Not much happening....

Not much happened here over the last couple of days....

Both of my boys were under the weather, and the funk I found myself in, after learning of the events in Newtown, CT didn't put me a very productive mood. As a mother I can't imagine the pain the parents of the slain children are feeling. All I can offer is my prayers.

Like Big Dude I spent a lot of time vegging and a little time stitching. I got my first installment of the Little House Needleworks Santa's Village in the mail about a week ago. I was too late to sign up for the stitching blog that is showcasing people's progress, so I'll just be showing mine here.

After a 3 store search for DMC 321 Christmas Red, I was finally able to start. Here's what I have so far.

Now I am doing this on 28 ct. evenweave. The color is Glass Blue. This is from my fantastically good purchase (75% off) when a local shop cleared out all its cross stitch merchandise. On this larger count, my houses will be about 5 1/4" high by 6 1/4" wide. I'm going to do them side by side on this one piece of evenweave.

Here you can see the area to be stitched rolled up on the right. This piece of linen is about 65" long. I could never have afforded a piece this large if it hadn't been for my good fortune at their clearance sale. At first I thought I would have this framed, and I was going to start saving my pennies dollars now. But after further thinking I hit on what I believe is a great idea.... I'm going to use this long band of cross stitch as the focal band in a another Christmas quilt! It will be a lap/twin size quilt. This band of cute little Santa houses will run width wise and I'm going to do some very simple pieced blocks above and below the stitching in Christmas fabrics. If I keep up with the releases (and I saw on the internet that the next house is ready to go) and I start sewing the pieced blocks in say July, I should have a top together before the next holiday season rolls around. Keep your fingers crossed - oh wait if you do that you can't stitch- never mind!

As for the demon Christmas tree, DH being an engineer, was certain he could make those burnt out lights work. After about 5 hours of labor and some un-Christmas-y language, he gave up and put on extra strings as I had suggested. It looks nice. Just need to finish adding all the ornaments.

So are you ready for Christmas??? If you are I don't want to know. I'm almost done. All the stuff I ordered online better show up in time. The delivery dates I was given should work out fine. There are always a few last minute goodies I pick up but otherwise things are manageable. I don't think there is going to be a lot of crafty stuff finished between now and next Tuesday, but I'm hoping for a dramatic increase in craftiness starting on December 26th.

Happy stitching-
carol fun