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!