Merry Christmas!

 Christmas Eve jammies........

Santa has come........

My new nativity depicting the reason we celebrate Christmas.

Merry Christmas to all in blog land, from my family to yours.

It's been a long time

Yup, once again it's been far to long.  My daughter and granddaughter moved in with us for several months and little to no stitching was done.  Now they're moving to a new place and while I'm not particularly happy with the situation and I will miss seeing my little Emmie, it will be nice to have a little quiet time to stitch before bed in the evenings without someone crawling into my lap every night..  My boys are now at an age where they do their own thing and even the youngest at 11 knows that when I'm stitching not to bother me.

I thought I'd just post a quick update of pictures.  These are my 3 boys on the first day of school this year - my oldest is a sophomore, middle one is in 8th and the youngest is in 5th.  As you can see it took a bit to get them all looking.

I also have updated pictures of my granddaughter, who just turned 4 on December 1.  These are her preschool pictures taken in October and they turned out so well.  She's wearing a dress and leggins my Mom made her last year and the dress still fits her but as a tunic now.

Well, that's it for now.  Hopefully I can get myself back into blogging and start sharing some stitching again.  I've been working on a few ornaments for gifts and then will get back to my big WIP's.

Here is an update to Winter Queen that I posted last week.  This is a collage I made of the Before and the After.  Not too bad for a few days stitching considering the time was interrupted by other doings.  I'm going to work on it some more today as it appears we may be getting rain today and I won't be able to do outside things.

I haven't posted much of anything over the last year, but I'm trying to get back to it.  Here are the most recent pics of my current WIP in rotation.  I'm focusing on 'Quaker Sampler' by The Workbasket and 'Winter Queen' by Mirabilia.  Some of you may remember that I had a good bit of the queens head, shoulders and some torso done and then realized that I'd started too far to the left and had to rip it all out and start over.  This is a picture of my progress to date and as you can see, I'm nearly done with my quaker.  However, after 4 weeks of steadily working on it, I was getting tired of the same colors, so have now switched back to queen.

Solo and Ensemble - video of my oldest son

My oldest son Devan, who is almost 15 and a Freshman in HS this year, performed "This is the Moment" from the musical Jekyl and Hyde.  While he did have a momentary memory lapse, he did beautifully.  His voice has just matured so much since the competition last year and he continues to grow as a vocalist with our new choral director this year.  I can't wait to see how he improves over the next few years.

Enjoy!

GIVEAWAY at Victoria Motto Sampler Shoppe

Nancy over at Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe is having a giveaway here.  She's giving away new spring colors of her hand dyed floss, but the colors are a secret until the giveaway.  I can't wait to see what she has.

Be sure to tell her I sent you!

Feathers in the Nest Faith, Hope & Love Giveaway

Jennifer over at Feathers in the Nest is one of my favorite designers.  With the exception of maybe one or two, I believe I have downloaded all of her freebies that she beautifully designs and so generously shares with the stitching world.

She is having a giveaway that ends tonight, December 24, 2012 at midnight, so if you are interested you need to hop over there quickly.  She is giving away a pair of "Jennifer" Gingher scissors (I've loved since fist seeing them) a chart pack for one of her freebies of Downton Abbey WITH linen and floss, 4 fat quarters of homespun fabric for finishing AND a surprise added to the giveaway package.

You need to go here in order to enter her giveaway.  Good luck to all and MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Victorian Motto Giveaway!

Nancy over at Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe is having the most amazing and generous Christmas giveaway.  She's doing a 25 days of Christmas giveaway here.

So click on through to get your chance to win some of her awesome trims, fabric, charts or floss.

It's been a long time - WIP update

It's been a while since I've posted, but I'm finally getting back into my stitching after DH's heart attack last November.  I've been working on Papillon "Castles in the Air", Mirabilia "Winter Queen" and The Workbasket "Quaker Sampler".  I've mostly worked on Quaker Sampler and am 3/4 of the way done with it I believe.

Here are some pictures of where they are now.

Castles in the Air

Winter Queen

Quaker Sampler

Oh, and almost forgot this one that I'm working on.  LHN "Trustworthy & True" - I bought this one to make and give to my daughter & son in law for their 2 year anniversary this year and I also bought the "Strong & Beautiful" and "Soft & Sweet" from the Little Women Virtue series to give to my daughter and grand-daughter respectively.

Trustworthy & True

Speaking of my grand-daughter, Emma has grown like a weed and changed so much over the last few months.  She is now 2 1/2 and definitely becoming her own little person.  My son in law with his parents have a farm where they raise alpacas, Dexter cattle/beef, and Jacob sheep, in addition to his Dad running a recycling business.  Emma loves to help feed the animals (including their own egg chickens), and work in their "shop" with mommy and daddy helping them sort the metal.  Here's a few peeks at our precious girl.

Mommy & Emma 2nd birthday

Emma Easter 2012

"winking" while goofing with Uncle Devan

On our way to church

Thanks for visiting!

Menus on a Dime e-book giveaway

I get a newsletter from the Living on a Dime website and lots of great tips for frugal living.  They're having a giveaway for their Menus on a Dime 3 e-book set.  Take a look here for a chance to enter.

IHSW

I haven't blogged since Dave had his heart attack and I haven't stitched much either.  But I'm trying this weekend to get back in the groove of things by participating in the International Hermit & Stitch weekend (IHSW).

So I've signed up for it and I plan to stitch in-between washing & hanging the laundry today and will probably stitch at least some tomorrow after church.  We've had a lot going on the last couple of months, and it's been just so busy.  I'm looking forward to relaxing a bit.

If you're interested, here's the link. 

Another giveaway!

Terri over at Dixie Samplar is having a Christmas giveaway.  Go check it out here. 

A 2nd Giveaway @Victoria Sampler!

Just realized Nancy has a 2nd giveaway on her blog, this one is for threads only - 25 skeins @20 yards each of her hand dyed threads.  Wow, that's 500 yards!  What a generous giveaway.

Go here for a chance to enter.

Victorian Motto Sampler giveaway!

Nancy over at Victorian Motto Sampler is having a Christmas giveaway.  She's so generous and offering 3 different gifts on this one giveaway.

I've been wanting to try her hand dyed threads & trims, but haven't been able to justify the extra expense recently, so maybe I'll get lucky and win one of them.

Go here to enter!

Linen for Sale - Vikki Clayton Linen

 I bought these from Vikki Clayton and they are her mercerized linen and I'm pretty sure they're all 36ct.  These are fun, funky, bright & they're all pieces that didn't make the cut for selling on her site.  Yes, they have some "odd' spots to them, but there's a lot you could do also.  I kept quite a few, but these just weren't for me.  Each big piece is $2.

Green is 19 x 12 - Dark Blue is 19 1/2 x 13 - Blue is 19 x 12 1/2 - Pink is 19 x 12 1/2
The bottom picture are 3 ornament cuts that are a little over 8 x 8 $2 for all 3.

Thanks for looking!

Linen for Sale

This is the various fabric I have for sale.  I may have more after I go through another small box.

The following are all unknown types of linen - $3 for each piece.

28ct 17 x 16 

28ct 23 x 17 1/2

28ct 16 x 29

30ct 10 1/2 x 18 Irish Creme Linen

28ct 21 x 19

28ct 14 x 14

Our Granddaughter is 2!

It's hard to believe that two years have gone by since our daughter and son in law brought this beautiful baby into this world.  We have been so richly blessed by her in our lives.
 

HAPPY 2ND BIRTHDAY EMMA ANN! 

 

Stash for Sale

Well, I managed to go through nearly all my charts and kits.  I have listed them on my "Stash for Sale" page, which you can find at the top of my blog - just click on the tab and you'll go to the listing.

I have charts for every taste, kits from The Silver Needle Secret Needle Night, and also several Fibers n Stuff kits, and magazines.

I think I've priced everything pretty reasonably, but I'm open to offers.  If anyone wants pictures of something in particular, I'm happy to take them.

I will also be listing fabric, threads and a few more charts soon.

Thanks for looking!

iStitch SAL Progress

Just a real quick post to show my iStitch SAL.  I actually got this part completed a while ago, but because of our medical emergency I just got the picture taken and off to Carol so I can get the last bit.
Here it is. 

I definitely want to stitch this again with some HDF I recently got called "Examplar Moon Called Sea".  Thanks for looking.

Prayers needed

I don't have a lot of time to post and I know it's after the fact, but my husband had a substantial heart attack on Saturday evening which required him to be med-flighted to a major hospital in Madison, WI.  On the flight over he went into full cardiac arrest and had to be resuscitated.  He had/has 3 blockages which includes a major blockage in the main artery.  The cardiac surgeon did an Angioplasty and placed balloons/stents in the two smaller arteries and he will have the 3rd done on December 14.

He did come home from the hospital Monday evening and is quite tired of course.  This is a major lifestyle change for our whole family and I have yet to completely deal with the emotional fall out of it.  I've been in survival mode, making sure he's taken care of and our boys are where they need to be.

We did find out yesterday, that although he has short term disability, the waiting period for it is 42 calendar days!  No idea how that is considered short term, but it is what it is.  So his std won't even start until Jan 6, if he's still off at that time.

How we'll make it on my income alone, I just don't know.  I did go through all my charts/kits last night and ruthlessly pulled everything but my absolute favorites and will be listing them here on my blog for sale.  Next I will be going through all my linens, evenweaves, aida, fabric for backing and overdyed fibers to see what I can sell of those. 

Thanks for reading.