It has been so long...........

I am sorry but since I got back from the retreat things have gotten very busy. Work is crazy. I have done a full spring cleaning, which included washing walls, taking down all the pictures, carpet cleaning and tiles scrubbing. So this was the month.

I also got in some stitching and some sewing done. 2 of my daughters very good friends are having babies so I am going to be making some things for them. The first one, mom and dad like fishing so the bibs will have fishing themes. I have made a diaper bag,

Changing pad

A clutch to hold brushes, combs, clippers, wash clothes. And also a pacifier lead

I found this super cute fabric and I knew that my daughter would just love it. I decided that I would make her a beach bag and matching clutch with the fabric that gets leftover when you cut the bag in this style. 

I have several finishes. The Christmas Tree counted canvas and the Army Emblem.

Mary Poppin's that I made into a project bag for my stitching. I found a sweet umbrella charm for the zipper tag. 

And finally I did 3 Mill Hill Kits Rockin Robin, Tomato Pincushion and I love Sewing.

This should get me all caught up with where I am and what I have been doing. I still have Christmas Cottage, Death by Cross Stitch and Spring Village in the rotation. I have a very very small start on Zenia with color changes and the 1st bib was started yesterday.  Hopefully I wil have an update sooner then next month. Enjoy your stitching and see you soon.

New Year, New Beginnings

Hello all it has been an interesting start to the New Year. Unfortunately it did not start very happy. Our 13 year old rescue kitty had to be put down. His kidneys started to fail and it caused an intestinal infection that caused him to be sick and dehydrate. He was such a good boy and it was so sad to have to tel him goodbye, but I could not make him suffer. Part of being a good pet owner is knowing when it is time to let a pet go and do what is best for them.

 

 So enough with the sad. On to the new, I showed you the Bless the Beasts Painted canvas I bought from my LNS the end of October I wanted to maybe pull this out during Christmas but with family and work and baking time got away from me and I did not get to move on this. So the New Year is a time for beginnings and this is going to be an adventure. I picked petite Silk Lame Braid for the sky and I am using the Pavilion stitch. The Moon I used Gold Kreniek Silk Mori and the stitch I used was a satin stitch. The stars in the sky are Mill Hill Glass Seed Beads in gold. I spent 3 days with this and got a large bit of the sky completed before I needed to rotate. I have to work on this at a table and sitting in that position is not comfortable so I will have to work this in between my other projects.  

Pictures are 1) Full size canvas 2)Work done from last year 3)Work completed this rotation. I set a yard stick across the top of the canvas to give you an idea of the size of this. 

I have a finish. I did this before I started Santa. I am so happy with the way this turned out. I found some black satin lace to finish the edges and it looks awesome on the coffee table I made it to display on,next Halloween it is going to be wonderful. 

Finally I have a few items to share. I joined a Bag of the Month Club. Even though I am a sewer I never seem to make anything for myself so I splurged and joined this. January's bags showed up last week and they are beautiful. I love them and the lady doing the bags added in a few little goodies as a bonus. Hand-dyed floss, a floss ring with decoration and a Charm with the company's name on it. The second thing is I made an order from my favorite on-line Shop. 123Stitch.com. 5 Mill Hill patterns and a super fun Mary Poppins pattern.

I hope you are all enjoying the New Year, staying save and warm, and above all getting your stitching time. 

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.