Last Post of 2020 and Looking Ahead

 It's December 31st, New Year's Eve 2020, the last day of the year and my last post for the year. It has been a rough 2020 for all of us, and for me personally one that presented health problems just when the world was closing down so to speak. I am no closer to answers than I was in March of 2020, but I can happily say I am having some better days, I will not be sorry to see 2020 go quietly into that good, good night.

Some of my plans for 2021 will be rather home oriented while I regain my health and strength, however, I would like to venture out and be a bit more social all the while remaining cautious with continued face mask wearing and social distancing.

 On the creative side of things for 2021 I plan to do a hand embroidery project where I will embroider a Goddess a month. I have the first goddess prepared she will be done on 100% cotton tone of tone fabric, using DMC Coloris floss 4509.

I will be making other projects throughout the year and also taking part in the 2021 Journal Threaders Facebook group, is anyone else taking part in the Journal Threaders 2021 project? If you are interested here is a link https://www.facebook.com/groups/journalthreaders/

Speaking of Goddesses, I bought this lovely drawstring goddess bag from Penny (@janeandlouise) it's perfect, I ordered the 8x10 size and left the color option to be surprised when I opened the package I was thrilled to see purple, my power color. https://www.instagram.com/janeandlouise/ 

Well that's all for now, I will leave you with an image from Inge Look one of my favorite illustrators.

Wishing You All a Safe and Happy New Year

Sunday Slow Stitching and What's been going on in my corner of the globe.

Time sure does fly I can't believe it's been a month since I made an actual post. It's been a little topsy turvy here at casa Deborah.

Nuisance ailments,  hard to believe I follow a healthy diet and exercise and still seem to get every bug passing through.  Just getting through the strides of daily life seems to have consumed my time lately though  I did manage to do some slow stitching and finished all the stitching on the Celtic Cross piece.

The photo is right after I washed the stitch and wash product off and it dried, it needs to be ironed and then framed.  I am quite happy with the results I did leave off some of the tiny knot work it looked messy even with a single strand of floss. Just a reminder the Celtic Cross is from a free coloring page from Dover Publications. https://www.doverpublications.com/zb/samples/826686/sample7b.html

Progress on the simple granny stitch shawl I am crocheting is coming along quite nicely.  I'm glad I chose the Prism colorway of the Shawl in a Ball yarn from Lion Brand.  My friend refers to it as the Mardi Gras shawl.

I also made crocheting progress on the Shell stitch using another Lion Brand yarn this time Wool Ease cake in the Athena colorway.

My thoughts have been drifting to Spring so I ordered some pastel felt and floss from Benzie Design one of my favorite places to purchase felt because they give you the option of buying the felt and

floss together, they do such a great job matching the DMC floss to the felt.  This is the Pixie Dust color palette.  Benzie Design has a web store here: https://www.benziedesign.com/  and an Etsy shop here:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/BenzieDesign?ref=simple-shop-header-name&listing_id=709530662

On the non crafting side of things, my son Nick proposed marriage to his girlfriend, she said yes and are celebrating their engagement with a vacation in Ireland and are having a lovely time so far.   My grand niece Tessa celebrated her 7th birthday last weekend as I said time flies I can believe 7 years have gone by since we were blessed to have her in our lives, my son celebrated his 39th birthday on the 6th, was engaged on the 13th and left for Ireland on the 19th Life is good at Casa Deborah!

UPDATE 2/23/20
I began reading The Jasmine Moon Murder by Laura Childs I was looking for something new to read a light mystery to wile away the hours when  my sore fingers need a break from stitching.

I haven't read a Laura Childs novel in over 10 years so I thought I would give it a try and it has one of my favorite subjects in it, Tea, and I like light cozy mysteries and 3 chapters in and I'm liking it so far. After 3 chapters I decided to audition new floss colors for my next project.

I started the hand embroidery for a new Drum and Dance series piece. I am using DMC Coloris floss 4507 for the sash and the solid floss will be for the clothing.

DMC Coloris 4507 DMC 602 798 959 3808

I started with the hands using just one strand of floss for the fingers and hand so they don't look too bulky I did the same for the feet and toes.

I like the way she is progressing and glad I decided to use only one strand of floss on the hands and feet they look pretty good.  I will be linking up at Kathy's Quilts today for the Slow Sunday Stitching
here: https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2020/02/slow-sunday-stitching_23.html

First Slow Stitching Sunday for 2019

Stitching right along with the newest project in my hoop, after not doing too much hand embroidery through December my fingers are a bit tender so I am taking slow stitching to a whole new level this week.
This is where I am today, those pesky black lines won't be visible after I was off the stitch and wash product, but sometimes it can be quite distracting when I am stitching. 

At times I can't see where I made my stitch and other times it just looks a mess, like her feet and the ankle bracelet. 

In my first post for 2019 I mentioned a new stitch I had to edit my title to say a new stitch project, the only new stitch I have come up with is how to make a tangled mess in a new and clever way which then involves scissors, tweezers and lots of patience.  Here is a look at the first part of my Drum and Dance series.

Her flowing scarf I used DMC Coloris floss 4514 for the color change rather then a variegated floss. I will link up to Kathy's Quilts today here:
https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2019/01/slow-sunday-stitching-goals.html

While writing this post I just now noticed I didn't stitch her hair or jewelry so once I finish the other ankle bracelet I'll move back up to the head.  I could blame it on these old eyes of mine or how easily I get distracted when really I just wanted to postpone using the metallic threads.

In between hand embroidery, I'm working on the crocheted afghan I'm making in the Shell stitch pattern. It's folded in half on my love seat.

I do hope everyone had a Happy New Year and have many new and old projects to work on in 2019.  Happy Stitching