January 22, 2017

This little tree was finished yesterday afternoon before friends descended on our house for a potluck last night. This one is the last of my tree series and now I will move on to stitching either mittens or bulbs. I am not yet inspired to do the finishing work for all of these pieces that I have been stitching, but that will have to start soon to make a dent in my craft supplies as part of my de-cluttering efforts. The potluck is part of my continuing efforts to meet our neighbours and to spend time with the friends we have made here. Our community is so transient that we have had three neighbours in the house beside us in the two years that we have lived here! We invite people in every couple of months to enjoy some good food (last night, we served up a huge pot of chili) and to hang out with some lovely people. The chili pot was almost empty and we fell into bed some time after midnight after the last guests left. All in all, a good night.

January 20, 2017

Here is tonight's stitching. I am stitching the tree in the middle with the bulbs from my dear friend pinterest. I had been feeling all wonky today at work and that feeling continued into this evening. My system is probably trying to ward off a virus or something, making my bones feel achy and a mild exhaustion making it difficult for me to get out of my own way. The brain fog resulted in a few curses and some ripping out of stitches when things did not meet up properly.

Well, the dog is staring at me from across the coffee and I am not eating anything so she must need to be let out. Happy stitching!

January 19, 2017

This picture shows the efforts of the past two evenings. Here is the pinterest link for the pattern. I started the pattern on Tuesday evening in that time between coming home from curling and dropping into bed. I walked the dog, went ice skating and went curling on Tuesday so I was worn out from all of the activity! A headache from new glasses did not allow much stitching last night as I was exhausted from my head killing me all afternoon at work. Work is enough of a headache on its own, let alone new glasses pinching my nose and ears! I hope to complete the piece this evening while I catch up on some tv shows, all curled up and cozy on the couch!



And a few hours later, this appears in my hands:

Christmas tree five of six.

January 16, 2017

Here is the fourth tree in my set of six. Of course, the pattern comes from pinterest. The pattern had what looks to be back stitched pine needles all over it which did not appeal to me so I skipped that part. I probably should start some finish work soon so that I can make more of a dent in my stash and make that one area of our house more manageable. The unspoken part of that last sentence is "to pack". I do not want to put the cart before the horse because orders can and do change without rhyme or reason. Decluttering is good for the mind and soul, looming move or no.

I joined a facebook group called All About Smalls to get some inspiration to keep stitching and to see what other people are stitching. They have finishing challenges going on so I may even join in to get some feedback on my work. There is a little dream in the back of my head that may never come to fruition but I would love be a vendor some day. More likely, I will stick to my day job and continue making ornaments as gifts for people.

January 15, 2017

We had an exciting day here. I was out for a walk on the trails this morning with our dog Maggie and a friend who had her four dogs with us. Maggie tends  to range and rove through the woods, checking in with me every 5-10 minutes before running off to sniff before the next check-in. Well, something must have been a really amazing smell because Maggie did not come back and I could not hear her in the woods along the path when I backtracked to find her. My fella' came running to the trail and we set off to look for her. Friends, a co-worker and a complete stranger helped us walk the trails until the co-worker spotted her, digging a hole by a shrub. Funnily enough, his dog's name is Maggie as well so he had a chuckle about how he did double duty by calling out his dog's name. He said Maggie looked a little scared when he called out to her, but she ran up to him and stuck to him like glue until he found my fella'. I was so relieved to get the text that she had been found because my greatest fear was that she was hurt somewhere in the woods and finding her would not have been easy. She was worn out from her adventures and has spent the day in a deep sleep on her couch.

The set of Christmas trees grew by one this evening. Yet another pinterest find. I started out using some threads from my odds and ends bag:

that has accumulated over the years from kits that I have done. Sadly, I greatly underestimated how much thread I was going to need to complete the project so then I had to spend some time trying to match the colour on my colour chart and going through my stash to find the 1 skein of DMC 319 in my possession to finish this project. For a short while, I thought that DMC 890 was the match, but realized after a few stitches that I had misjudged the colour. Here is the final result:

January 14, 2017

Sorry for the craptastic photo taken with my webcam. My cell phone ran out of juice earlier and I could not be arsed to charge it just yet. Most of my day was spent in bed, doped up on muscle relaxants and anti-inflammatories to release a huge knot at the base of my neck that triggered a migraine. My evening was spent on the couch with a hot water bottle on my shoulder to release the remnants of the knot. It was beginning to look like no stitching was going to get done today at all as I limped back to feeling normal and human again. Around 10pm, I pulled out my needle and thread to stitch up this little cutie from my recent obsession for patterns, pinterest. If you click over to the pattern, you will see that I made one small modification by adding a brown stump at the bottom. The piece just seemed a bit incomplete and unbalanced to me as well as maybe not being as obvious as I had thought that it was a Christmas tree. The stump completes the tree for me.

My current plan is to stitch in groups of six. So far, there have been the 6 filigree snowflakes (and ornament) and now I will stitch 6 trees before stitching 6 mittens and 6 ornament balls. Why the rush to stitch Christmas ornaments when Christmas has just passed? Well, there is a strong chance that we will be posted to another base this year so a good part of my time will be taken up with moving, getting established in a new town and getting licensed in another province to start a new job there. Also, I am slowly starting to de-clutter our house and using up my stash is one way to de-clutter. Having many of my Christmas gifts done early will be a bonus, as long as the movers do not lose them for us during the move!!

January 13, 2017

I had a small piece of fabric that I was not sure how to use as it was only 4 inches wide and then I found this pattern on my saved patterns on  pinterest. It took two episodes of "Sons of Anarchy" to stitch. The hardest, and most time consuming, part was untangling the threads that knotted up several times. Scandinavian redwork is a style that I have long admired. There is a warmth to the red and a beauty to the patterns that draws me in.

The weather forecast for the weekend includes phrases like "-30C windchill" so there may be a whole lot more stitching going on this weekend as I stay cozy on my couch.