shop canvas $200 or less. I was trying with all my might to be good, but my so called friends kept telling me to get it AND when I asked my hubby what he thought he said if you want it get it. Well my will power was weak and I did it. I bought this canvas of Santa. I love his look and the animals and oh just everything about him. He is a painted canvas by Sandra Gilmore called Bless the Beasts, it is going to be massive as it is 28X22 but I can not wait to get started.

 Since returning home I have done some catch up stitching. I have 1/2 of Pumpkin Splendor complete. That is my table topper. I finished the Antique Shop on my Spring Village by Stoney Creek. It is so awesome to see patterns come to life when you get the BS added. The only difference from the 2 pictures of the shop is I added the backstitching. Loving it.

The other thing is I started and finished the Lighthouse pattern I bought while on vacation. I will add the charms on in the location I have them set-up and then mount it and ta-da instant Christmas gift. I think my daughter will love it.

A much shorter post this time. I hope I did not over whelm you all with the last post.

Enjoy your stitching and will be on in a few weeks with a November update.