Happy New Year - Welcome 2011!

Greetings! I hope you had a wonderful and blessed Christmas holiday! We celebrated with family and friends; it was kind of low-key, but sometimes low-key is good. Now we await the arrival of 2011! 2010 was a challenging year on a number of fronts; I'm glad for a new year, a fresh beginning.

I was home today and spent much of it doing laundry and putzing around the house. I changed up my blog a little bit - wish I was more computer saavy. Now, I'm about ready to escape to my chair for the evening, but wanted to say hello to you first.

As crazy as it sounds, I have joined in the Crazy Challenge and plan to start 15 new projects in January - I'll post my list tomorrow for you to see. Nearly all were in my stash and they are all projects I have been wanting to stitch for sometime.

Before we start next year's projects though, let's take a look at some of my favorite finishes from 2010! In no particular order...

LHN - Remember Me

BBD -Evening Shades the Garden

BBD- Class piece from Stitchville Retreat

Mary Garry - When I Was Young and in My Prime

Goode Huswife - Three Crows

CCN - Peace

Miss Crescent's Crowne - Merry

Hands to Work - This is the Day

Shakespeare's Peddler - Jenny Bean's Pin Tuffet

C Street Samplerworks - Tree of Life Sampler

BBD Class Piece - Silver Needle Retreat

Shepherd's Bush -- Fobs

With My Needle - A Token of Friendship

Appropriate that I end with A Token of Friendship...many thanks for your stitching support throughout the year. Thank you for visiting my blog!

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas 2010!

Hello stitching friends - Merry Christmas to all! I've been quiet of late - not much stitching going on; too busy preparing for the Christmas holiday.


We have had one of our snowiest Decembers on record here in Minnesota. A fresh blanket of fluffy white stuff fell during the night; I think we got about five more inches. The trees in the picture above are heavy laden with snow.

As you can see, our mailbox is almost buried!


Poor Zeta, our chocolate lab, can barely navigate the snow in the front yard! The snow is about three or four feet deep in some places!


The kids are out shoveling the driveway and the sidewalk this morning; they also took care of a neighbor's driveway - it's a heavy job, but they are having fun. DD and our yellow lab Maggie were playing in the snow!



Thanks for stopping by - wishing you and yours a joyous Christmas!

It's Still Snowing...

What a dreadful day for anyone that needed to travel outside! We've received 20 inches of snow! No choice but to stay home today - my kitchen, dining room, and living room are clean and in a little bit I am going to plant myself in my stitching chair and will stay there for the rest of the evening.

Here are some more photos of our front yard. If you look at the driveway across the street, you will note that our neighbor's car is practically buried!



And then this shot from the front door - the snow is blowing so much I can't get a clear photo!


But inside it is nice and cozy. DD and I will be settling in to watch The Santa Claus trilogy of movies...



Dining room is clean too...


For supper, nothing tastes better on a cold day than bread dumplings (like my grandmother used to make) and beef stew with carrots!


Finally, let me leave you with this sweet gift that arrived in the mail from Jill yesterday. It's a stitched bobbin holder for a ball of perle cotton! One side says A, B, C - the other side says 1, 2, 3. The 3rd and 4th sides have these cute coordinating buttons. Jill put a lot of work into this and I am lucky to have received it from her. Thanks Jill!





Well -- off to the stitching chair. Wherever you are - stay warm!

Oh, the Weather Outside is Frightful...

The weekend is here and we find ourselves smack dab in the middle of a snowstorm! It started snowing at about 11pm last night and by 8am this morning we had about six inches of that fluffy white stuff on the ground. It's going to continue to snow throughout the day - we're expecting 12 inches or more when all is said and done. I'm glad that I don't have to go anywhere today!

This is Maggie, our yellow lab/golden retriever mix. She's keeping an eye on the front yard. You can kind of see where the road should be - it was plowed once already, really early this morning.



This is a picture off the deck on the back side of the house. The wind has really picked up and it is blowing the snow around like crazy. My DH shoveled the deck once already, but the snow is starting to accumulate again.



I'm going to take advantage of this time at home today to catch up on laundry and cleaning and hopefully squeeze in some stitching!

Watch for another post later -- I received a delightful package in the mail yesterday from my friend Jill!

The Weekend and Great Framing!

The weekend came and went far too fast. My mom had a table at another church boutique this weekend where she sold more of her tatting. I was there to help her all day Saturday and on Sunday morning. She did quite well. A lot of people stopped and were interested to learn more about tatting. Of course, my mom enjoys telling them all about it too! Here's a picture of her at the table; she gets a kick out of seeing her picture on my blog!



By the way, the ornaments hanging on the tree, pictured in the header for my blog, were tatted by my mom!

When I arrived at work today, I had a phone message from JoAnn's advising that my framing was done. There was a sale the two days after Thanksgiving and their framing was almost 70% off (60% + 10%). Couldn't pass up that deal. I have a drawer of finished stitching and I try to get a few pieces framed every now and then. Two of these pieces are very happy to have escaped "the drawer"!

I'd have to dig way back in the archives of my blog to see when I stitched this one. Maybe 2007 or 2008? Anyway, you will recognize this one for sure. It's from LHN and it is called "The Counting House". It was stitched using the recommended linen and fibers.



And this one is one of my very favorite La D Da pieces! I just love the verse on this chart titled "My Sunshine". I'm going to have to spend some time in the blog archives trying to figure out what year I stitched this. I know that I worked on it at the cabin one summer; perhaps the summer before my Auntie Florence passed away. I remember her being there when I was working on it. This piece was also stitched using the recommended linen and fibers.



Last but not least - one final look at This is the Day all framed up! This was a recent finish (just last month!) I knew exactly where I wanted to hang it in our home and that's why it didn't have to languish in the dreaded drawer!



Hope you have a great week. I'm off to my stitching chair as I have a few more ornaments to finish!

More Snow? And a Wonderful Gift...

More snow? Yes! Mother Nature is in the process of dumping more fluffy white stuff on us. It took me about three times longer to drive home from work tonight, but I made it home safely and that's all that matters. Here's a picture of Mr. Snowman in our front yard; you can see that there are snowflakes falling all around him!



A package from a very special friend was waiting for me when I arrived home tonight. Wendy Jo sent this cute pinkeep. It's finished beautifully and I love the verse! This is from a Pine Mountain design. The fabric used to finish the back of the pinkeep is also cute! Thank you Wendy Jo.




I have a couple more stitchy gifts to share, but I'll save those for another post.

Hopefully you won't think I'm crazy, but I'm thinking about jumping on the bandwagon and joining the Crazy 2011 Stitching Challenge
You pick 15 projects, start one new project each of the first 15 days of January, and then try to finish all 15 before the end of the year. Crazy, huh? Probably, but it also sounds like fun. I am probably going to include a couple of my WIPs in my 15. Wish me luck!

I want to thank everyone who commented on my recent ornament finishes, both the Hardanger and the "Merry" ornaments. Hope you all have a great weekend!