Organizing Squirrels

Good afternoon everyone! I wanted to get in one last post for 2022! This year flew by! I am fighting a head cold that hit Christmas Eve. I sound like a trash compactor! But that's fine because I'm hermitting with the next 3 days off and no plans to do anything, tonight for New Years Eve and into the week. We're slated for a good storm to move in tonight.

Thanks for commenting on the last post. On trimming one of the Christmas finishes I showed, Jo said maybe a white whispy trim or pom pom; I like the white pom pom idea. 

So let's talk about stitching!

Right now I'm in 2 Sal's with one ending tonight. It's the one from Halloween Cross Stitch Challenge. My two victims are Frosty Forest and Wicked Alphabet. Carol thought maybe this would be finished this year but no such luck! Here's Frosty Forest...

The number 7 block is done and I've started with part of a chimney in the 8th. I'll be continuing this in the 2nd SAL I'm in. 

The other WIP is Wicked Alphabet by The Primitive Needle. I've had some good progress on this one...

Each letter feels like a finish! It's not bad stitching actually, and I am past the halfway point. This too will be continued in the SAL which by the way is found by the hashtag #idareyousal2023. It's almost like WIPGO but just a number picked. Here's a longtime WIP of 9 years that was #7, the first number picked...Song of the Seasons, the mystery sampler by LHN!

Remember this?! An oldie but goodie! When I made my list of WIPs for this SAL, I included a lot of old ones. So you're going to be going down Memory Lane with me monthly as I get back to some of these. So I've stitched in everything on the right side in the last few days. Looking at the house on the left, the tree shows 2 seasons, maybe spring and summer. It can and does snow in spring. The fabric is WDW Straw. It's great to get back to this.

I also had a Christmas day start and it's this one by PSS..

My Early Days. I love this! I was waiting on a few overdye floss which arrived today in the mail. The shots of blue in this design are what got my attention. I might stitch in the blues in other areas too. It's on a Dixiesamplar 40ct linen. The called for floss are all DMC and WDW.

My Early Days is part of 3 new starts in 2023. Past years, I did a bday SAL with 29 new starts but I really want to knock out WIPs which there are about 25. Here are the other 2 new starts...

I have been sitting on that 35ct parchment non-zweigart linen for a year! It's a half yard! I knew I wanted to use it for Grace Bridges but couldn't find the chart. I finally found the PDF at the Stacy Nash Etsy shop. Calls for DMC. I can't wait to get to that mustard house! To see this finished, see the Primitive Stitcher/Suzette on flosstube #80 at the 14:49 minute point in the video. She is responsible for my wanting to stitch this sampler!

The next start will be the mystery Halloween design by Tiny Modernist...

I have the first 2 charts and took about 8 months to buy all the floss. The Onyx alone needed 5 skeins so luckily they all were the same dye lot. It'll be on the gray evenweave pictured.

Btw, I read that one of the bigger overdyed floss companies are raising their price for a skein. Might as well! The price of eggs is crazy! And sometimes I have trouble finding my cats regular food. Ugh.

Okay, let's continue with stitching!

I had 30 finishes this year! That's pretty good as I work 40hrs a week. A lot of them were small though.

As I do during the end of the year, I show my reading for 2023...

This year I only read 6 books with the newest Outlander taking up a good chunk of time. I am rereading Voyager after finding a decent copy on eBay.

That top book is a William Monk mystery, the 2nd in a series. If you like mysteries held during the Victorian era in London like I do, take a look at the author. They're pretty good.

I read the Hobbit in preparation for the Lord of The Ring books and the movies. These two paperbacks are a bit dog eared.

Last book, I like a good scary one every now and then. Darcy Coates writes nothing but!

So in 2016 in December, Honeybee The Copper Fox posted a black eyed pea crockpot recipe during her Christmas Open House. It's called Black-eyed Peas and Ham, and I have it cooking in my crockpot right now! I won't eat it until tomorrow when the good luck is supposed to start, lol! I grew up eating pinto, and kidney beans, and to this day can't get Lima beans down the gullet! So this soup sounds good with the ham chunks thrown in. You'll find it at the December 6 2016 post along with a cute Christmas box tutorial.

This whole post felt like herding squirrels! Normally, I write down stuff I want to show or talk about but I went rogue with this one! 

Hope your Christmas was magical, whether with a lot of family and friends, or just a few. We had a great one but then everyone got sick! My headcold, my daughter with strep throat and her boyfriend and his head cold!! I wonder who started that! Hope you're all staying healthy!

I'm off! Wishing you and yours a very Happy New Year with wishes of health, happiness, love, and togetherness!

See you in 2023!!

Sunday stitching

Hello everyone! Hope you've done your Christmas shopping! I'm about done, it'll be a record for me. Waiting on a couple shipments arriving this Wednesday and that'll be it. Usually I'm still buying things on the 23rd!

Thanks everyone for stopping in for the Advent Blog Hop, and to Jo/Serendipitous Stitching for hosting it. I enjoy hopping about! It was great to read your comments and see what you called these round cookies. Interesting to know that Russian cake was made from the trimmings from cakes and mixed with jam! That actually sounds good, almost like a thumbprint cookie with jam in the middle. Many of you like lemon meringue pie, I like the sweet tang of the lemon. As Carol said whatever the cookies are called, they are delicious! I agree!

On to the stitching!

I have 2 WIPs I'm working on in a SAL from the group Halloween Cross Stitch Challenge. For December we are to work on a Halloween project or scary with Christmas/winter. Here's Wicked Alphabet by The Primitive Needle...

Before I had just that top vine with the swirlies. This is on 36ct Antique Lace by Seraphim maybe? Fun stitch.

WIP #2 is Frosty Forest. I know you'll all recognize this one! I'm pushing to have it done this year...

The 7th block is going fast because there's more solid stitching with less floss changes. I have since added snow to it. 

This FB group is partly responsible for the 30 finishes I have for 2022!

Speaking of finishes, here are the last 5...

This is The Banshee's Cry by The Little Stitcher who is on Etsy. It was a WIP for quite awhile.

This one is from the Wild Violet, The All-Seeing Eye...

I'm not sure what I'll make it into. I try to use my scissors with a scissor fob on it and it just gets in my way! It'll probably end up as an ornament.

The last 3 are from a single chart by PSS called Christmas is Coming...

On 40ct Flax with DMC, they stitch up fast. I want to stuff these with sawdust but I'm out. I may turn to the local FB pages to see if anyone does any woodworking with natural untreated wood.

So there you have it, all the finishes I had spread out amongst 3 posts! Some were WIPs from a year or two ago and some were started and finished immediately. Woohoo!

My daughter gave me Christmas money early and I bought stash!

The top two designs are from Kittenstitcher and her Black Friday sale, the 4 Pineberry charts from the designers sale, and the project bag at the bottom middle is from the Wishing Thorn, a new-ish sampler reproductionist. I follow her on Instagram.

And I have FFOs too!

This is from one of those JCS preview issues before the main ornament issue comes out. I forgot to look for the date. I'm not quite done as it needs something else I feel; trim and/or a hanger? It's fine as it is too.

Next up...

On the left Regalo de Navidad with store bought trim. I love how it turned out! On the right is a design that comes from a JCS ornament issue but I couldn't find which one! It's tiny so I added the brown checkered fabric to it. I cut coffee dyed yarn lace trim and sewed a rusty bell to it and then sewed it to the pillow. The hanger is a very wrinkled seam ribbon. It's turned out very nicely too.

Last but not least...

A cube and a tiny pillow. The cube is Do You See What I See by Shelly Auen. I was stumped on what to put on the top so I took a woodsy spray apart and added the faux pine needle and the gd leaf to it. I had small baubles to add but I wanted to keep it prim. On the right is It's Not The Size of The Gift, and it's not because this ornament is tiny, three and a half inches tiny. I couldn't find the issue it's in. It's on 40ct fabric. I may leave it as is.

That's my FFOs.

My cell phone battery is about to go dead. Thanks for stopping by! I'll be back after Christmas to tie 2022 up. I hope you all have a Very Merry Christmas, those who celebrate it! Happy Hanukkah!

Take Care and see you next time!

2022 Advent Calendar Blog Hop!

Good Morning!! Today is December 4 2022, and it's my day for an Advent post. First of all, many thanks to Jo the Serendipitous Stitcher for hosting this blog hop once again. Visit her blog,

 https://serendipitousstitching.blogspot.com/2022/12/2022-advent-calendar-blog-hop.html

to open doors and visit others who are participating.

My Christmas stitch is Angels Abode by Goodflora Stitchwort, a Scots designer who has an Etsy shop by the same name, one whole word. I turned Angel Abode into a longish cube...

All I remember is the floss used is DMC on linen. It's a pretty design with an angel on top of a cloud, having gotten there by the ladder under the cloud, or maybe via her wings. The word Grace is scattered around the Christmas tree.

"What's For Afters?"

My family called it dessert. My parents weren't big on dessert. We were lucky if we had something sweet after dinner, and that may have happened 2, 3 times a month! For Christmas, however, it was a given. It was usually a lemon meringue pie as my dad loved lemon flavored sweets or chocolate pudding with dollops of whipped cream piled on top. 

My parents have since passed, and for the last 15 years, I've made cookies. Mexican Wedding Cookies, to be exact. They go by several names, Russian Teacake being the next widely known. Others are polvornes in Spain, Swedish teacakes, moldy mice, pecan sandies, Danish almond cookies. They're made with crushed pecans (how I do it), and rolled in powdered sugar twice. They're my favorite cookie to bake.

Interesting to learn that they were widely known in the US as Russian Teacakes but that changed during the strained relationship with Russia during the Cold War! During and after, these cookies became more known as Mexican Wedding Cookies! 

 Funny how politics finds its way into the most unlikely subjects.

And that ladies and gentlemen, is my Advent post for Christmas 2022. I will once again bake 3 or 4 dozen Mexican Wedding Cookies on  Christmas Eve and hope they last long enough in my presence for our After!

Thanks for visiting!