Finished Come All Ye Faithful

After I scanned this piece yesterday this piece just flew into place. So I did finish 31 projects this year. Although I didn't join Debbie's Crazy Challenge (I think that is what it's called) I did 31 pieces. Wonder if I can do that next year. Anyway I loved this piece.

Tomorrow I will go back to the America piece, I got most of the floss out tonight. I had a little 4 legged helper so decided I would finish getting the floss when Saturn wasn't so helpful.

Anyone have plans for tonight? I'm planning on staying home. If I'm awake at midnight which hopefully I will be I'll watch the New York ball drop. I never make a big deal out of New Years. So I'll just watch the Rose Bowl Parade listen to my CD player and stitch. I might run up to the store but we'll see. I didn't want to go today because I thought the grocery store would be too busy. Hopefully tomorrow it won't be and hopefully they'll be open. If not well then Saturday, I don't need much anyway.

Well....until next time.....Happy Stitching!

Progress on Come All Ye Faithful!

Hello again. This piece is really moving along. In fact I made quite a bit more progress since scanning this 3 hours ago. I have 2 of the 4 windows completely done and the other two half done plus some of the inbetween windows done. I didn't think it would go so fast. I had hoped to finish this piece tomorrow but I'm not sure, I may finish it early New Year's Day if not tomorrow. I don't have any plans for New Years Day.

New Years is never a big deal today. I'll watch the Rose Bowl Parade on HGTV because it's without commercials and then decide from there what to watch, or I just may play CD's the rest of day. Watching HGTV's Dream Home just doesn't appeal to me and neither does football.

Usually I'm happy when the holidays are over, well actually I celebrate! This year I enjoyed them, first time in several years. And this year was so much better then the last two years. Last year, things were in an uproar, this year much quieter.

Have a Happy New Year, stay safe New Year's Eve. I can't believe it's here already! Where does the time go!

Until next time......Happy Stitching!

Come All Ye Faithful

Good afternoon. The designer says this piece is for beginners. I love working on it, but I think it's more for intermediate stitchers because of all the detail and back stitching. Unfortunately I didn't have the Krenik braids for the cross so improvise. That cross may be coming out next year and I may buy the Krenik 4 braid thread it calls for. I'm not happy with the cross but I have to pout for a year first! LOL. The rest of piece is going well though.

How was everyone's Christmas? Mine was fine. I got to see my brother and sister-in-law and their two daughters,and their families on Christmas eve. Christmas Day I went to a friends house we had a nice time. I got spoiled this Christmas.

Unfortunately my crock pot died, yesterday. I was trying to heat up Chicken Noodle Cook as it tastes better cooked in the crockpot. Unfortunately it tasted alright yesterday, but when I had reheated it today the chicken was like rubber! I threw away a whole bunch of chicken noodle soup. I wasn't thinking and dumped it down the garbage disposal and thought "oh no! Noodles back the disposal up and plug the sinks up!" I'm really hoping that will not happen hoping to have bitten the bullet on that one. We'll see. A neighbor down the hall walked down and gave me 3 cans of canned chicken to try next time I make soup. I do not do good chicken. I can boil it but that's about it.

Well...until next time.....Happy Stitching!

Another quick stitch

Good evening! Well now that we have passed Winter Solice our days will get longer. Hurray! Little things excite me but I love seeing it get lighter and lighter although so gradual at first. We notice it more in evening then morning.

Anyway I did this quick stitch. Red is not my favorite color at all, probably my least favorite but the designer called for red and I'm one that follows what designer recommends. Although it was tempting to do it in dark blue, and if I do it again I will. I have started my next piece which also looks to be a quick stitch although a little larger then the ones I have done this month. It's a church and has "Come All Ye Faithful on it. It's by Glendon Place.

The weekend proved to be really busy, my sister decided to come in after all. We didn't do a whole lot but played Push Rummy with our brother, Tim and played Mexican Dominoes. We use to play both games with our mom all the time when Kay came to town. In fact I found a score sheet with Mom on it, Kay had won that game.

The next few days will be busy. It seems everyone is busy at Christmas. Once again as far as our family getting together, it will not happen this year. But we did have Christmas with Kay Sunday. Christmas Eve I'll have Christmas with our brother Kevin and his family. Our brother, Tim's son is coming in to town, so he's spending Christmas with him.

If I'm not here before Christmas, I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas. Until next time....Happy Stitching!

Another small finish

Good afternoon! At one time I saw a blogging group doing smalls I should have joined for Dec. as December seems to be a month of smalls for me. I couldn't resist this cute piece and it was such a fun and easy stitch, very enjoyable. It probably will be made into a flatfold later on.

Now I'm doing Sharing the Christmas Story by Eileen Gurak. She's a new designer to me so was Country Cottage new to me. I really like these silhouettes that Eileen Gurak has come out with.

Yesterday I got my Christmas shopping done, thanks to my sister-in-law taking me. She said she was getting her hair cut so I said "Wonder if she has openings, I should get mine cut." Well she had an opening right after Beth so she cut mine. It really needed to be cut and my family had been after me a long time to get it cut. It does look better now. But it was a fun day yesterday.

I have sad news, little Andrea, (the cat I wrote about in my last post) kept getting weaker and weaker by the day. Yesterday they said she couldn't even walk so they made the hard decision to put her to sleep. They tried hard to save her but just couldn't. We think she had a blood disease. When I saw her last Sat., the first thing I thought of was Nomi, who was my parents cat. She also died of a blood disease, and Andrea just reminded me of her, so I wasn't surprised but was sad. She was such a sweet cat, with us for only a little over a month but we all fell in love we her.

My sister might come to town this weekend if she gets it off. She asked for it off a while back but since she put in her resignation and with everything going on there, I have a feeling she'll be working.

Well....until next time......Happy Stitching!

Four more ornaments

Goof Afternoon. Even though it doesn't look much like Christmas there is all sorts of Christmas activity being done. I did these four tiny pieces from Leisure Arts Holiday Quickies. They'll be made into individual ornaments later on. Actually the Santa and Teddy Bear were much more enjoyable then the Gingerbread man and Bells. They were boring but the Santa and Teddy Bear had enough detail to make them fun. I think each piece took about 4 to 6 hours at most. I'll probably be doing more mini pieces. My next pieces isn't this small but it's small like about 4 x 4. I have to kit that up

Yesterday I went to church with my brother and sister in law to see 3 of their grandchildren in their Christmas program. The 2 girls and Johnny had speaking parts and they did really good. Afterwards we went to Melissa and John's to have Johnny's birthday dinner. The poor child he had some things on his list he didn't get but he was told he wouldn't get them. He wanted a bee bee gun, 22 rifle, bull dog and chuwawa (sp) those real small dogs. He was okay with not getting them, he got a lot of other nice things. And no he isn't getting them for Christmas either.

I just talked to my sister and she told me after 25 years she is quitting her job. Something she never thought she would do. She's a RN at a Nursing Home near their house, and it was bought out this summer and since then things have been getting worse and and worse so many have quit. An opportunity came up for her and she looked into it and got hired. So she has mixed emotions right now, nervous about starting a new job and leaving the residents and staff she worked with. Twenty-five years is a long time to work at a place and then quit.

We were able to find homes for 4 of our cats at the shelter over the weekend and 8 others at Petco. (The cats and kittens that we have in foster care go to Petco, sometimes a shelter cat will go there.) But we were happy. But one of our very favorite cats, Andrea has only been with us a little over a month got really sick and I asked today and they said she's not doing good at all so we are worried about her. We had hoped she'd be adopted for Christmas and probably would be but now if she recovers it'll have to be Jan. at earliest. Speaking of cats my own cat is meowing at me to get off computer well he just jumped up and got in front of screen he means business. So until next time.....Happy Stitching!

Another ornament finish

Good afternoon. Most of my finishes this month (if not all of them) are going to be ornaments for my family to put together hopefully this summer. A lot of them will come from Christmas Quickies by Leisure Arts. I have discovered that while small these ornaments are not the easiest to do they are very detailed, but I like stitching them and most of them are so cute.

Tomorrow our Johnny (my great nephew) will be 9! I can't believe it. Where did the years go. Today would have been my grandfather's birthday and we were hoping he'd be born today but he waited to be born on his aunt Denise's birthday. We have so many birthdays and anniversaries from now to the end of Dec. it's not even funny. Without exageration at least 12.

Well until next time.....Happy Stitching.

Bread Cover Finish

Good Afternoon. I'm watching Family Tribute Ice Skating. I had seen it once before but since it's on again thought I would watch it.
I can't believe it's December already. Where has the year gone. I have my Christmas patterns out and will be doing some of them. They are all small for when we have our family gathering hopefully this summer to make them into ornaments.

This bread cover I made for my sister I thought but today she told me she wanted it for her 2 daughters and daughter in law. But each one will be a different pattern. I struggled through half of the first Christmas tree and then decided to make a working pattern and the tree went much easier. I think the problem was fighting with the book. Anyway the first tree took 4 days and the 2nd 2 days, and it was the very same pattern!
Don't figure.

With Christmas comes the Christmas Programs. Next Sunday I'm going to go see my niece's church and see their older 3 children in their program. Plus Johnny will be 9 later this week so we'll have a family birthday dinner for him. He's 9 already! I can hardly believe it. I blogged the day he was born that we were expecting his arrival any time. So I have been blogging for 9 years as I started shortly before he was born. Today he has a younger sister Katelyn, and baby brother Isaac. And Melissa and John are in process of adopting their 6 year old foster daughter. I can't say her name until she is legally theirs. They are hoping early spring at latest, but her birthday is in Feb so it would be nice to have her adopted by then. The adoption process takes a while.

Well....until next time....Happy Stitching!