Procraftinating on a Slow Stitching Sunday...

Hello all -- hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving... we didn't celebrate until Friday and oh did I eat too much... we all gathered at my daughter-in-law's parents home... they supplied turkey and mashed potatoes and gravy and peas... I brought prime rib and pasta salad and dressing and rolls... plates were piled high... and then there was dessert... my younger son made a chocolate eclair icebox confection and my daughter-in-law's mother made a heavenly pumpkin pie with a pecan streusel topping... oh my!!  I got a piece to take home and it made a yummy breakfast on Saturday... hey, don't judge ... pumpkin is high is beta carotene ... how can that be bad for you ???

I enjoyed a quite day at home on Thursday... my younger son and I had a tasty lasagna dinner and I contemplated what projects I should work on ... there are several Christmas pieces and some snowmen and a winter welcome I want to do... and there several quilts waiting to be bound and a couple to stitch up... so what did I do??  Well, not any of those projects... instead I dug out a large Blackbird Designs project I had started back in September of 2017...  it is the 9 charts that comprise the Loose Feather series "For the Birds"... this is  gonna be LARGE... the stitch count is approximately 285 x 285... on the 32 ct linen I painted that will make it finish about 17 3/4" square...  here's what it looked like the last time I had it out of its plastic bin...

and here's what it looks like now...

I was motivated to pick this project back up from an Instagram post by Laura of  @maudeandmozart... she proposed a SAL after seeing this masterpiece by Lori Bryant Bylsma @loribyslma at The Attic...

Sorry these aren't great pictures... I could only do screenshots... if you go to their IG accounts they are a bit better...

Even with the less than perfect photos you can see how wonderful this project is... I love the little border Lori added but I don't think I have enough fabric for that ... not sure what I was thinking when I cut the fabric 21" square... there won't be a lot of extra fabric but there will be enough to have it framed... I have been wanting to do another Blackbird Designs piece for a while... the last couple of years I've done more seasonal decorating pieces ... which I love ... I think they add a lot to my displays... but in my heart, samplers are my first love... when I started cross stitching 35 years ago I told myself that I would only do samplers with houses... I thought that would limit the number of charts I'd have to chose from... ROLFMAO... how clueless was I???   As for the samplers with houses I've stitched over 75 different charts... the walls of my house are liberally decorated with them... I enjoy looking at them every day...  my plan for this project is to complete it by the end of 2020... I think that's a reasonable goal along with all the other stuff I want to do...

And while I was stitching this Thursday and Friday,  I was ignoring that the Fall/Thanksgiving decor needs to get put away and the Christmas stuff needs to come out... by Saturday I got a bit more Christmas spirit and got the Fall decor stuffed back into their plastic bins... didn't take as long as I thought it would... so I started getting out my Christmas goodies... and I am very pleased to announce that my Christmas tree is up and decorated... took about 10 minutes... and how did I achieve this feat??? Remember last year when I wrapped a tablecloth around my tree and had my son take it down to the basement storage??? Well he brought it back up and plugged it in and EVERYTHING worked!!!! All the light and motion ornaments worked... and the bubble lights work... and while a couple of ornaments fell off, none broke so we just put them back on... Oh I am sooooooo HAPPY with myself!!!  My sainted Grandma use to to this with her tree... such a smart woman... now the tree isn't a big one... I'd say it's 4.5 ft tall ... but I sit it on a small table and it looks like a big one from the outside in my front window...now I just need to find the angel tree topper... has to be in one of the Christmas bins, but which one???

This part of my decorating is complete... I like adding those Christmas quilts in Basic Grey fabrics to the back of my chairs... each one has a "golden" fabric in it which goes with the pillows ... you know that I will find a way to add yellow to any holiday decor... it makes me HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY!! Now I still need to do my display shelves and my tier tray and the porch and the little cabinet and the kitchen... my younger son brought up the plastic bins and I'll work on it later today and tomorrow and the day after...

I did get the bindings on two quilt for me this week and got them washed and dried... here is Fall Fizz... not sure why I picked that name because none of the fabrics are leaves ...just Fall-ish colors... paisley and floral and vines and dots... an old collection from Chez Moi  called Fresh Air... you can find the free pattern I used for this here... it is from the blog Runnstitch...

And here is a pic of the panto called Almost Paisley from  Quilting by David...

And I'll be having visions of sugarplums dancing in my head this month... here's my finished Christmas Quilty Stars ...

A block or two...

The panto called Peppermint Palace from Quilting by David...

And the back which makes me hungry ...

This afternoon we are going to see the train display at Union Terminal in Cincinnati... I've taken my boys to see the trains every year since they were born... my older son adores trains and this will be the first viewing for his son...my adorable grandson... Elliott... I'm sure Elliott will grow up to love trains as much as his Daddy...

So I hope you and I both have time this week to get our holiday decorations out... I have several pieces that need to be FFO'd... and some new stuff from Target's Dollar Spot I want to include... it will be fun ... need to put on some Christmas music and light a cinnamon candle...

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts... I'm sure there are some interesting projects to browse...

take care... happy stitching-
carol fun