letters and more letters

I was trying to figure out what to work on, and the Salem Flower Basket Needleroll was right by my chair, so yesterday I picked that up.

You will notice that there are letters.

There are a lot of letters.

A lot of them.

And I really, really, reeeeeeeeeeeeeealy dislike stitching letters.

I can't explain why. It may be that letters generally have no rhythm to them, at least not to me. Or all the starting and stopping. Whatever the reason, there won't be a Bristol Orphanage sampler in my life, unless someone stitches it for me.

Anyway, I happily thought that I had only one more line of letters to do.

I thought.

And then I realized that the actual pincushion part of this project has more letters. Not only does it have more letters, but I have to chart out my name and location and fit them into the space allowed. And then stitch all those letters.

And it's all in cross stitch over one.

This is going to take longer than anticipated.

Sigh . . .

Counting down

This year's Barbara Jackson ornament is stitched!

As soon as the finishing directions are posted, I hope I can get this put together. Wouldn't it be amazing if I not only got the ornament stitched but on the tree the same year it was offered? That would be a record.

We had our family get-together yesterday, and it was delightful. There was a lot of food--apparently I cannot do a Christmas meal without acting as if we were going to have a cast of thousands attending--but that means enough left-overs for both Baby Girl and The Saint to have a couple of dinners this week. We had presents. We had Christmas music and watched Christmas movies. And the 25th hasn't arrived, so Dearly Beloved and I get to do it all over again.

I am working tomorrow and then have the rest of the week off. I am planning a marathon of stitching. I'm thinking about a New Year's start. And I have no idea which project or projects I'm going to do for either period--there are so many choices and I want to do them all. And I want to do them now.

What a happy way to end a year and start a new one!

Over the River and Through the Woods

To Williamsburg we went.

We went for the newly revamped Christmas in Williamsburg. As usual, I was planning to blog every day while I was there. Then I realized I had left the camera at home about ten miles into Virginia--which was too far to turn back.

Not a problem, said I. I have my phone and can take pictures with it.

And I did. But then I could not get my Google phone and my Apple laptop to talk to each other. After a very frustrating and exasperating OK Boomer episode, I decided I would write when I got home, but when I got home, I got swept back into work and getting ready for Christmas--and this is the first time I've made time to sit down and do something about poor, neglected blog.

So . . .

I came home with an all-but-finished Early Bird class, Iris Pin Keep, from Jackie du Plessis.

Isn't it divine? And it will go with the Necessarie de Voyage project that I took for the next three mornings. I have not taken a picture of that yet but I do have a finished handle for the delicate, dainty basket that I will be making. And the handle for that basket was done in class after I mis-heard the directions and cut the wrong ribbon. Jackie came to my rescue with an additional length, so I was able to do that part in class.  Apparently my job in life is to do things wrong so other people will know they shouldn't do them the way I did . . .

However, I don't usually get much done in class, so this was a major accomplishment!

It was even more fun because I was able to sit with a group of my stitching buddies, always a happy thing.

Williamsburg was its usual lovely self all decked out for the season. We did get a chance to stroll the Historic District one afternoon after a wander through the Art Museums, my favorite part of any trip to W'burg. I can't wait until the construction on the expanded museum is complete, and all those lovely things that have been in storage for lack of exhibit space come out again.

All too soon, it was time to drive home and fall back into the routine. I have been keeping up with the Zen stitching and got the cording made and sewn around the four Barbara Jackson ornaments that have been stitched for years. They're going on the tree today:

And last night I started this year's ornament:

I've stitched the last of the bits for Tsubaki, so it's in the finishing pile.  The kitchen table has been transformed from Finishing Central to Cooky Baking Central, so Tsubaki will have to wait until I get the final batch baked and cooled--at least that's my current excuse to avoid putting something together.

And I'm still opening my daily goodies from Amy Mitten--but this has rambled on long enough. And there is still decking of the halls to do.

I really needed another week between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year!

On the First of December

I had planned to show you at least one completed Christmas ornament.

Well, we all know what happens with me and plans.

We had a small Domestic Disaster.

As I was coming downstairs this morning, I glanced into the living room and thought, hmmmm, that tree doesn't look exactly right. However, it was raining cats and dogs and I wanted to get the Sunday newspaper in before it completely dissolved.  I got back inside with the newspaper, spread it out over several surfaces in the kitchen so it could dry enough to read, and wandered back into the living room to see what was wrong with the tree.

What was wrong with the tree is that it was leaning at a 45 degree angle. It would have been completely on the floor had it not run into the arm of the couch.

So, it was off with the ornaments so Dearly Beloved could figure out why it was leaning. Turns out he hadn't quite pushed the stem far enough into the stand, and I spend my stitching time today redecorating.

Let me tell you, putting the ornaments on for the second time during the same week isn't quite as much fun as it was the first time.

So, no stitching . . . yet . . . I still have some time before bed . . . but I did remember to open the first goody from Amy Mitten's Advent mittens.

It is a beautiful skein of Amy's hand-dyed line of threads in a shade of blue from my favorite family of blues.  And now it's very hard to avoid ripping into all the other little envelopes to see what else is there.

I will try to exercise some self-restraint.

Construction Zone

I've been finishing Christmas ornaments today. I have left some DNA in various places, but luckily nowhere that can be seen.

I had hoped to get all four of the ones that needed finishing finished today, but I don't think I have enough pearl cotton on those two spools to do all of them. This means stash diving. And since I always get distracted when I go wandering around my stash, I'm not sure I'll get back to this tonight.

Who knows what I may find to distract me . . . and there's always tomorrow . . . 

And now for something completely different

After yesterday's stitching marathon, I was determined that today I would figure out what I wanted to use to personalize the bottom panel, that today was the day I was going to chart it out and stitch it, and that today I was absolutely going to start the construction of Tsubaki.

I didn't do any of those things.

I still can't make up my mind what to say.

So, I decided to pull out the next project I was going to do as part of my Zen stitching and trooped upstairs to get it. The plan was to start Ode to Jane Austen after Tsubaki.

So I pulled Ode out of its storage bin.

And while doing that, I noticed another project that would work well for Zen stitching and pulled it out.  It's been aging in the stash for quite a long time.

So, here it is:

And, instead of finishing Tsubaki or starting Ode, I did this:

What can I say?  I'm a fickle stitcher. And Ode did come downstairs with me.

And I almost got really fickle since this arrived in today's mail:

Amy Mitten offered this brilliant set of decorations, one for each day of Advent. They're stitched on a relatively large count of linen with a fine wool thread. And to add to the excitement, Amy offers a little gift to go in each mitten, so you get a goody each day of Advent.

I have to say, I had a brief moment of madness. No, I'll take that back. I had several moments of bugnutz craziness when I thought I could start working on the mittens today and stay ahead of the calendar and get one stitched for each day of Advent in advance and have a mitten to put each day's goody in. And then I could take the goody out of its mitten and open it.

This might work if I didn't have a job and if we weren't going to Williamsburg next week.

So, I've decided I'll work on them at a more leisurely pace and have them ready for Christmas 2020.

However, I'm going to open one goody each day this year.

Could you resist this?

I am going to try to withstand temptation to the point that I open only one a day.

And I get to start on Sunday!

Thankful

First of all--Happy Thanksgiving!

Next--usually when I write a blog on Thanksgiving, I list the things I'm thankful for--and I am truly grateful, again, this year, for all of those things.

But today, the thing I am very thankful for, is that I have finished the last big panel for Tsubaki!