Snow!! Snow!! Snow!!

It was our turn to get dumped on by a snow storm. The weekend before Christmas it was the east coast and on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day it was the Midwest Plains States. On Wednesday it rained like it was spring with lightening and thunder, with it changing to snow on Christmas Eve Day. Snowed and blowed all night Christmas Eve and all day Christmas. Sometimes you weren't sure how much it was snowing because it was blowing it around so much. We continued to have light snow on the day after Christmas. It is unusual for us to get this much snow at one time. The actual official measurement was between 10 -12 inches. I don't know how they were even able to measure it with it blowing around like it did. We had a few inches earlier in the month. Tonight they are predicting 1-2 inches. If we get 1 1/2 inches it will be come the snowiest December on record in Topeka.

Here are a few pictures that we took. First, a drift in the side yard.

A drift behind the garage where in the summer the tomato plants are growing. I wonder if snow is good fertilizer. You can see that there is a small drift on the deck. It is almost up to the bottom of the chairs.
A drift around the hot tub and onto the patio. Lots of snow on top of the hot tub. You can see that it was still snowing a little when these pictures were taken.
My perennial flower bed out front has a big drift too. It just about covers the little light-up Christmas trees we have out there. The last two on the end are barely visible, just a little glow through the snow.

Morris made several attempts on Saturday getting the driveway shoveled out so he could get out his pick-up. I had not been out of the house since mid-afternoon on Wednesday and he had not been out since mid-afternoon on Christmas Eve, so we got out on Sunday afternoon and went to the mall to walk around. I think he was getting cabin fever. Needless to say, we did not make our Christmas trek to South Dakota for Christmas with his family. Based on the weather forecast here and for up there, we cancelled the trip on Tuesday afternoon. Mailed their Christmas present on Wednesday. They have already received them. Fast service. I went ahead and made the things that I had planned to take up there to eat. Christmas Eve we had sloppy joes and I did a ham for Christmas dinner. I had gone ahead and bought one a few days ahead of time just in case we ended up not going. Which is what happened. By Sunday, we were both tired of eating Sloppy Joes and ham. LOL!!!

Enough about the nasty snow, on to stitching stuff. Now I can reveal the Christmas stitching that I have been working on the last couple of months. The first was was for Reina. I did not change anything on this one.

Give Us This Day

by La D Da

30-ct R&R Kansas City Blend

GAST Thread

This one was for Anita. Had to make a few color substitutions on this one. I used GAST Dried Thyme instead of Evergreen and WDW Onyx instead of GAST Black Crow. I thought I had plenty of Black Crow, but ran out and picked up another skein at the shop. It was totally different. It had lots of blue in it. The crows did not look good blue and I had to rip out everything I had already put in. Then I had to play around until I found a color that I thought looked good. Tried Mascara and Kohl, but the Onyx looked best. Someday I will learn to check how much I have and whether the latest at the shop is close to what I already have.

Crowflowers

by The Workbasket

28-ct Natural Brown Linen

GAST Threads with changes

This is an older Workbasket design. I got it when we had a trunk show from them at the LNS a year or so ago. I think the date on it is 1997. Just thought the long legs and tail feathers made it an interesting design.

Reina stitched this LHN design out of the 2009 JCS Ornament magazine for me. She knows how much I like LHN designs. I love it and I don't think will put it away when the Christmas things get put away. It probably will be up year round. ( I did not do a very good job of photographing and cropping this one.) Sorry!!

There is still one gift that I am stitching on. It is coming along, but has taken longer than I thought. It is LHN "Under The Prairie Moon". Here is my progress. My brain was not thinking right, I guess, because I need just a little more Moss for the roof. What I have is lighter than what I first started with and have run out of. See there I did it again. Did not plan properly for how much was needed and the change in dye lots. It is stitched on 30-ct R&R Irish Creme with Belle Soie silk. No that is not dirt on the fabric, that is just the way the over dye worked out.
Since we did not travel for Christmas, I decided that I would start something new on Christmas Day. I went looking around to see what had fabric and thread already. I came across this design that Anita did for all of us at our last weekend retreat. She included 30-ct R&R Antique Cotton with the design and it used DMC thread. I substituted my Anchor floss for most colors, but was missing a few so have some DMC as well. Across the bottom is a little figure for each of us charted in our favorite color, with proper hair color and our initials. It will mean a lot when it is done. The verse is "Our lives are but a tapestry".

Here is my progress. Since this photo was taken, I have done one more house, finished the word "Topeka" and done the first figure without feet. That figure is mine and my dress is purple and my hair is silver gray like it is in real life.
With all the snow and cold, I have not been going too many places. Actually the furthest I have gone since Sunday is to the end of the driveway to the mailbox. Been alternating between Prairie Moon, Sunflower Stitchers and a small design model for the Sunflower Seed.

Two of the Yahoo groups that I am in are planning January 1st start projects. The Kansas Stitcher group is going to do a SAL for A Quaker Christmas by ByGone Stitches. Since I have already done that one, I am going to do Quaker Gone Spooky by Michelle Ink. I will be using 30-ct R&R Lucky Penny with part of the silk called for. I am using Silk 'n Colors instead of Prairie Winter and Belle Soie Noir instead of Silk 'n Colors Fading Ink. My hands have been itching to stitch this. Now the first is not far off.

My STO Yahoo group is having January 1st SAL of your choice of designs. This group did this last year too and everyone really enjoyed watching each other's projects come to life. I think that most everyone finished their projects at some point during the year. It is good motivation when you have a group doing something like this. For this SAL I am going to do Shakespeare's Peddler's Jenny Bean's Halloween Sampler using the limited edition GAST threads that were developed for this design on 28-ct R&R Lt. Cappuccino. The thread names for this are rather ghoulish.

Thanks to all the continue to read and comment on my blog. I post rather infrequently, but when I do it is a lot Don't see that changing any time soon. You comments are very much appreciated. Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I don't know who it was that wanted a "White Christmas", but I thin they got more than they bargained for around here.

It is hard to believe that another year is just about here. Time flies when you are having fun stitching all the time. Here's wishing you a Happy and Prosperous New Year to all.

Happy Stitching!!!!!!!!!!!!

After All This Time.....Still Stitching

Here goes nothing. All my friends have been screaming at me because I have not done a post recently. Things just keep getting in the way. We got back from Branson and have been dealing with some issues with my Dad and trying to finish the Christmas stitching. The time just keeps flying by. One day it is just before Thanksgiving and now Christmas is a week ago. Where does the time go?

We had a great time in Branson, eating, going to shows, shopping and just generally relaxing. I even did get some stitching done. For the first 3 days, we were joined by friends Martin and Mary. We ate at the normal places we go every year and actually ate at the timeshare a couple of times too. The shows we saw with them were "The Haygoods" and "The Baldknobbers". The Baldknobbers were the first show in Branson and this was their 50th year. On Sunday we ate at the College of the Ozarks Sunday Buffet. Such good food and so much of it. It was a joy. My sister that lives close by came down on Tuesday and basically stitched all day with me. That was fun. Made it to the LNS Cecilia's Samplers twice. One day with Mary and once with my sister. Had to buy a few things. Not that I needed anything, but Anchor floss. When you work in a LNS you rarely need anything.

Here is a photo of Muffin lounging around the timeshare one evening. Her and Morris were watching TV in the bedroom this night. We have been going down here around 8 years and this is only the second year that they allowed us to take Muffin along. She loves it and loves to travel. Morris took her for at least one walk each day.

On Friday we went to the Pierce Arrow show. This was a freebie for listening to the timeshare people try to sell us another week. The Pierce Arrow Theatre had a BIG Christmas wreath in front and here is a photo of Morris in the wreath. It was night and there was not much light on him. He is hard to see in the picture.

One of the design models that I have been working on has been released by The Sunflower Seed. Celtic Christmas Tree is done on 30-ct R&R Antique Cotton with Thread Gatherer Silk 'n Cotton In the Burgundy and Rainbow Gallery Petite Treasure Braid. Anita has also set up a blog

Most of the stitching that I have been doing is for Christmas and I cannot show it yet. I think I will be giving it away next Tuesday. Talked to the frame shop today and one piece is done and the other will be done for me by Tuesday. Nothing like getting it in under the wire. Photos later. I still have one piece to finish, but I did not get hers done last year on time, so I guess by now she will be used to it. Probably will not get to exchange gifts with her until after Christmas any way.

Remember we talking about the baby sampler that I was working on and had been having problems with from the beginning. Well, I have done some work on it over the last few weeks. Especially since now I know that my niece is going to have another baby and I need to do another one. The first picture is of the sampler the last time I took a photo. The second photo is where it is today. There has been quite a bit of progress, but lots of color changes and there is lots of back stitching to do later. The color of the fabric is way different from photo to photo. The fabric is 28-ct Lambswool linen.



Here is a photo of the design for the next baby sampler for my niece. It is a girl this time and I have loved this design since it came out. Pulled photo from the Hoffman Distributing web site. Have the pattern, but not started yet. The model is stitched in silk, so now you know another reason why I liked it.
Several years ago I stitched the piece below, but never finished it. Recently I needed a gift for a friend so I finished it. Turned out very nice.

Merry Christmas to My Friend

By Carriage House Samplings

28-ct Dirty Cashel linen

WDW and Sampler Threads

Now I will show you gifts that I received from friends. Perforated paper Santa. I just love this. So cute. The other is a 3-dimensional gingerbread house. I have shown the back and the front of the house. Lots of beads on this too. My friend has made several of these this year. They are so cute too. I think the pattern was in a magazine several years ago.

I have really thrown this together rather quickly. Loaded the photos last night and doing the narrative this afternoon before we go to by Dad's. He had a pacemaker put in just before Thanksgiving and has recently had a bout with the nose bleed that they have trouble getting stopped. He does not like to stay with any of us girls, so he is staying along at his house again. We have several services coming in during the week, but us girls are going to try to take turns being there almost every weekend and see how that goes.

Next week we will go to Morris's family in South Dakota, weather permitting, for Christmas. Been making all kinds of preparations of food for various Christmas get together and to take to both my Dad and up to SD.

Morris home from work and packing things up, so I better end this now. Thank you to all that visit and comment. The comments mean so much. I try to get caught up on blog reading, but I don't think that I will ever be caught up.

Merry Christmas To All.

Happy Stitching