The tree is decorated

One last post before I find some lunch and then spend the rest of today stitching.  These are the antique ornaments that have survived.  I had I think three more but over the years they met with accidents (my tree was not on carpet and they hit the tile and …. well it was not a pretty sight.  Note the pink concave one with the burn mark on the lower right.   One of the casualties of those huge tree lights used when I was small that got a bit too hot and the ornament must have been sitting against it – but the other side looks the same minus the burn mark so it still goes on the tree.  Funny how I’m not fond of pink but all except Santa are shades of pink.  At best guesstimate these are over 100 years old.

I put on about a third of the ornaments I have and the tree still looks lovely.  In addition to the vintage ornaments I pulled out all the pinecone, acorn (my two favorite ones to collect), and a few other favorites like the ribbon candy ornaments that remind me of my youth, too, because Santa always left ribbon candy in our Christmas stockings.

And Mrs. Claus (the mail lady) just left a package outside my door from 123Stitch – an excellent Christmas present to me!  Which if I remember right contains a few charts – a Prairie Schooler Santa (the 2021 one which I was missing) and a few others I NEEDED before the no-buy 2022 goes into effect. 🙂

Now to line up my Christmas movie viewing of all the favorites I have to watch every holiday season which meant I had to pull the DVD player from the sewing room tv to hook up to my living room one. Which meant I had to move the box with finished cross stitches in it (after I knocked a stack of stuff on the floor – boy that room is getting messier by the minute!) which got me to thinking – hmmm, maybe I’ll do a bit of framing tomorrow.  We shall see.

Gosh – is 2PM and I still haven’t had anything but coffee.  Now to raid the fridge!!

Christmas Eve Stitching Start Along

For once I didn’t start a Stitch Along prior to the day it was set to start!   But I’m all ready to go and will get started later this afternoon.   I think I’m just going to refer to this as my “Christmas Eve Start” rather than the chart’s name which is New Year Sampler which can be confusing since I have a different project I will be starting on New Year’s Eve.

Anyone is welcome to join Judy and I in stitching along.  Our friend Sheryl is joining in and I think there are several others that were planning to also.   There’s no deadlines, no rules – we simply plan to start on the same day (and you can always start later and join in since this will be an ongoing project around many other projects) but if you haven’t gotten the chart yet – the Owl Forest website shop is closed until Jan 9 for the holidays.

I’m all set to start this afternoon after I put a few more ornaments on the tree.

The fabric I will be using is “Ecru” from “ToDyeForFabrics” on Etsy – my favorite aida dyer.  It’s 18 count and I’ll be using one strand of floss.  The floss is mostly colors I pulled from my Victorian Motto floss stash with two Weeks Dye Works thrown in – the white which is Chalk, and the darker green which is Monkey Grass.  Monkey Grass is my new favorite green – it has some nice variegation.  The two greens I pulled for this are the two I used together in the recent winter deer stitch I did and I really liked them together.

It’s not looking like a typical Wisconsin Christmas today.  It’s dreary and gray (not necessarily unusual) but there’s no snow and it’s mid 40s.  The snow will come soon enough so I’m enjoying the lack of slippery surfaces for as long as it lasts!

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Happy Christmas Eve

Someone asked me to post a photo of the vintage ornaments –  so far I have only unwrapped a group of the ones from my youth (the oldest ones are in a different container I have yet to find).  Here are some of the ones we had on our trees when I was young.

Last night I did in fact finish off Silent Night sampler.  It’s so pretty.   I know the original frame I had purchased for this won’t work because I ended up stitching this on larger count fabric than originally planned but I will look thru my stash of frames to see if there is something that will fit just in case there might be something there but I think I will end up having to order a new one.

So I finished this about 12:30AM and was wide awake so contemplated starting my Christmas Eve start then but pullled out Tidings of Joy instead to work on that a bit.

So I was able to add the words “Of Comfort” and then get most of JOY stitched.  After I finish the J there is just a border of snowflakes at the bottom and this little stitch will be done.  My plan is to try to finish this before the New Year’s Eve.