Looking back at 2021

Howdy everyone! Hope you're all doing well and being healthy! It's New Year's Eve Eve and time for my year ending update. Pull up a chair and stay awhile!

First up are the Christmas festivities: Christmas Eve at my daughter's place along with her boyfriend, we ate deer neck roast with homemade mac n cheese, potatoes and carrots cooked with the roast, yeast rolls, and pumpkin pie for dessert. White wine was the beverage but I had cider because I have to drive home which is 9 miles away. Weather was supposed to go south in the evening but it just rained. We opened gifts and watched Yellowstone episodes. I received from the kids a Roku which allows you to get free and streaming tv shows. I can't afford cable so the Roku works for me. Here are a few photos of my daughter's place and my granddogs..

You can see King the Dalmatian in his Santa suit!

Both King and Hunter. Hunter is wearing his Christmas sweater. We had a good time.

So I'm still stitching on my SAL with Tempting Tangles but I haven't stitched enough worthy of a picture. I'm also stitching on Crone on the Hill by PSS..

I'm about done stitching the whole left side of the house in and now moving to the right. This is stitched on 36ct Vintage Beeswax and I love the color. 

Last week I FFOd a patriotic piece I finished last year and made it into a cube..

Unfortunately I cannot remember who designed this! The words are: ...with liberty and justice for all. I finally got to use the navy blue wire ribbon that I found in a second hand store on the top. It's perfect. Another picture..

Now we're up to my 2021 update!

Time for the revealing of the numbers:

20 finishes

20 WIPs left to carry into 2022

30 WIPs worked on 

I drew papers with the WIP names on them, threw away those I finished. One finish was not a WIP. I'm a happy camper having just 20 WIPs. Of course, that will increase again on January 1 when I begin my bday SAL. 

My bday SAL will be a little different this time. I enjoyed whittling down my WIP pile, so for my SAL I plan on 15 or 16 new starts instead of the 29 in previous years. Included in those starts are Halloween starts because I joined a group on FB called Halloween Cross Stitch Challenge. I am stitching 6 Halloween patterns, some are new starts and others are WIPs. Something else different that I joined is Stitch from Stash 2017-22. My stash buying has been out of control for the entire year. I need to reign that in and concentrate on stitching what I have. I may need the occasional piece of fabric or floss so I kept my budget to $20. I also pulled the trigger on a BOTM (bag of the month) purchase for 2022 from GaRon Tottenbags. I've been wanting to have all my WIPs in project bags. I should have the first bag here on Tuesday. I did spend an entire year on their waiting list though, so if anyone is interested you'll be put on the waiting list.

So those are my stitching plans for 2022!

I have my 2022 reading put together..

Yep, just 4 books. The bottom 2 are nice and thick and will take me about half the year to read. I'm on Goodreads and I join the reading challenge every year. For 2021, I read 9 books. A paperback I read was kind of stupid I had to abandon it. Title is All Scot and Bothered. Lol. I think you can guess what kind of book by the title! I read two Elizabeth Peter's woman egyptologist mysteries, among others. I couldn't count the newest Diana Gabaldon book because I haven't finished it.

Responding to comments made to my last post: 

Linda: perfect Christmas show, Breaking Bad!! Lol!

Barb: I must warn you about Breaking Bad, it's violent. It's about a mild mannered chemistry teacher who decides to cook Meth to sell. He has just found out about a health scare that could threaten his family, with a child on the way. It's excellent but there were times I couldn't watch what was happening.

Jo: I hope to get a lot of other things to watch with the Roku, once I get it set up. The older I get, the least technology-inclined I am. I might have to get my daughter out here to set it up for me! By the way, Thank You for the e-Christmas card! So pretty!

Alright, I believe I'm finished. The Southwest has been stormy with storms one after the other. Snow, rain, sleet, a potpourri of weather. The heater is cranked. 

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are safe and healthy. Thank you for following my blog and thank you for finding your way back in June when the planets aligned and I was able to blog here again. I don't think I'll ever give up blogging, even if I was down to a few readers. Heck, I would even leave the scammers alone and not delete their comments!

Wishing you all a

filled with happiness, riches, and health!

Merry Christmas Eve!

Hello everyone! Here we are on the eve of Christmas already. The days they sure go by fast! I haven't stitched a lot and when I do it's just on my Tempting Tangles mystery SAL Rooky Woods. I was behind by 4 parts which are released every other week. Here's Rooky Woods

I think I can blame that on Netflix! I'm watching Breaking Bad and wowza, what a show! It's hard to watch sometimes with all the violence. There are times when I feel bad for Walter White and times when I hate him. He's a control freak for sure. I'm on the last season. I haven't even watched flosstube because I'm so entrenched in that show. At least I haven't had dreams about it. I told my daughter the show is ruining my life, haha! She just laughs! Update: I finished Breaking Bad last night. I might go back and watch a few episodes that I missed.

On the 21st of December was my 11th year of blogging! I'm still enjoying it and I consider many of you friends. Thanks for reading my blog!

On the last post I mentioned a monthly Christmas ornament group that I joined in on. Here's the info on that:

And the email address to join-

tf.celebration@gmail.com

It should be fun.

I am headed to my daughter's place for Christmas Eve festivities in a little bit. The weather might go bad later this evening so we're doing this earlier. A couple weeks ago I drove home in howling winds and snowing, at night, and I could not see the road. I basically straddled the dotted white line for about 8 miles, and I'm not about to experience that again!

Take care everyone, stay safe, and..

I'll be back before the year is out with my end of year report. 

2021 Online Advent Calendar

Welcome to my Advent post, this 6th day of December! As most of you will know, Jo at Serendipitous Stitching hosts this calendar, and her blog is where you can go to open doors each day to visit. She's the hostess with the mostest! https://serendipitousstitching.blogspot.com/2021/12/2021-online-advent-calendar.html

Here is one of my creations called Noel, finished into a cube..

Designed by Raquel Blanco who does not design cross stitch anymore due to illegal uploading. I, however, lucked out when I bought one other design of hers and downloaded a freebie before she closed it up. Noel turned out so sweet, with her see through green and red wired ribbon.

My memories of the Christmas Tree! We've had so many throughout the years. First in my memory is the aluminum tree we had when I was 5-9 years of age. My mom was the big holiday preparer in the family. We had the colored wheel that sat on the floor and rotated through the red, white, blue, and green panels, turning our aluminum tree into something spectacular! What I would give to have that colored wheel again!

When we moved to Arizona, my parents bought Christmas tree permits from the local national forest office. Trees in my part of the state usually were Juniper and the Pinon pine. The pinon nut comes from the Pinon pine. The pines grow here but the actual pinon nut grows only every other year or two years. You may know they're expensive packaged in the grocery store but they're even more expensive gathered from the actual tree, and roasted and salted. Delicious! But they sell at $30 a pound from roadside sellers here in Arizona and New Mexico.

Another tree we had for Christmas was for the first Christmas without my mother. She had died earlier that year. I was desperate to get some normalcy into the house. This tree was a Pinon pine, pretty scraggly but it was perfect! I decorated it with the bad side to the wall. I soon took on the role my mother had as the main holiday tsar. My daughter now does it. 

For the last 8 years, we've had fake trees. I like real trees but I had destroyed about 3 vacuum cleaners cleaning up the needles! So fake tree it is! I'm now down to the 3ft or 4ft trees, one green and one white. They get decorated with all the stitched Christmas ornaments I've made through the years or received as gifts and from exchanges. 

Those are my Christmas tree memories! Thank you Jo, for hosting the Advent Calendar and for the bloghops throughout the year. I will leave you with another Christmas cube I made. Unfortunately, I can't remember which Primitive Punchneedle and Prim Stitcher issue it came out of but it turned out very nicely..

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all!

Updates!

Good afternoon! I am back with updates on everything I've stitched. Yes, I'm stitching again, got back into the groove a couple days after my last post. After a small trip to the outskirts of Phoenix to pick up this lovely thing..

I am back reading again! I've read 90 pages so far and enjoying it. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving, those of us who celebrate it. We had a spiral ham and the fixings. My daughter did all the cooking. I had ham leftovers and gladly ate hot ham and cheese sandwiches for a couple of days! And there's more, ha. I still have not figured out how to make paragraphs for this blog using my phone so sorry for the huge run-on paragraph. I've been finishing WIPs and have wittled down my WIP pile to 20! I took a look at everything, deciding whether I've lost the desire for a couple. I did manage to finish 3 in one week though, so here they are..

At the top is Believe in Christmas, from the August 2015 Christmas JCS ornaments preview issue. Took me just 3 hours to finish it. Last time, I had everything stitched up to the hat. At bottom is The Size of The Gift, from the JCS 2016 Christmas ornaments issue, on the called for 40ct Helix PTP linen. Very tiny but just cute. And the piece de resistance is this..

Bittersweet September by Blackbird Designs. I used 35ct fabric instead of the 32ct called for and it's small, about 5" square. Vibrant colors. I believe the linen is Linen by WDW. Those are the last of my finishes. I am getting caught up with my SAL stitching, the Rooky Woods SAL, and picked up another WIP, this one is Crone on the Hill by PSS..

The house looks like the Nathaniel Hawthorne house in Salem, Mass., with the old world style windows. I hope to have this finished before the year is out for my 21st finish, yahoo! Update on the kids! They have recovered from Covid. My daughter still has some congestion, and the boyfriend can taste and smell some things but not all. They've both gone back to work. They both tested negative to go back to work. So I'm pretty happy about that.

So I've been throwing in random pictures to break up these paragraphs but I thought some of you may be interested in these mugs with the cross stitch printed on them. They're kind of cute! Be sure to click on pictures to see them bigger. And be sure to stop by on December 6th for my Advent blog hop post. The guest of honor will be the Christmas tree. We'll be talking about the Christmas tree and answering questions on our traditions. That should be fun. I better make sure my post is on the 6th! I also wanted to mention a year long Christmas ornament kit being mailed out once a month in 2022 being hosted by Celebrations in Needlework. I think that's what they're called. For $24 a month, you get a full kit to make an ornament. Some of the designers are Mani di Donna, the Primitive Hare, and 10 others. I signed up. I'll show the flyer on the next regular post in December. Alrighty, I think this is it. It's back to work for a whole bunch of us, and I've got laundry to get to. Thanks for stopping by, please stay healthy, and we'll see you next month! Toodles!

A post!

Hello! Here we are headed to Thanksgiving in the states in 2 weeks! It's going by so fast. I've already put out Christmas lights on the mantel and set up my nutcrackers. They make me smile. So I have finishes and a couple FFOs to show, let's go!

This is Fleurs 1805 by Samplers Not Forgotten. I finished this back around August or September and forgot to show it. It's pretty. I have two more finishes, this one is Cobblestone Crossing by StoneStreetSitchWorks on Etsy..

I made a few changes on this one! The model shows a rectangular border and a date on either side of the lamp. I left off the border and the date. Because this reminded me so much of Victorian England, I shortened that house on the right and stitched 1 over 1 the date The Christmas Carol by Dickens was first published. I love how it turned out! I'm seeing an oval frame for this, black or gray. It's been a WIP for at least 2 years so I'm glad it's finished. My next finish is Litha by the Primitive Hare..

On a coffee dyed mystery linen, I stitched this in 2 evenings. It spent more time than that as a WIP! So cute, I love the little bees flying around. Up next are my FFO's..

Brittercup on the left, from a JCS ornament issue, and Red House in Winter by LHN. I also did Rest Thy Scissors by Notforgotten Farm..

I keep forgetting to show my mystery SAL piece too. This is Rooky Woods by Tempting Tangles. The 4th part came out Thursday but I haven't stitched it in yet.

It's hard to believe it's November here. The temp is 74 right now and the sun is shining. We're also going through our prescribed burns in the local forest. Here's one yesterday..

They are a necessary evil here living next to forestland. This morning was the first time since Wednesday not smelling smoke.

Although I have these finishes and FFO's, I think my stitching mojo has up and left! I haven't stitched in 3 days. Even worse, for me, is I'm not reading either. I love books! I am a reader my entire life. I read In Cold Blood by Truman Capote when I was 11! In secret of course, my parents wouldn't have let me had they known! The 23rd of this month may be my saving grace because that is when the newest Outlander book comes out! That may do it. What is probably the reason for all this is my daughter and her significant other caught Covid. All this time, they go and catch it. They've isolated for the last 10 days and I think they've turned the corner. Yesterday my daughter lost her fever and the breathing has come easier so I hope this is the beginning of recovery for them both. I just wish Covid would take a hike. Take care everyone!

Halloween Trick or Treat Blog Hop 2021

Welcome, welcome to my spooky post for this years Halloween blog hop!

This is Early Witches by the Primitive Hare. It was a mystery SAL if my memory serves me right! By the time I got serious about stitching it, all the parts had been released. I made a few changes to it, very minor ones, like lightening the skin tone of Tituba,and adding a few more pins to the voodoo doll that Marie LeVeau is holding. It's a favorite finish of mine and one day I will frame it!

I've done a little Halloween decorating. My big white jack o lantern with an orange lightbulb inside and my table decor with a few of my FFO'd finishes and my ceramic pumpkins..

Since you're here to collect letters, here it is..

The next scary blog hopper to check out is: http://jocondine.blogspot.com/. I'm sure she has some spooky stitching to show!

Now who is responsible for the Halloween blog hop? Why it's Jo/Serendipitous Stitcher at this link: https://serendipitousstitching.blogspot.com/2021/10/halloween-trick-or-treat-blog-hop-2021.html. Be sure to check it out. Bwaahaaa

Here, there, and everywhere!

Hi all! Hope you're all doing well! It's a very overcast day here. We're supposed to get a bit of that boom cyclone weather that's hitting the PNW right now. Hope those of you in the middle of that are dry and safe. It'll be a trickle of boom cyclone by the time it reaches us here in AZ. As for my title, I've been all over with my stitching! I have a finish that wasn't a part of my WIPs, I have progress on two WIPs, and I still have a hankering for starting things! So let's show the finish..this is Winter Gingham by Twisted Threads..

On the called for 28ct Graziano Gingham, the yellowish one. 1 over 1!! Yeppers! It's just a tiny thing but it's all 1 over 1. I had a very hard time stitching the parts that took lots of stitching, the snowman and the house. There may or may not be mistakes in those two parts! The alphabet was easy and I flew over all that. I also had to put a black hat on the snowman, and substituted colors for those I didn't have. It's the cutest little thing ever but I don't know if I will do 1 over 1 on 28ct again! Progress-after I finished Christmas Garden, I chose out of the hat Town of Halloween and put in some good progress..

Last time all I had was the entire left side and over to part of the second house. I put that down and drew another WIP and it turned out to be Winter at Beacon House!

I've stitched in part of the lighthouse and filled in a few places in the sand. My goal is to fill in the snowy areas amongst the alphabet. It's 19 inches long so I've got a ways to go yet.

Yup, that's an FFO in the making! You all better go out and buy lottery tickets because I have 2 more in the queue! It has been a year since I fired up my sewing machine. It's been a rough year so there's that. That's Quaker Boo by the Sampler Girl with everything that is going on it. I bought poly fil yesterday so I can stuff it. Next are 2 ornaments awaiting the same treatment..

Red House in Winter by LHN. All 3 will be pinkeeps. This next one is a Brittercup design..

I have the ribbons picked out for this one. Such Christmas-y colors. I have much more to FFO so stay tuned! That's it folks! I'll be back a week from today as I haved joined Jo/Serendipitous Stitcher for the Halloween blog hop. I am really looking forward to tha! Take care and stay safe and healthy!

Finis!

After stitching in my family's initials clear to midnight last night, I am now officially finished with Christmas Garden!..

Thanks Honeybee for the offer of your skein of Endive, I was able to track down a full skein amongst my WIPs. The lighter gold color on the sampler is CCW Fool's Gold and I ran out of that stitching the last letter of a set of initials. I used a DMC that matched the darker variegation of the floss. Finally I decided to do with the rest of the initials using Calico Kitty since I had quite a bit left over. So what have I learned stitching this huge sampler? The big thing is stitch on a smaller count. When I first started CG 7 years ago, I hated this fabric. It's 30ct French Vanilla, 2 over 2. My stitches were moving the fabric threads over which I see when I look at it. I'm stitching my mystery SAL on a 36ct and the fabric threads don't move so easily but then on the 36ct, I use just one thread of the floss. I kept hemming and hawing about the fabric I used but it got to late to make a change. It's still gorgeous though! I got my new SAL stitching caught up and now taking a short breather, lol! Until next time, stay healthy!

Almost a wrap!

Yes, it's almost a wrap! I'm almost finished with Christmas Garden and at 15 3/8" x 18",the largest cross stitch design I've ever stitched! She's almost a wrap because I've run out of GAST Endive and that was even after I added half a skein from my stash. I'll go through all my WIPs and kitted projects for another skein of Endive. Here is Christmas Garden before..

and as of last night..

I just love her! I look at this and think why did it take 7 years to finish! To me, now, it doesn't look very huge. How funny is that! So there may or not be half stitches! That whole bottom half was stitched while getting caught up with flosstube. I watched Kindred Stitcher from 3 years ago to her latest video. I had to frog a lot of areas because my count was off while trying to save the floss. When I started this, I bought the floss a little at a time, Endive needed 5 skeins, Calico Kitty needed 5 skeins, Heirloom Gold-3, Fool's Gold-3. See what I'm left with..

and what I've used..

Amazing! I still have to stitch the greenery inside the capital C and G with a couple stitches using Calico Kitty as holly berries and finish up with Endive the very bottom right with the floating rose buds! If you look near the top you'll see I've stitched in my initials. I'll be adding my two brothers, my daughter's, my nephew's and my parent's initials along with 2021. I've got a large sampler hangover! What's next you ask?! I've signed up for another mystery SAL put on by Tempting Tangles. It's called the Rooky Woods Mystery SAL. Here's the website.. www.temptingtanglesdesigns.com and look for Rooky Woods. Below are the Dinky Dyes silks (there's a dmc conversion for it too) and the fabric I chose, PTP Vellum 36ct..

I also picked another WIP and it's Halloween Town. Very appropriate!

I think that's it, folks! I just might stitch on Halloween Town for the rest of the month. For now, I'm going to rifle through everything for another skein of Endive. Wish me luck! Take care!

Christmas Garden progress

Hi everyone! I'm back to show my progress on Christmas Garden. Since my last post, I have stitched on this exclusively. I'm taking this coming week off for vacation, more like a staycation. Every waking moment I'm stitching! Before work, after work and into the evening. I put it down for the day just now. Here's the before..

and now..

I have since finished the flower with the bird on top at the right and have stitched in a bit of the border that separates this section from where the words Christmas Garden will be stitched. Yup, been eating breathing this WIP! I could very well be finished by this time bext week. It's huge. I've learned a few things about stitching a sampler that I'll share when I am finished. See you soon!

Hello September, half over!

Hi all! I am back to show progress, a finish from earlier this year, and two new charts. I wish I could figure out how to do new paragraps, otherwise my sentences are just run ons! Bear with me, I'll figure it out sooner or later! Starting with progress, I put in some more stitches onto Yule..

Last post I mentioned running out of the Brown Bear floss; it's getting there! Once I get back to Yule and stitch, I'll know better. All that's left to do is the whole fireplace. After Yule I picked up a subRosa design, a WIP, and stitched more border. I was stitching at night. The next morning, I looked at it and the border was two different colors of white! Because I stitched at night, I couldn't tell the difference! It's in time out right now. After that fiasco, I drew a WIP out of the basket and lo and behold, look what I picked..

Christmas Garden. It was about time I picked a big WIP! This poor thing has not seen the light of day since the end of December last year. I've added quite a bit since Friday, two days ago. I am getting so close to the end. I ironed it for this picture and it's going to be a biggie. I'm going to have to go back through it all and tighten up stitches and add initials of family. A WIP for 7 years, it's time to be done and I think I can. That big tall flower in the middle is above the space for the words Christmas Garden. Yep. So keep tuning in because I want to keep stitching on it through this month.

My mystery SAL When Witches go Riding. I finished the whole first part. There's back stitching in this section but I'll wait until the end to stitch those in. I have the 2nd and 3rd parts with the final part yet to come. I stashed also..

I'm not planning any new starts with these but I do have fabric for the Blueberry sampler. I think it calls for silks so it'll be next year. The rest of this year is dedicated to WIPs. Any finishes I get will go a long way in easing the guilt of my b-day SAL coming up in January. It'll be eye candy for days! I'm not sure some of you saw a finish I had the earlier part of this year. Red House by Sheepish Designs..

On a Dixiesamplar fabric, 36ct Mountain Stream. Very light gray. Love it! Okey doke, that'll be it. I was under the weather for a couple weeks. Congestion, runny nostril, stuffed nose, crazy. I thought oh no, is this Covid again?! My doctor assured me that I should still have antibodies in my system from Covid and that I couldn't possibly catch it again. A 63 year old cousin of mine has it and is having a rough time. I have fully recovered my taste and smell again so I'm a happy camper! I hope youre all staying safe and healthy! Take care and see you soon:)