Second November Stitch along update

Wow, these past three weeks have flown by for me. I thought I was doing a whole lot of stitching, but it wasn't on Santa, that is for sure. I had the day before Thanksgiving off and decided to spend a little time adding some stitches to him. I also added some on Thanksgiving day as it was a fairly quiet day. 

This is how the Santa Stocking looked three weeks ago.

Here is Santa now with more of his arm completed on the left side.

A special thanks to Avis at Sewing Beside the Sea for hosting this Stitch Along every three weeks and sending us the needed posting reminders.

Grab yourself a cup of coffee or tea and take some time to visit the other talented bloggers below who are part of this stitch-along. You will see a wide variety of stitching projects. These talented stitchers are from all over the world so please allow for the time differences and check back for each post. 

Avis, Claire, Gun, Constanze, Christina, Kathy, 

Margaret, Cindy, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Megan,

 Deborah, Renee, Carmela, Sharon, Daisy,

 Anne, AJ, Cathie, Linda, Helen  

Thanks for stopping by!

 

A few more items to reveal

On Thanksgiving day here in the US, I made a turkey breast, stuffing, mashed potatoes and stringbeans as well as a pumpkin pie. I brought half of this meal to my mother's house and we had a quiet Thanksgiving celebration together. The other half of the meal I gave to my husband and he had Thanksgiving dinner with his mom at her house. It is just the way it had to be this year. 

On Friday, Hubby and I made the long drive to Boston to have a true Thanksgiving dinner with our daughter, her husband, her in-laws and our son. I brought the second pumpkin pie that I made to share on that day. We had a wonderful family celebration. My daughter, son-in-law and my son made a delicious feast.

We were also joined by my son-in-law's parents.

On Saturday we took a walk to and around a local reservation.

The weather was sunny and cold with a slight breeze.

There was some large rocks for pup Ruby and my son-in-law to play on.

You can see that my daughter just watched.

So did my son.

We drove home last night in order to avoid the majority of the traffic. It was only a slightly longer than usual drive from Boston to Long Island, but not quite as long as my son's trek to PA. It took him over 7 hours to get from PA to Boston on Tuesday. 

I previously told you that I had been stitching some small ornaments at work when I didn't have any students to help. I finished three of them last week to bring with me to Boston. I made one each for my son and his fiancee, my daughter and her husband and another for my daughter's in-laws. They are all basically the same with only slight differences. They were quick and easy to make and a Christmas surprise at Thanksgiving.

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. I am hoping to get some cross-stitching done today. 

You can also see my latest Santa update here.

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Wishing all of my family, friends, fellow bloggers and readers a Happy Thanksgiving. I am thankful for all of the encouragement and support I receive from each and every one of you.

Thanks for stopping by!

Just a little update

I don't have a lot to show you this week. I have been doing a whole lot of stitching, but it is mostly items that I can't show as yet. Here is a sneak peak of the backs of a few stitched ornaments. I was able to use a few really old scraps of fabric for backing. Yes I had to use the seam ripper on two of them as I didn't sew right sides together. Ugh!

I thought I had some polyester fill to stuff these with, but I must have used it all at one time and I didn't replace it. I need to finish these this weekend and did not want to make a trip to the craft store. I looked through all of my scraps of quilt batting and I found this.

When I tear it apart it comes away in clumps just like the polyester fiberfill, so this is what I used. There wasn't enough of the batting to really use in a quilt anyway so this was the perfect solution. I can't even remember what I originally used this batting in. 

I started stitching one of Santa's arms. You can see the dark maroon on the left. I just didn't want to go back to working on the package. It isn't much, but it is a little progress.

Yesterday Hubby and I went to the local Basketmakers Guild show.

 I had gone to it years ago with my mother and bought this pretty a basket.

I bought another basket this year, but it is will be a Christmas gift so it is another thing that I can't share as yet.

I have to tell you that we had some wicked weather last Saturday when my daughter was visiting. After that walk that I shared last week we had wind, rain and even some hail. There were 6 small tornados that touched down on Long Island! Thankfully we didn't experience them in person, but afterward there was a beautiful and bright full rainbow. I was standing in the street in front of my house to take these photos. 

My daughter was standing in front of our house which is barely visible on the left.

It was a pretty end to an interesting weather day.

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. I need to finish stitching those ornaments. I will share them soon.

Thanks for stopping by! 

A reveal

I am tempting the fates a little bit here by revealing one of my secret projects today. I was invited to the bridal shower of one of my daughter's childhood friends. I have known Annmarie since she and my daughter were in elementary school. They met on one their early soccer teams. Here they are at age 7. My daughter was missing a front tooth.

 Annmarie was one of my daughter's bridesmaids and now my daughter is going to be one of hers in January. Here is a pic of the two of them at my daughter's bridal shower.

Well I decided that I needed to make a simple wedding sampler for Annmarie and her fiance. Since I have another more extensive secret project that is time sensitive, I couldn't start something big, so I found this pattern in an old Cross-Stitch & Needlework magazine from May 2011.

It was only three colors and very symmetric so quite easy to stitch. I didn't have the recommended floss, but I had some similar colors in the floss that I had inherited from my aunt several years ago that were very close. I also had just enough Aida cloth. I kitted it up and brought it to work. Thankfully I had one week where I had a whole lot of free periods on and off during the week. Once it was finished, I washed and ironed it and I even framed it myself.

I hope she and her fiance like it.

I have also been adding a few rows to the Elephant baby blanket. I have finally gotten to the hooves (I think that is what you call elephant feet). I have finished 42 out of 105 rows. 

Before the rain came in an washed out the afternoon, Hubby, myself and our daughter went for a walk in the local preserve.

There were a whole lot of geese.

There were a few ducks.

It was nice to just spend some time looking out over the lake.

We got a selfie on our walk back to the car.

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching.

Thanks for stopping by!

November Stitch Along Update

 Lately, Santa is giving me fits. Here is how Santa looked at the last update.

I was adding the dark green of the gift and realized that the bottom half of what I had already stitched was off by one stitch. Yes, this is a really BIG problem. Here is how Santa looked recently with the incorrect stitching.

 I spent a couple of days unstitching and then restitching. I dedided to fill in near the top of the gift before I started the restitching. It appears that my counting has been off lately....the symbols on the chart are not really well contrasted which is part of the problem. Here is where I am after I fixed the problems.

I have checked and double checked and everything should be fine now. Fingers crossed. I really don't think I will be finishing this for Christmas as I am immersed in backstitching on the secret stitching. Here is a small sample.

I have also been busy with another secret cross-stitch project that I have been able to finish at work. Here is a peek of that too. 

I will be able to show you the finished project in a week or so...after it is gifted.

As usual, I need to thank Avis at Sewing Beside the Sea for hosting this Stitch Along every three weeks.

Grab yourself a cup of coffee or tea and take some time to visit the other talented bloggers below who are part of this stitch-along. You will see a wide variety of stitching projects. These talented stitchers are from all over the world so please allow for the time differences and check back for each post. 

Avis, Claire, Gun, Constanze, Christina, Kathy, 

Margaret, Cindy, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Megan,

 Deborah, Renee, Carmela, Sharon, Daisy,

 Anne, AJ, Cathie, Linda, Helen  

Thanks for stopping by!