Merry Christmas overload on a Slow Stitching Sunday...

Hello all!  Well I'm back to overload you with pictures of Christmas decor... I've had everything decorated since the beginning of the month... which is a good thing as I haven't felt 100% since then... I could post a righteous rant... but I won't... you don't need to hear me whine... suffice to say getting old sucks big time.... 

I will admit this post is primarily  so I will remember what I did this year... some displays are  similar to years past and I'm okay with that. I have a lot of stuff and limited space. It is impossible for me to be a minimalist, but I did pare back here and there.  I know you laughed at that line... hope you didn't spit your beverage on your computer...I only decorated  on the first floor.  I have a bunch of decor I didn't put out and  I think a trip to donate stuff is in the offing.  I purchased very few new things this year... a couple of trees  and a little sleigh from Target ... 2 more Santa mugs which is probably the limit... you'll see what I mean. 

As for crossstitch I have 2 new finishes... both samplers...and the realization that there isn't space in the displays for anymore large pieces... so gonna try to stick to smalls... EXCEPT for the Prairie Schooler and With Thy Needle & Thread Christmas samplers I want to stitch.  I plan to put them on the wall in the living room for the Christmas season.   I'll go into more detail in my end of year post for my 2023 stitching plans.

And NOW let's get to the pictures.. 

First up the porch... this space is only 70 sq ft and it is fun to do it in a pink/minty/aqua palette with a bit of a mid century vibe... and lots of Lizzie Kate...

Lizzie Kate Christmas ABCs...

Vintage needlepoint angel... stitched her over 30 years ago..

Barbara Ana  Designs Christmas Joy... my latest finish... which has taken me over a year to complete... but it's done now...  I changed the colors on this ...  ditched the black for turquoise... 

Lizzie Kate Tiny Tidings XXI...

On the wall Lizzie Kate Jingles...

Corner with cute tree in KFC retro bucket...

Olive the other reindeer keeping watch over everything...

Living room... Santa's keeping an eye on you...

 Christmas tree and large shelf display...

Starting at the top... Bent Creek Quaker Noel and needlepoint Nativity scene stitched in 1984... R to L  Feliz Navidad by Blackbird Designs, The Christmas Bird by With Thy Needle & Thread, and Merry Christmas by BBD. 

 Feliz Navidad was my other finish for this year.. love the frame on this and happy they framed it really close... other wise it wouldn't fit in the display... oh no!!

The Christmas Bird by WTN&T and Merry Christmas by BBD...

Oh Christmas Tree by All through the Night... and Prairie Schooler small which I can't remember the name of ...

Love the vintage looking wreath... from Hobby Lobby I think...and some putz houses... the yellow angel is a snippet from WTN&T Peppermint and Holly... the other gal is from Pineberry Lane, a Sprig of Holly...

ALL the Santa mugs... and I do think I may have reached the end of this collection...

Here's the right side that got cut off... a couple more Santa's and WTN&T Santa Claus Land... hmmm... maybe if I stack a more I could squeeze another couple in... never say never...LOL

The smaller shelf display...

On the top reproductions of vintage stuff.... that tree and the TV and the Santa... Elliott LOVES that little TV... the trains go round and round and it plays Christmas carols which he insists you sing to him...

 Still love this Christmas piece ... J'Arrive by Tournicoton... and the little lady is from Pineberry Lane... don't remember the name but do remember I didn't stitch the Santa hat she was wearing...

 

In the middle ... a cookie jar I found last year in my neighbor's trash... I spied a basket that I wanted and then found the cookie jar underneath it...

A Santa from Pineberry Lane and  Little Bits of Christmas from The Drawn Thread...

In the kitchen a display of gingerbread men...

And in the hallway the kind of deer I like...inanimate... not the  flower eating, mulch messing up critters...

Whew... that's a lot of pictures... it is a good thing I have a small house... 

So tomorrow I hope to get the presents wrapped ... and I have a pillow case/gift bag to make for Elliott ... and if I'm really ambitious a Christmas quilt that needs binding AND coordinating pillow cases   AND another Christmas quilt top to finish... I have no illusions it will be quilted in time but I'll have a jump on next year, right?

I hope you are having a lovely Christmas season... we are doing an open house at my older son's home with appetizers on Christmas Day...low key... I like it... and I'm already looking ahead to 2023... got plans for stitching and unfortunately already have several doctor/dentist appointments and procedures to start the year out...ugh... gonna try and put them out of my mind for a while. 

So for today... happy stitching and Merry Christmas!!

carol fun 

Let me talk your ear off on a Slow Sunday...

 

Hello - well I kinda wandered off, didn't I? I hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving.  Perhaps someone brought you a LARGE pumpkin pie... LOL

 I've been busy, but don't have a lot of finished stuff to show for my time... going through an extended period of "just can't focus"... My sainted Father use to say "you bounce around like a BB in a box car" ... and that describes EXACTLY the situation I find myself in... now I attribute a lot of it to some health issues which seem to take turns  driving me nuts... I'm not going to bore you with details... but I could... I'll just leave it at, getting old sucks and this seems to be the year I'm really feeling it... but you didn't come to hear me dither on about my aches and pains... 

So let me talk your ear off about other things... this is a long post... so maybe get a nice beverage and let me ramble on about stuff...like my decorating for November..

I know lots of people go straight from Halloween to Christmas decor, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE doing Thanksgiving stuff... I think turkeys are cute... the Fall version of chickens!   And I have a nice collection of Thanksgiving themed knickknacks and cross stitch... here goes!

Small  shelf display...

Up tops lots of Jim Shore pieces...the tall piece was a gift from my son so it holds a special place in my heart... and the Fall Alphabet from Lizzie Kate...

here's my latest FFO'd piece... the cornucopia is a snippet from Prairie Schooler No. 146 Autumn Samplers...nothing like Prairie Schooler for comfort stitching...

Below I have more Lizzie Kate, the Quaker Pumpkin from The Stitcherhood and The Flower Pot Sampler which is From the Heart Needleart. 

I did a couple of tier tray displays... this has one turkey from Stone Street Stitchworks and another from Heart in Hand.

The second tier tray has a plethora of yellow pumpkins and two little pieces from Pineberry Lane.

The large display shelf unit...

 it has Blackbird Design's Feast of Friendship and my newest acquisition from Hobby Lobby, that coppery turkey... who is simultaneously large and skinny... LOL ... the little turkey was  a freebie but I forgot from whom... and the little pillow is BBD Waiting for Harvest... where I changed the colors and make it symmetrical... which made me happy!  Below a little PS turkey, and Turkey Hill Farm from Ewe & Eye and Friends, November from Prairie Schooler and Ever So Grateful from Threadwork Primitives. 

The shelf below has  Fall Most of All from Calico Confectionery and a little pin pillow from Pineberry Lane and Bittersweet September from BBD. 

And after basking in the glow of these displays for a month of so, I've come to the conclusion that next year I should stitch more turkey smalls... and I already bought a couple of patterns... because like chickens, you can't have too many turkeys!

So I'm happy with the two small Thanksgiving finishes  but a whole lot of dithering followed. I think I've picked up a half a dozen different projects... and only one tiny  piece is completely stitched ...oh wait I just noticed it's missing a stitch... drat... anyway, I'll walk you through this parade of wrinkly projects...

First thing I was working on was the Mystery Sampler from Lizzie Kate... I stayed with this one the longest but I had to put it in time out. First I kept making mistakes... counting mistakes, wrong color floss mistakes, trying to fudge stuff to cover mistakes. I'm off one or two stitches on the border... so I made it longer... but as I was stitching this something dawned on me... and yes I'm not very observant here... this ISN'T a sampler by my definition... my definition says a piece should include an alphabet ... and there isn't one here... and yet that didn't really  truly occur to me for like two weeks!!!  And I'm not sure I even like this piece anymore. I decided to forgo the polymer clay buttons that came with the kit... tooooo PINK... maybe some hibernation will help this one.... And I kept telling myself that I wanted to work on a sampler...

But I didn't... instead I picked up this piece, a freebie from Brenda Gervais last Christmas called Merry & Minty... and this is almost done... needs just a few details... not sure why I put it down again, but it wasn't a sampler and I was craving some sampler stitching...

But this shiny thing popped up and I had to play with it...  isn't he a cute Santa?  He's a snippet from the pattern Christmas Stamps by Artmishka Crossstitch... here's a link to the pattern.  There are 7 cute Santas and I'd like to stitch all of them...and I noticed I'm missing one stitch on his hat ... and I'm going to add pom pom or a bell to the end of his hat....  These are cute and without the postage stamp border and stitching them on a colored linen they don't take long, but  I stopped after one because I really wanted to stitch on a sampler...

So I picked up this one Red Bird Sampler by With Thy Needle & Thread... it has Sampler right in the title... perfect, right?  I love the red birds on this turquoise linen... but when I really looked at the chart there wasn't an alphabet!!  And I contemplated just tossing this till I found a note I had left myself inside the pattern booklet... it said "add an alphabet at the bottom"... and I did!  Well I have almost half the alphabet ... it's going to span 2 rows and there should be room for my initials and a date... happy  happy happy that this is a going to be a sampler to fit my definition, buuuuutttt... then my craving turned to I want to do a Christmas sampler...

And here's where I am now... this is Christmas Joy from Barbara Ana Designs. I started this last year... maybe the year before that... anyway... I've made significant progress ... and I plan on finishing it this week as I ordered a frame from it from Amazon which should be here tomorrow... it will look great out on the sunroom porch which I'm decorating in pink and mint green and aqua with some retro touches... 

I'm typing this on Saturday evening... which doesn't feel like a Saturday, but it is... It has been a very productive day today... I got my window boxes all decorated for Christmas and the winter season. I filled them will little fake pine trees and greenery and added some sparkly discs that look like giant candies and some little solar lights that look like candles... I'll take some pictures for my next post. 

And I've gotten ALL my Fall decor taken down, boxed up and returned to the basement storage room!!  Credit for all the toting up and down the steps goes to my younger son, Nick ... I couldn't do it without him. He's already gotten out the Christmas quilts and they are all over the living room... my last count put me at around 25 Christmas quilts... and I made 3 more this season... can you tell I LOVE Christmas stuff?   Anyway tomorrow I'm going to  get out the rest of the decorations, and  by  I, I mean Nick will bring them upstairs... I have tomorrow and Monday open and I'd like to be finished by Monday night as I'll have Elliott here on Tuesday... it will be interesting to see if he bothers the tree... he's been pretty good with my knickknacks so far... some things I let him touch and other things I tell him no... so far so good...nothing has been broken. 

The older I get, the faster the months go... now some of the days seem quite long, but the months just zoom by. Only 28 days till Christmas...yikes... I do have pretty much of my shopping done, but I don't have a lot of people to shop for.  I want to make some cards and  some little gifts and nothing is wrapped... and I'm looking forward to Nick making fudge... he really got into it last year and it was delicious and he picked up all the ingredients last week... Right now the upcoming week looks pretty calm... I babysit Elliott on Tuesday,  and on Saturday night so his mom can attend a Christmas party and his dad can go to a college football game. I'm going to try to keep busy as it gets my mind off any aches and pains.  The weather's been pretty nice and we should get some rain this week... we could use a little and it is better than snow... 

I hope your week is looking good... I'm looking forward to having the house done up for Christmas and having a month to really enjoy it... and I'm ruminating about crafty plans for 2023...  as the last couple of weeks have shown I definitely want to stitch more samplers... I've gotten away from them in the last couple of years doing seasonal stuff.  I'd like to add some smalls to each season but I want to do some "real" samplers... as for quilting... a new quilt for Nick is top of my list... and I have a  Momo quilt I'd like to get back to, and I have a kit for the Tilda Embroidery Flower   quilt... you can see it here... I want to do that for Spring... and I have a ton of low volume fabrics I want to play with... and some American Jane fabrics too!  I know I won't run out of things to do... just need to focus!!

Well if you've made it the end ...and you need to congratulate yourself with something sweet to go with the beverage you started with... sorry I talked your ear off... 

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts today and I know I'll find some time to see what everyone else is up to... always lots of inspiration!

happy stitching-

carol fun 

A Slow Sunday where I'm feeling young but old...

Well October certainly flew by... which means Thanksgiving and Christmas will be here in the blink of a eye... my sainted Grandma told me time moves quicker the older you get ... and she was right... about that ... and about a lot of other things. I've had her on my mind quite a bit lately as I tripped down memory lane last week with my two BFFs from high school and a visit with my 93 year old cousin... wonderful visits full of laughter and hugs!  

And my health has left me feeling like I'm 10 years old again... but not in a good way... been dealing with a reoccurring ear infection and I got stung by bees!!!  Don't know where I picked up the ear infection but it was entailed 3 trips to the doctor and the bee stings came from trying to clear out part of my flower beds... got stung about 6 times on my hands and arms. I was wearing long sleeves and garden gloves and they stung me through my clothes ... others have speculated that these weren't bees but wasps or hornets, which may be the case.  The nest was in a hole in the ground which I disturbed pulling out some dead cleome.  Its been a week and the swelling has gone down but it still itches... All I need is a skinned knee and I'd be my 10 year old self again... LOL

Saturday I spent another couple of hours cleaning out flower beds... cut back all the dahlias in the big raised bed... and as I was working a song kept running through my head... A Hazy Shade of Winter... the Simon & Garfunkel version... 

Time, time, time

See what's become of me

 My son Nick was helping me the whole time... breaking up woody stems, putting them in lawn waste bags, hauling the filled bags to the patio, collecting all the garden stakes and twist ties, cutting off all the string I used for  staking... and I realized that I can't garden without help... and it left me feeling old... big sigh... I so appreciate his help as I know he's not  into gardening at all, but he cheerfully helps me... I am blessed... 

I will use the winter to contemplate my garden plans for next year... need a better staking system for the dahlias and should try to pinch them... we cut up dahlia plants that were 8 ft tall and stems as big around as a broom stick... maybe less petunias in the beds as some actually smothered a newly planted shrub pretty much killing it. I need to pull out plants I suspect are weeds sooner so they don't turn into 6 ft monsters... in my defense they looked pretty at first, but they never bloomed...  I'm leaving all my dahlia tubers in the ground. The ones in the bed are already getting a nice cover of leaves and I think I'll give them a top coat of more compost. The ones in the yard will get some nice mulch. And I'll buy some more tubers over the winter because like fabric and thread and yarn you can't have too many dahlias!!

Okay lets move on to some crafty stuff... I finished up my Halloween stitching and FFO-ing last night so here are my displays, starting with the small shelf unit...

A couple of smalls from Lizzie Kate....

More Lizzie Kate...Halloween ABCs... and one of my best painted linen  projects... Rit dyes in Lemon Yellow, Tangerine, Apple Green and Hyacinth.

A little witch snippet from Prairie Schooler Treat or Treat... got that little house at that Dollarspot at Target and she fit inside perfectly. 

A new piece for this year...  Creepy Crawly Alphabet from Salt and Pepper Stitching... stitched on 40 ct linen (not my fav)  but it had to be this small to fit into the clock frame...  and idea I got from Kim Goldman ... The Contented Stitcher on Flosstube... check out her stuff here.  She has framed a lot of pieces using clocks and I love how she stitches just sections of bigger samplers... I'm doing more of that these days... sorry got off on a tangent...

Another new piece for this year... Spooky was a freebie from Heart in Hand.. but I can't find it on the web now... argh... and I still love that Longaberger pumpkin basket...

This bottom shelf has room for more Halloween stitching... next year... the little Nevermore pillow was a Lizzie Kate piece and I'm didn't realize how much LK Halloween I've stitched till I put this display together... they did do lots of cute stuff!

I LOVE that vintage picnic tin ... the BOO metal letters came from Hobby Lobby ... and this would be a great spot for more Halloween stitching...sigh... 

An anecdote... Elliott has been enamored with the Halloween displays but has confined his touching to things with batteries that light up ... there are several pumpkins and 2 little candelabras, and they have all spent a lot of time being lit up on Tuesdays... he was disappointed that a ceramic pumpkin on the large shelf display has cut outs which would lead you to believe it lights up... but it doesn't... so sad... 

Onto the large display... 

At the top there is Spooky Alphabet by Bent Creek  and below that Trick or Treat from Prairie Schooler .. my favorite Halloween crosssitch piece!!  The little pillow is from The Drawn Thread's Little Bits of Halloween... and I'm totally in love with that trio of happy little ghosts... picked it up at Homegoods months ago...

Next shelf has a some cute pumkin headed gals from With Thy Needle & Thread... on the left is Trick or Treat and on the right is Boo to You... and the two little witch pillows were just FFO'd yesterday... they are from the Pineberry Lane pattern called Three Little Witches ... and there are 3 charts but I only stitched 2... 

And bottom shelf has more punkin headed gals both from Notforgotten Farms... on the left is Halloween Queen ... now I started that last year and finished it about 2 months ago... the scene on her dress caught my eye but it took a while to stitch all that brown... on the right is Matilda Hornbuckle... and the pillow is my last Halloween finish for this year... a snippet of Pineberry Lane's Fancey Blackett's Little Fancies... 

I've enjoyed my Halloween displays but I'm looking forward to getting out my Thanksgiving stuff... got re-decorating penciled in for Wednesday!!   The Fall weather has been lovely... we even got the 2nd Summer bit where temps go back up into the upper 70s for a couple of days. The trees this year are gorgeous... I have 2 Wildfire Black Gum trees  I had planted in the median between the street and the sidewalk about 7 or 8 years ago and they are on fire this year!!

This picture does not do it justice... it literally glows!!

And the giant maple in the back yard of the house across the street that I see through my picture window is a beautiful yellow...  I do LOVE Fall MOST of ALL!!

I haven't been doing much quilt sewing, but I have been cross stitching... I finished Blackbird Designs' Feliz Navidad...

This is on 36 ct linen I dyed with Apple Green Rit Dye...  think DMC 3664... I used 2 ply of floss to get the coverage I like.  Need to get this to the framer ASAP so I have it for Christmas.

And finishing that sampler has re-ignited my love of sampler stitching... so I looked at my UFOs and there are a couple... several... many...  ummmm.... more than I'm going to admit to... samplers I want to get back to, so I pulled out this one, as it seemed to be the farthest along... This is a Lizzie Kate Mystery Sampler called Things Unseen...

The quote is from Helen Keller and it does speak to my  heart... now this is on 32 ct Wren with all the called for overdyed flosses... I bought it as a complete kit... I'm not fond of the linen... too soft for my taste ... and for some reason I'm having a heck of a time stitching this ... I've frogged as much as I've stitched this last week... so many counting errors... arghh... but I'm pushing on... I changed my mind about using the polymer clay buttons in the kit... leaving them off... and that border is taking forever... if I was starting this now instead of back in 2014 I would have left off the border... 

I want to re-do the sampler wall in my craft room... plan to squeeze in more samplers ... thinking about a re-do of  the samplers on the wall in the living room...  considering a wall of decorative china plates... maybe... I've been in this little house 9 years... can't fit in any more furniture and have minimal wall space to work with... don't want to repaint but feel a need for a little bit of change... which will probably get me into trouble...LOL

So the week ahead looks pretty open... no doctor appointments ... had 3 last week... arggh... guy is suppose to come on Monday to clean and detail my car ... in my driveway... don't need to get someone to follow me and take it to the detailing garage and leave it over night and then have someone take me back to pick it up... yeah!!!  There is still more yard clean up ...  And some not fun sewing I should do... hem pants for me and Nick... Definitely want to cross stitch and I've been knitting socks again... I never lack for things I want to do!!

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts and check out what's going on there... always lots of inspiration... hope you have a good week ahead of you with time to do all the things you want to do!!

happy stitching-

carol fun 

PS  ... I'm not completely happy with the quality of the pictures I posted... I sent them from my phone to my laptop as smaller bytes of data as they show up waaaaay faster in my inbox ... you can see almost all of these pics on my Instagram...  carolfun53... and they are better quality... sorry...