Happy New Year and Slow Stitching

 Better late then never bet Happy New Year!

It's been quite a while since I posted coming down with a stomach virus on Christmas day and then just when I was feeling better I was hit with a cold on New Year's Eve which went into bronchitis it's been a long month of fever, chills and waiting to feel better.

Some days I was feeling good and I could get a few things done in the morning but by afternoon I was knackered and spent the rest of the day or two in bed.  As the days progressed and the month moved on I had a few good days where I could get in some slow stitching or crocheting.

My progress on the Celtic cross is slowly coming along, the large knotwork on the cross arms is stitched and the dove is stitched. This is my first post to Kathy's Quilts Slow Sunday Stitching in 2020  https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2020/01/slow-sunday-stitching_19.html 

 The progress on my crocheted shawl in the simple granny stitch is really taking shape.  The photo shows the work using the first skein of Lion Brand Shawl in a Ball yarn, I added a second skein early in the week and will snap a new photo soon.

If you are a fan of Crabapple Studio designs there is going to be a Stitch A Long for International Embroidery Month beginning February 1, The Facebook Page is Crabapple Hill Studio, both the SAL and the pattern are free.

Some Slow Stitching

Well time is moving at a slower pace this week since I closed the shops the day before Christmas Eve. Still there were many packages to pack and ship for the items that were waiting and a few that were pending, not to mention labeling 24 boxes of inventory to send off to Amazon so the store would be fully stocked.  It was crazy right up to the last moments but as the dust settled I was able to slow down and stitch.

I pulled out the Celtic Cross piece which has been patiently waiting for me to get back to it, rather I have been waiting to get back to it, I did.

While it may not look like much progress was made the hours passed pleasantly enough while I found my groove and felt the tension leave my body.   I left off here last night:

I didn't just manage to get in hand embroidery this week, I finally finished the mystery novel I began in November and after unraveling the start of a shawl I was crocheting I restarted it adding a stitch marker to the bottom so I wouldn't make the same error I did when I put it aside for a time. So now if I get to the stitch marker I know I went wrong again and won't have to tear as much out.

The original start of the shawl

the restarted shawl

So progress was made on the crocheting which I tend to pick up when my fingers start to ache from holding the embroidery needle or when my eyes just can't see the fine lines to embroider.

Yesterday morning I bake some strawberry scones, another mix from the Sticky Fingers Bakery, I love the ease of just adding water and baking.

The weather yesterday was gloomy and humid so the dough was sticky but still dropped okay

and the end result was just wonderful.

Today is another rainy day here in Florida and while my plants are getting a nice watering I am a bit tired of the rain.  We have had rain just about every day for two weeks and this is our dry season.

Despite the rain the hibiscus gives me blooms of sunshine even on a cloudy day and these quite surprised me because most of the time the rain knocks the flowers off.   

The New Year is fast approaching so I spent some time searching for a few online groups and challenges to start in 2020, the first is a FACEBOOK group Journal Threaders which can be found here  https://www.facebook.com/groups/journalthreaders/?ref=nf_target&fref=nf   if interested check it out closing sign up is January 14th.  The concept of stitching as a way to journal is interesting to me, not sure how I am going to layout my piece but the idea seed is planted.

I have rejoined the A Year of Stitches for 2020,  the link is

here if you are interested in joining.  https://www.facebook.com/groups/ayearinstitches/?notif_id=1577580593742356&notif_t=group_r2j_approved&ref=notif

I participated in the Year of Stitches for several years which kept me motivated to stitch each day or as often as I could in the early days of rediscovering hand embroidery, when I go through my clearing out the groups I don't participate in I purged this group in error, thinking it was 1 Year of Stitches.  Do you ever do that?

I will continue to do the at home challenges put out by the San Francisco School of Needlework and Design and hope to have my piece completed for the current challenge deadline of January 15th.  You can find the info here on the website https://www.sfneedleworkanddesign.org/

Well it's getting late and I need a bot more coffee before I pick up my needle and stitchery, my post today I'm linking up at Kathy's Quilts for the last Slow Sunday Stitching of the year. Take a few minutes to see what other bloggers are slow stithcing https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2019/12/slow-sunday-stitching_29.html

Thank you all for your comments, for taking the time from your day to stop and read my blog. I wish all of you a Happy New Year! 

It's a Rainy Night Time for A Cup of Tea

A Cup of Tea
When the world is all at odds
And the mind is all at sea
Then cease the useless tedium
And brew a cup of tea.
There is magic in its' fragrance,
There is solace in its' taste;
And then laden moments vanish
Somehow into space.
And the world becomes a lovely thing!
There's beauty as you'll see;
All because you briefly stopped
To brew a cup of tea.

Welcome Winter

Hello December and Some Slow Sunday Stitching

The last few weeks have been busy with things picking up now that Thanksgiving is behind us. This year with Thanksgiving falling in the last week of the month sales have been crazy, but a good crazy for the business.  Unfortunately it doesn't leave me much time for anything else.

This year I went to my sister's house for Thanksgiving dinner my sister's youngest daughter who recently moved to Tampa and will move on to Chicago this summer was there, my son's girlfriend (aka The One) Megan as joined us for dinner, it was a wonderful day and the first time I celebrated with family other then my son in over 20 years.

On the stitching front I haven't done much in the way of hand embroidery but I did finally have time to remove the stitch and wash product off my greenman piece, now to iron out those pesky wrinkles.

Nothing will be done with him until after the holiday season when I have the time to find the right frames for him and the Greenwoman piece. I plan to do some Slow Sunday Stitching today.

My plants are doing well and I added a new Rosemary this week, I could resist the Christmas tree shaping.

The lavender is growing fuller and filling out nicely, I had planned to transplant to larger pots this month but I don't think they need it yet.

Oct. 2019

Dec. 2019

The Mums have re-bloomed and changed color from a light orange to a deep red orange and are just lovely, I love how they change color, a few years ago I had Mums that re-bloomed 4 times each with a new color.

November 2019

September 2019

This week I'll pick up some poinsettia plants to add more color to the front and near the rocks along the driveway.  But for now I plan to get in a bit of stitching before the busyness of the day begins. I plan to pull out the Celtic Cross piece to work on for a while today and I am linking up to Kathy's Quilts here:https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2019/12/slow-sunday-stitching.html

I am going to try to hand stitch every day throughout the month of December even if it's just a handful of stitches I miss the quiet calm that stitching brings to me.

Happy Thanksgiving

Walking about the Garden

Midway through November, the weather here in north central Florida has been cloudy for nearly a week with a few bouts of rain tossed in, and for the last few days it's been cold and gray so gray in fact when I step outside I expect to see bare trees and snow flakes but it's Florida so I am ever disappointed.
What I have seen though is some unusual fungi growing in the grass in front of the house, I have only been living in this house since June and I am finding all sorts of interesting things here and there in the yard.

At first I thought is was a large mushroom that I had squashed while walking along with my cane until I saw another one about a foot away from the first.

I supposed I should have zoomed in a bit but I was having a hard enough time holding the phone and cane so it is what it is.  I try to walk around the house a few days a week, daily is out of the question now with the uneven ground even though my knee is improving my footing has not. 

Along the back of the house there is a fallen tree which I'm sure host all manner of insect and little wildlife.  On Friday I noticed these lovely fungi growing I wonder if they will nourish a critter or two. 

I plan to leave the fallen tree and plan to document it's decay, for me there is something sacred in knowing it's feeding the earth beneath it and perhaps housing something within as well. 

The oranges are ripening slowly on the branches and several have fallen without me noticing them until they have half rotted.

Once these are ripe and picked I will trim the branch back it obstructs the entrance to the side of the house.

Moving it out of the way takes care because her 2 inch thorns lethal weapons to say the least.  I imagine those thorns are the reason the birds don't peck into the oranges.

The palm tree in the front of the house needs to have a trim as well not too much just enough to keep

it from sweeping the driveway.  The two lavender plants are doing quite nice filling out a bit and growing taller. 

I really hope that growing them now during the fall and winter will be enough for them to thrive in the spring and summer months, my thinking is once I put them in larger pots during the warmer weather I can move them during the high heat of the day. 

Well that's my garden update for the first half of November.