Merry Christmas

Wishing All of You a Very Merry Christmas

Sunday Stitching

Winter Solstice on Friday gave us the shortest day and longest night of the year, now each day will grow a little longer. This solstice was particularly unique, as it aligned with two other special astronomical events: the full moon named the Cold Moon or the Long Night Moon as well as the Ursid meteor shower, if you were looking up into the sky within the 48-hour block You might have caught the Ursid meteor shower,

and you would have be able to see Mercury and Jupiter too. The next time the full moon aligns with the winter solstice will not be until 2094 so mark your calendar!

On the slow stitching front I am slowly putting stitches into one of my most recent hand embroidery projects a series of drumming and dancing pieces.  I cut out quite a bit of stitches and reworked the piece which is always a bit frustrating.

I haven't made much progress since I am trying to get the crocheted afghan for my brother in law done, it's nearly complete with a little over half a skein of yarn to go.  But after a few hours of crochet my hands need a change from crocheting so I once again picked up my hand embroidery.  I have the second design ready to go.  I will link up at Kathy's Quilts today https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2018/12/slow-sunday-stitching_23.html

We have closed the Amazon, Ebay and Web stores for the week so I am officially on vacation, yesterday I spent time wrapping Tessa's Christmas gifts, I realized I may have gone a little overboard so I put a few things aside for her birthday in February. 

Today I am going shopping for a new sofa and the rest of the day relaxing with some crochet and hand embroidery content in the knowledge that donations to my favorite charities have been made, I added 2 new charities to my list this year.  I am bringing dessert to my sisters house for dinner and I didn't lift a spoon or a mixer just click through a few online menus and pick up is Monday morning on my way back from the post office where I will ship the last of any pending orders made before we closed the store. 

I wish all of you who celebrate a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Welcome winter

Have a warm and wonderful Winter Solstice

Busy with little time to stitch.

The holiday season is upon us, festive lights and decorations are popping up all over, not to mention Christmas music playing just about everywhere since the day after Thanksgiving. Having the online shops makes this my busy time of year so not much in the stitching department gets done.  Most of my days are spent unpacking boxes arriving almost delay from vendors, and shipping out the daily purchases of our customers, not to mention the eight hundred to a thousand items we send to Amazon each week which takes most of the day to label with our unique bar codes, packing some items into individual bags etc. the process is usually 2 days, but well worth it to have Amazon shipping and storing those items.

I have done some crocheting over the past few weeks when I have some down time, the afghan I'm making for my brother in law is nearly done.

and the little purple doll dress I made for my great niece is finished, the dress fits 18" American Girl

size doll, the dress is modeled on Our Generation doll.  I have a few more pieces I want to make for the doll.  I actually bought Tessa an Our Generation doll for Christmas with several pieces of clothing but I thought I would toss a few handmade pieces in too.  The doll above is fa few years old I keep at my house so I have something to check the fit of the clothes I make, you wouldn't believe how often a friend will request a handmade doll outfit.  I keep a few pieces of clothing here too so Tessa can play with it when she visits.  I have dolls of several sizes around from 6" to 18".

My Orts for the month are few and I don't expect much more until the new year, I haven't picked up my spirit bear piece of hand embroidery or any of the other patterns I have traced onto fabric waiting to be stitched

I made a few errors and had to snip them out of the bear piece so until the crazy season is over I'll stick to crocheting for a while. I was working on a doll sweater with the most horrendous yarn that kept splitting every time I made a stitch so I unraveled it after the fourth row.

 I haven't even had the time to pick up a book to read in the past few weeks though I have thumbed through the pages of a few magazines and catalogs and today I finally made the time to write a few letters that have been waiting for replies, I usually don't write letters in December but some of the letters have been waiting since October and that is so unlike me. Tomorrow I plan to take the time to write out Christmas cards and get them in the mail.

I am linking up today at Kathy's Quilts https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2018/12/slow-sunday-stitching_9.html
I love linking up to Kathy's site and seeing what she is currently slow stitching then I take the time to see what other bloggers are slow stitching today too.  And Kathy's post reminded me I have a quilt I have been working on since 1989 so I pulled it out of the closet and plan to get in a few stitches today and perfect day because it's rainy, cold and damp so a quilt on my lap will be quite cozy.

This is the first quilt I ever made it is hand pieced, and hand quilting has been in progress since 1989. I cut each piece with scissors.

Last Slow Sunday Stitching for November

Well Thanksgiving came and went in a blink of the eye, and now onto the Christmas rush.  Having an online retail business at this time of year is both exciting and exhausting, not to mention quite messy at times with boxes of inventory coming in and and going out.

Last week there were 24 boxes stacked in my living room, kitchen and hallway, it took two days to label everything and send it to Amazon.

That's some of the boxes waiting to be opened, unpacked, labeled and repacked to send off to Amazon. It may be time consuming but it allows us to have more inventory by not having it all in the house.

My Spirit Bear embroidery is slow going which is fine with me because after days of labeling merchandise it's great to sit down and get in some slow stitching.

I'm currently working on the feathers. I will link up to Kathy's Quilts for some slow stitching here is the link https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2018/11/slow-sunday-stitching_25.html
On the days when my fingers are a bit sore from holding the needle I work on the granny afghan for my brother in law and I started a little crochet project yesterday that is coming along quickly

Round after round of stitches to begin with

Than a few stitches and a join a few more stitches and another join and more stitches until I get back to the starting point and then I join it all.

Next I work the pattern out and once again I go around and around and around this time with a shell stitch pattern..

then adding a larger shell to give the piece a bit of a flare.  I have a few more rounds to go before I end off.

I hope of you who celebrated had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

It's just been one of those weeks...

It's been one of those weeks where nothing much gets done beside the usual housecleaning, shopping and running of errands. 

My fingers were achy this week so I didn't pick up my embroidery after flubbing a few stitches and pulling them out, twice.  Needless to say I didn't bother trying to crochet either until Friday evening.

The weather has been flip flopping this week starting about Thursday the nights grew cooler with Saturday morning a beautiful 39 degrees in the early morning hours. The crisp, cool air and the leaves blowing off the trees made it feel like a true Autumn day.  We had some rain mid week which was a welcome change from the sunny days. We get cool days in spurts,, today our high is expected to be 79 and right now it's 68, it's one of the reasons I have stayed here in Florida, as much as I miss the change in season and the snow. As  I grow older  I don't miss shoveling the snow and as always when I feel the need to see the snow or the leaves change I drive north.

Crafting with autumn colors is one of my ways to bring Fall to Florida at least inside, there is always lots of ways to make a little autumn in Florida.

Sea shells go with everything including fake leaves, whether silk or paper or a few rare changed leaves; which can also enhance a favorite poem.

And then there is the old stitched pieces pulled out for the few weeks of Autumn, and table linens and dish towels too. Before you know it you have touches of autumn in every room.

I was speaking with my sister on Friday planning a meet up with her and my little great niece, she is off from school all this week when I realized I totally forgot this week is our Thanksgiving holiday, it seems so early this year, but no there it is on my calendar November 22nd.  I seem to have lost a week somewhere along the way.

November Orts for my TUSAL Report

Well I'm a few days late reporting my orts for this months's TUSAL report but better late then never.  Here are my orts from my recent projects.

Good thing there is only one more new moon for 2018 or I may have to get a bigger jar for my orts.

The orts are mostly from the two hand embroidery projects that are currently being worked

And a crochet project the granny square afghan

oh and the two completed hand embroidery pieces

If you are curious aobut the TUSAL check out the link and read what its all about  and perhaps you will join us for next months Ort report. 

https://itsdaffycat.blogspot.com/2018/01/a-totally-useless-stitch-long.html

A November Walk in the Park and some Slow Sunday Stitching

Well the clocks have all be turned back an hour, even on my car, morning came with clouds and the promise of rain today so I plan to spend most of the day stitching my newest projects.

Yesterday was a beautiful Fall day with cool crisp air and plenty of sunshine, my walk through Jervy Gantt park revealed a little bit of Autumn for us here in Florida.

Some of our leaves do change color though not enough stay on the trees when they do, the Sycamore tree's leaves turn brown and fall from the trees fast, some are just beginning to brown before falling.

These leaves are scattered on my lawn from late October through most of November, mostly from the house across the street, and the tree in my backyard.  I just leave them there to be absorbed back into the earth though I do rake them every now and again pushing them under the shrubs for mulch.

More leaves on the walking path for me just seeing these few leaves lets me know Fall is here among all the green.  I have lived in Florida since 1994, the constant green made me home sick for years until I finally started to notice the subtle changes, it was about 8 years in when I finally did notice the small changes like the green was less vibrant on the trees, and some trees turned yellow or orange but the leaves didn't fall from the trees.

My first 2 home in Florida were apartments the first with a wooded area with large oak trees behind our buildings like the one in the photo above.  It wasn't until I moved into my current house that I really saw the change to Autumn.  Still not a big change but enough to know the season has changed.

The crows and squirrels were quite active along my walk with these few characters chasing each other from post to post.
I walked around the pond and I swear the fish were following me all around the pond.

It is such a peaceful place to walk I often lose all track of time just watching the ripples on the water

some days I will take a few minutes and sit on one of the benches and take in all the sounds around me, basking in the quiet calm solitude of the place.  I usually sit on the stone bench near the pond

Yesterday however there was a strong odor coming off the pond so I didn't linger too long just long enough to snap the photos.

The last photo I took yesterday was of the pine cone above and then this little squirrel on the side of the tree.
On the stitching front I am working on a new project and made good progress earlier in the week. Spirit Bear is being stitched on brushed cotton twill, I wanted to try a heavier fabric and have a yard on hand, so far I like stitching on the fabric and have no issues. So far I'm using DMC floss I plan to add some beads here and there, at some point I'm going to try  some of the new sparkle floss (Etoile) but not sure yet. It measures about 8x10 inches with a lot of small details which should take me some time to stitch. When my fingers get sore I can pick up my crochet.

On my other new project I did use a bit of the Etoile floss on the dancing woman piece as well as some DMC Coloris and Light Effects.

I'm going to link up to Kathy's Quilts today for some Slow Sunday Stitching click the link and have a look to see what other talented bloggers are slow stitching today  https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2018/11/slow-sunday-stitching.html
And on Monday at Super Mom NO Cape https://www.supermomnocape.com/

Some Silly November Ramblings

Well its November so how about a little poem to welcome in the new month and cooler weather.

Not sure what to do with all those pesky leaves blowing around the yard, you can get crafty with some of them.

Fox

Lion 

And keep in mind not all chestnuts are roasted on an open fire, some are caught by creative people with a paint brush.

Chestnuts painted (aka conkers)

Yesterday I spent half the afternoon running around looking for a replacement monitor for my computer which decided to die first thing in the morning. Not the way I planned to start my day but a fitting in to last week of October which seemed to go downhill from Sunday morning when  I headed out the door for my morning walk and breakfast at my favorite little dinette, an hour after I arrived home my stomach decided to reject breakfast and anything else I had eaten in the last 24 hours.  Not sure if I had a 24 hour stomach bug or the result of under cooked sausage.  I was fine on Monday. I hope you week was better and you are having a great first of November.

Happy Halloween!