Going Out With a Bang

The last few days have been positively delightful!  Despite working around the holidays, I have found time to stitch.  And the best part of all - I have two finishes!

My first finish is a mini-finish.  I completed another block on Satsuma Street’s 12 Days of Christmas.  The seven swans can swim now!

My second finish is Letters from Santa from With Thy Needle and Thread.  I am not sure yet how I will fully finish this one.

Best wishes for good health and more stitching time in 2019!

P.S. Doris and Art, thanks for stopping by.  Best wishes in the New Year!

Blogmas -December 15, 2018

Finally, some stitching!  Today, I finished block six on Satsuma Street’s 12 Days of Christmas!

I started this piece two years ago.  My plan was to stitch a block a month.  I guess I’m kind of behind!

Went to a wonderful Christmas concert on Thursday night.  Saw the Tenors!  Second row seats!  It was fabulous.

Blogmas -December 9, 2018

Blogging daily is kind of like going on a diet.  It’s a wonderful idea.  The thought of posting and losing weight are exciting.  I can make a plan and carry it out for a couple of days and then various challenges get in the way.  Just like the diet, I’m going to try again.  Let’s see if I can make it until next weekend.

Today I want to share with you a festive planter that I received from my co-workers for my birthday (Nov 30).  It’s sitting on our dining room table on top of a new quilted tablerunner that I picked up yesterday at a holiday boutique.

I will share my stitching progress in a separate post.  Don’t get too excited, it’s pretty grim!

Blogmas -December 3, 2018

No stitching time for me today, so I’ll just share with you this cute little quilted ornament that I puchased from Me and My Stitches!

Maybe I will have some stitching to share tomorrow!

Blogmas -December 2, 2018

I’m in a Prairie Schooler frame of mind and while I have oodles and oodles of other projects to work on, I just had to start one more.

This is one of my favorite charts, Christmas Samplers, and I started with the design on the left.  I’m stitching it on 40 ct. Country Mocha with DMC.

And, just to shock my family, I dug out some of the Department 56 Village pieces that I collected many years ago.  I cleaned through them pretty well and kept the pieces that were most meaningful to me.  I’m happy with the smaller display!

More tomorrow!

Blogmas -December 1, 2018

The Flosstubers are posting a short Flosstube video every day now through December.  I’m going to try to do the same with this old blog.  Let’s keep our fingers crossed that I can keep it going!

Today, I want to share with you a picture of the Mad Tatter.  Yesterday was the annual Christmas Boutique at my church and the Mad Tatter sold some of her tatting as she has done for several years.

She didn’t have as much variety this year, but I think she still did well.

More tomorrow!

Thanksgiving Weekend

Enjoyed a lovely four days off of work.  We had a delicious turkey dinner on Thursday and have been  eating the leftovers ever since.  On Friday, I went to the best Black Friday sale ever - Stitchville!  Picked up the pattern for Blackbird Designs’ “Merrily, Merrily We Welcome Spring” and a few of the fibers that I didn’t have.  Now I’m mulling over the called for linen, Oaken from Picture this Plus, or Legacy.  I have the threads laid out on both and can’t decide.

I’ve been stitching a little bit...just finished the third block on Village of Hawk Run Hollow.  I feel like I need to put this away for a while now to work on some Christmas stitching instead.

Hope you had a great weekend filled with family, friends, and stitching!

Back Home

We had a delightful visit.unfortunately, all good things must come to an end.

We spent the entire day yesterday traveling home, from Prince George to Vancouver and then on to Minneapolis.

The mountains between Prince George and Vancouver had more snow on them!

Farewell Prince George!

And then there was SNOW!

And a pileated woodpecker!

It was Warm and then Very, Very Cold

It started out as a beautiful day at the lake and then it turned cold and we drove back to our hotel in blowing snow.  Ugh!

The main project of the day was stew and bread dumplings.  I took pictures in progress but forgot to shoot a picture of the final result!

Made a stop at Starbucks to pick up the infamous mugs.

We Like Bakeries, Especially European Bakeries

The local Catholic church was having their annual craft fair and bakery sale yesterday and so that’s where we started our day.  We didn’t find any treasures and so we continued on.  We decided to make a stop at the Pastry Chef in downtown Prince George.  What a delightful place!  Authentic German bakery and pastry shop!

After making a few purchases we continued to travl up the Hart Highway out to the lake.  There are no needlework stores in Prince George, but there is a fabric store called Fabricland.  I figured I could find a “souvenir” or two there.  I purchased some quilting fabric with Canadian prints.  Don’t know what I will use them for just yet, but...

We spent the rest of the day at the lake visiting with family at the lake!  It rained all day and it was a rainy drive back to our hotel.  Just grateful that the temperatures have stayed above freezing!

Another Great Day

The Mad Tatter slept in today.  She wanted pancakes for breakfast so we stopped at McDonalds.  They call them “hot cakes” here.  After breakfast we went to this wonderful European deli.  Wish I had remembered to take a picture.  We picked up some delicious bread and semmel rolls, beer sausage, ham, swiss cheese and German butter cheese.  We also stocked up on supplies for making Griess Dumplings and Hungarian Goulash.

We then began our trek out to the lake.  It’s about 22 miles of two lane road with forest on either side.  The road conditions were better today although there were patches of fog here and there.

This is the view of the lake from my cousin’s home.

We visited and reminisced over old times and we’re now safely tucked away back in our hotel room.  Tomorrow we are heading to a craft sale and then back out to the lake!

Where in the World Are We Now?

Oh, this poor neglected blog.  It’s getting harder and harder to find time to post.  Not a lot of stitching going on in my neck of the woods these days.  The Mad Tatter and I are off on an adventure though and I thought you might like to hear about it!

We are up in northern British Columbia; in Prince George, visiting some relatives who moved here 40 years ago.  The last time I visited was 1993, and the Mad Tatter was last here in 2001, so we figured there was no time like the present to make the journey again.

We flew to Vancouver and then changed planes.  From Vancouver we flew to Prince George on a prop plane - it’s been a long time since I flew on one of those.  The flight provided for many beautiful views of snowcapped mountains just north of Vancouver.

My cousins met us for dinner on Wednesday night.  This is my cousin’s wife with the Mad Tatter.  We had a delicious meal at The Keg is downtown Prince George.

Yesterday proved to be an interesting day.  It snowed!  In town, it was too warm for the snow to stick, but my cousins live about 25 miles outside of town and when you have trees towering on either side of the highway, the snow sticks!  Good thing I am accustomed to driving in snow!

Before heading out of town, we stopped at Tim Hortons.  This Canadian version of Starbucks can be found at every major intersection. I’m not a coffee drinker, but the rolls and donuts we picked up were delicious.

Spiders

Where is the time going?  I can’t believe that it is the middle of October already.  We received our first snowfall today.  Too early for snow!

Quick post to show you what I have been working on.  I felt like stitching a little Halloween pillow.  This design is from La D Da and it was in one of the recent Halloween ornament magazines.

I stitched it on 32ct tobacco colored linen.  Had to change the color of her socks and made them striped.

Do you like the spiders on the back?

Lazy Sunday

I should be making the most of today, but instead I’m kind of being lazy.  I guess the dog hair and dust can wait another week!

I found this cute Halloween cat at a local grocery store.  After passing it up my first three visits I finally bought it.

Now I think I am going to have to stitch this cat from Brenda Gervais.  See the resemblance?

The Mad Tatter and I went to Wisconsin yesterday for the annual family booya.  It was cold outside but the booya was warm and delicious!