Decorated Tree

On Thursday we started getting snow, sleet and freezing rain. Now things are beginning to look more like Christmas. More of the stuff is predicted for Saturday, Sunday and possibly Monday. It will not be all the time, but off and on. Usually when they predict it, we don't get it or get very little. I am a big chicken about driving in or on it. So, if it does happen, most of the time you will find me at home curled up with my stitching.

Tuesday and Wednesday were spent decorating my Christmas tree. The tree is a little smaller than usual and I did not use near all of the ornaments that I have. These pictures are taken from each side because there is not enough room to get back far enough to get the entire tree in the picture. The first picture is looking off towards the entryway and the other is taken from the entryway back the other way. The unfortunate part of that one is that is shows my refrigerator with my magnet collection on it.

My ornaments range from Hallmark collectibles including lots of Mickey Mouse, Patriotic Santas and snowmen to handmade ornaments made by myself, my mother and Morris's mother. Also I buy an ornament almost every place I have ever traveled to.
Here is my favorite and most cherished Christmas decoration. It is a hardanger Christmas tree from Cross 'n Patch by Emie Bishop. There is quite a story behind this piece. I had seen it at several Cross Stitch Festivals and fell in love with it, but I don't do hardanger. I have tried and just cannot do anything beyond kloster blocks. This was stitched for me by one of my best friends, Sandi.
As she tells the story, it was in one of her weaker moments. We were having a local stitch-in overnighter at the Kansas Museum of History. (Those were such fun. We don't do them anymore.) I was late arriving at the stitch-in because I had attended the KSU-NU football game in the rain. Sandi is a NU graduate. KSU had lost. She said I looked so bedraggled, wet and cold when I arrived at the stitch-in she took pity and stitched the hardanger Christmas Tree for me. I bought all the supplies and by the following year's Christmas, I had this wonderful piece to display in my entryway. It always the first thing I put our at Christmas time. I will never be able to thank Sandi enough for stitching this piece for me. Later, she stitched it for a friend of mine, but has never stitched it for herself. I think I have bought her the supplies to do it for herself, but it has not gotten to the top of her list.

Along with the decorating of my tree, etc., I have been doing some stitching on Block 3 of my Village. Here is my progress. Not much, but I have also been stitching on a Sunflower Seed design model. There has been a flag added, the beginnings of the sign and background and the roof of City Hall. If I could I think that I would stitch on this all the time, it is so much fun. However, I think I would burn myself out on it if I stitched it exclusively. My adult attention deficit probably would kick in. LOL.

The project that I have been working on during my stitch therapy sessions at the Sunflower Seed is the Not Forgotten Farms-Giving Sisters. Sometimes the light is not right to see the Village with my cheaters, so I do something else. Cannot stitch on a design model with all my therapy mates around. Don't you just love the green face on this lovely witch?

Tuesday morning I took time out to do a little online stashing. Here in Kansas we have a company that does overdyeing of fabric. Picture This Plus is located in Junction City, Kansas and they have developed a dyeing process that allows the fabric to be colorfast. The Sunflower Seed has used a lot of this fabric in her designs. Therefore, I have stitched on a lot of it. When they have pieces that do not come out quite right they end up with what they call "orphans". A couple of years ago they sold orphans every Wednesday. Recently I found out from their Yahoo group that the orphans were back. They went on sale at 10:00AM Central Time on Tuesday on the Internet only. By some minor miracle, I remembered what day it was and signed on and adopted the following pieces.

They even name their orphans. The ones I adopted are named Hope, Miles, Gianni and Gisella. Not sure which is which in the picture. Two of the pieces look like about the same color until you open one up and it has several light to medium brown splotches to give it some character. Don't have any projects in mind just had to give these pieces a new home. It is my understanding that they will continue the adoption process with new orphans every Tuesday at 10:00AM central time until all the orphans are adopted. Usually there are about 40 pieces each week ranging from 14-ct Aida to 28-ct Cashel to 32-ct Belfast in plain and opalescence. There are also a few pieces of Lugana. Size is usually 18x26. Check it out you might find an orphan that calls to you.

Late this afternoon, I finally got my blog reading caught up. WOOHOO!!!! It has taken me almost 2 weeks to get my Google Reader caught up from being gone from the computer for a week. I hope to never go down that road again. Almost felt like I was drowning. About the time I thought I was getting the numbers down, then all my stitching friends would decide to post at the same time. LOL. I probably did not do as much commenting while catching up as I usually do. Sorry!! I will do better now that things are caught. Want to thank all those that visit and comment. It is always fun to hear from you.

WOW!! This one turned into a long one again. Sorry!! Off to bed with me. I am working at the Sunflower Seed tomorrow. Hopefully, the yucky weather doesn't get too bad.

Happy Stitching to All.