Happy Blogaversary!

Yes, it's my 8th year of blogging! Well, yesterday it was! Unfortunately, I had to shelve my blogaversary giveaway plans. Sorry about that but I do have a birthday coming up soon and maybe I'll do something for that. This birthday is freaking me out. I'm turning 55. There was only one other birthday where I wasn't feeling it and that was my 30th. I'm pretty sure life will go on after 55 but for now I will just...freak out!

I thought I would start out responding to comments:

Jessica said that Mill Hill kits make her nervous! Well, in looking at mine that I mentioned last post, I'm confused about all the beads that are needed and that they're all mixed together! I hope I'm easy on the perforated paper too.

Honeybee, I will get to stitch these upcoming days as I have a 5 day weekend and I only work 

  Wednesday night at my 2nd job during those 5 days. So I'm pretty excited about that.

Denise Brown, I hope you see this. I wasn't sure if you wanted the giveaway fabric from the last post. If you did, it's yours. Let me know in a comment below.

I spent the whole afternoon today running the glue gun and the sewing machine and just came out for air. It's too dark to do anymore crafting anyway. It's 6:37pm as I type. I have FFO's to show, some stash, an upcoming project, and a frog visit. Here we go:

Progress and reverse progress on Christmas Garden! Frog came to visit..

I had to rip out the green vine and the flowers there on the right because I had miscounted up at that last rose bud where I turned the corner. I assume it's a rose bud. It took me a couple hours to take it all out! What you see is the re-stitched vine. Had a bit of progress on the flowers and leaves that are to the right of the deer. You know, in looking at what I have on Christmas Garden right now, I could just finish the flowers and vine and that gold border and call it a day! A stand alone sampler! Nah, I have to do the whole thing. I'll get started back to stitching on it tonight or tomorrow.

Remember the Grinch ornaments I was making for my daughter for Christmas? They're done!

I was waiting on batting to finish the last 2. I use cotton batting on both sides. I love how they turned out! In the older animated the Grinch, the announcer, whom it so happens is Boris Karloff, describes the Grinch as Stink Stank Stunk. I found the red and white twine in Joanne's (might've been Hob Lob) and bought the grinch fabric on etsy. I cut the fabric so I could center the characters in the middle on the back. Love my glue gun! Sharon/Daffycat, thank you for designing this freebie. I knew when I saw it that I had to stitch up several for my daughter. If you're interested in this freebie, go to Daffycat blog and scroll down to find it. I think she showed it on her blog the earlier part of this year. She will email you a copy.

Stash! 

I bought the Quaker House Samplers from a destashing group on FB. I'm more interested in the top design with the Quaker motifs. On the left, I saw someone on Stitch Maynia had stitched Baaah Humbug up and I had to have it! Calico Confectionary is on etsy but I swear I bought the PDF from an etsy needlework shop. My memory really stinks sometimes. 

Then just today I received this fabric for this chart..

The fabric is Ice Goddess by Fabrics by Stephanie. On FB, a stitcher showed her progress of the swans on that fabric. Here is what hers' looks like..

Isn't that beautiful? I did a search for the chart and found one at the House of Stitches. I forgot how much the chart was, something like $11 or $13. You can bet I will be starting this sometime next year! 

Since I was running the sewing machine, thought I would flange-pillow a finish I had. Put on Vonna's video tutorial and only got so far before it got just too dark to work anymore..even with two lights on!

Tomorrow I will finish this. Next time you'll see it in better light.

While I was watching Vonna, I took apart a pillow that I FFO'd a couple or 3 years ago...

Yes, I pull threads on the linen for straighter sewing and finishing. I used that awful polyfil on this back before Vonna mentioned the polyloft that is so much better, trust me. I think this might be a Threadwork Primitives design. I'll stuff it with the good stuff and I might flange-pillow it too.

I think that's all I had! I still have a just a little gift buying yet to do. My brothers are headed this way Christmas morning. We're pretty informal when it comes to Christmas. We snack throughout the day. This year we're having pork chili and chicken green chili tamales with fruit salad and Russian Tea cakes or as I call them Mexican Wedding cookies. These cookies have lots of names. You may know of them,  the dough is mixed with chopped pecans, baked, and then rolled in powdered sugar a couple times. Delicious! Can't wait!

Take care everyone! Wishing you a very..

and Happy Holidays to all!!