Stitch Therapy Christmas Party

I stitch with a group of gals at the LNS -The Sunflower Seed every Monday night. We all call it our therapy session. The size of the group varies from as few as 6 to as many as 12. When we have 12, we almost have to sit on top of each other.

It is our tradition to have some kind of Christmas party and it was held last night at the the shop. We had to postpone it from last week when we in the beginnings of a big ice and snow event. Therefore we were all anxious to get together and have our party. This year we ordered in pizza and Reina baked a dark chocolate cake. Mmmmm!!! Also several a variety of cookies and chocolates. Stitchers love their chocolate. There is a story behind the cake. She had baked and decorated cupcakes for us for last week when we had to cancel. They were decorated to look like reindeer. Her husband is a police officer so they got the cupcakes instead of us. Sorry we had to miss the reindeer, Reina.

Several years ago, the owner/designer at The Sunflower Seed, Anita, started a Friendship Series of Samplers. Most years she unveils the design at our Christmas party and gives a copy of the design to the person that is being honored that year. This year the honor went to our dear Joann. Anita names the sampler for the person using their maiden name. Here is Joann with the stitched design model for the "Joann Fleischer Sampler'. She was very surprised and pleased to be honored in this way. The sampler incorporates a lot of purple, Joann's favorite color.

We struggled trying to find out Joann's maiden name. Anita had the design done, but we did not have the name to put on it. So one night, she and I were both early to stitching and I just started talking to her about her family and steered the conversation to her mother and her name. Her mother had a rather unusual first name so I had her spell everything for me. Viola!!!, we had the name we needed. Anita was amazed at how I accomplished it. Joann even mentioned last night about how we even got the last name spelled correctly since it was always being spelled wrong. I reminded her of the time I got it from her I had her spell it for me. We did not want to spell it wrong on the pattern. Before we left for the evening, Joann had all the supplies to stitch her sampler.

Here is Anita with Joann. On the dedication on the pattern mentioned that Joann always had a smile on her face and a purple thread in her needle. We always know if we find a stray purple thread on the floor it belongs to Joann.
I have included a close up view of the sampler. This was one of my secret stitching designs I mentioned in previous posts. We made several changes as I stitched it, including totally redesigning the flowers. Purple is a favorite of mine too, so it was a fun stitch. Also, helped knowing who I was stitching it for. I knew that she would love it.

Joann Fleischer Sampler

28-ct Pink Whisper Linen

Thread Gatherer Silk 'n Colors

Crescent Colours Belle Soie

DMC

The design will become available at the Nashville Market in February.

We all had a fun evening together, but I am not sure how much stitching we got done. I heard a couple of people say, "I put in 6 stitches and promptly took those 6 stitches out". I know I had to do some ripping myself. The down side of things was that we will miss 2 weeks of stitching for the holidays coming up and The Sunflower Seed being closed between Christmas and New Years. We left saying we would see each other next year.

Update on Muffin. --- We made it through the night and all day with her crated up. She did fairly well until this evening. Then we decided she was hungry. Fed her and she seemed a little more satisfied. She is not used having to eat at specific times. Even though she does not eat all day, it is always available. So now when she has limited freedom, she will have to learn to eat when she is out of the crate. Only 5 weeks and 5 days to go. Ugh!!! Will we survive?

Off to put in a couple of stitches and then to bed.

Dog Health Issues

It has been a stressful day or two. As you know from previous posts, I have a 10 1/2 year old Boston Terrier Muffin. Here is photo taken a few months ago when things were green and not white and icy like they have been the last week or so.. After being out most of the day on Saturday, we came home and let her out of the crate she stays in whenever we are gone. I noticed that her left back leg was not working very good. Actually, part of the time it did not work or support her body. Thought maybe she had been laying wrong in her crate, but it did not get any better over the evening. Then on Sunday morning she was laying in the sun and I reached down to pet her on her back and she let out a very loud sharp yelp. Then I started getting concerned. This along with the leg problem bothered me. Almost decided to take her to the local emergency vet on Sunday. She also seemed to have problems going up and down stairs part of the time. Decided to just wait until morning and call our vet. Called 5 minutes after they opened this morning. The long time vet tech said bring her right in. We were the first ones that Dr. Connor saw this morning. He almost immediately knew what the problem was. He pulled her back legs out and said it appeared to be a back and spinal cord issue. Took several x-rays. With a dog her size it was like a full body x-ray. Very interesting to see the inside of your dog. One thing he was trying to rule out was a tumor.

In the end it appears that she has at least one and maybe 2-3 slipped discs in her back. We have no idea what she did that might have caused this to happen. She is a very active dog, playing and jumping, etc. So it could have happened any number of ways. He said when this happens the middle part of the disk is a jello like substance and as we age it turns to more like cottage cheese. This substance acts as shock absorbers for the vertebrae. Whatever she did caused the disks to move and some of the substance was pushed out and touched the spinal cord. The spinal cord does not like to have anything touching it. It then became inflamed. Over time the disk will heal itself with some fibrous substance kinda similar to when disks are fused on humans.

The treatment for her is some pain meds for a few days, some steroids for inflammation, some other meds for inflammation and to be confined in a very small crate for 6 weeks, 24 hours a day. She can only get out of the crate, 20 minutes at a time, 3 times a day. It has to be a small crate that she can only turn around in and basically lay straight and not move around in. She has always been crated when we leave, but beyond that she has the run of everything. I had to go out and buy a much smaller crate than she is used to. Basically is is for cats or dogs somewhat smaller than her. The first time I put her in it, was a struggle, but I managed. Then she has to stay in it while I am stitching, etc. and it breaks my heart because she does not understand why she has to be in there. The vet said this would be harder on us than on her. This is going to be a very long 6 weeks, especially since it broke my heart to put her in there the first time and I have to do that 2-3 times a day for 6 weeks. Morris just keeps telling me we have to do it or she will not recover and could become paralyzed. That would be harder to handle. So I guess I need to pull up my big girl panties and deal with it. LOL!!!

She goes back to see the vet in 10 days. Hope she will have made great progress and we can adapt her treatment.

Have some stitching news to post, but need to take some pictures and get some pictures from a friend that were taken tonight at our Monday night Stitch Therapy Christmas Party.

Off to put Muffin out before going to bed. It is not going to be the same without her there to keep me warm.

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.

O Christmas Tree, Friends and Village Update

Working very hard at being in the Christmas mood. This morning was "hanging of the greens" at church, but I was ushering so really did not get to see much of what went on, other than the lighting of the tree, wreaths and garland. This this afternoon, on probably the coldest afternoon we have had so far, we went to a Christmas Tree farm about 8-10 miles from our house to pick and cut our tree. I think the temp was around freezing with a 20 mile an hour wind. BRRRR!!! Here is a photo of the tree farm.

The temp being what it was did not take me long to find a tree. Not the best we have ever had. We have been going to this place for several years. Had been reading in the newspaper that 6-7 foot trees were going to be in short supply this year. There had been a couple of years that they lost trees due to disease, drought and hot weather. We could tell they were a little short in that size. Here is a picture of the one that we picked out before the chain saw hit it.

Here the tree is in the corner of our dining room. Waiting for Morris to put the lights on and then I put the ornaments, etc. on it. Over the years I have collected ornaments from various places we have visited. Also, I am a Hallmark ornament collector. I have one small tote full of nothing but Mickey Mouse ornaments. If I wanted to be really ambitious I could make one tree with nothing but Mickey Mouse. I bet I don't even put half of the armaments that I have on the tree. Probably could do several themed trees. They look nice and I would enjoy them, but the problem is all the time it takes to put them up for a couple of weeks and then the time to take them down and box everything up again. I just sometimes rotate the ornaments that I put on the tree.

I have several Christmas cross stitch pieces to get out and we have an icicle and snowflake arrangement that we hang in the front picture window. Will have more pictures when everything gets done.

Yesterday I had the most wonderful day. I spent it with 5 of my long time friends from college in a neighboring city. We have been attempting to have little mini-reunions over the last couple of years. Of those that we have been trying to get together, at least 2 were missing. One met with us last time, and the other has not made it yet, but we expect her to sometime soon. We all lived together in a scholarship house of 64 at Kansas State more years ago than any of us want to admit. Basically, the group us were together from 2 -4 years. One left after 2 years to finish up her nursing degree at another university.

Of the 6 of us, 4 are retired and 2 of them have gone back to work. One does long-term substitute teaching and the other one does contract work for a consulting firm that works for her former employer. One of the other recent retirees is planning to babysit her new grandson and then there is me. You all know what I do-------CROSS STITCH!!!!!!!!! The two that are still working are an elementary school principal and an assistant US Attorney. It was so great to spend time with everyone. We were never at a lose for words.

The reason we picked this date and city was they were having an Old Fashioned Christmas parade where all the entrants had be horses and horse drawn wagons and such. Nothing motorized. It lasted about an hour with 80 entrants. It was lots of fun. I did not get any pictures because it was raining and we found a place to watch the parade from inside. After walking around the downtown area before the parade, we found a little restaurant/coffee shop to stop in. Found a little counter-type area at the front that looked out on the parade route so we just pulled up chairs and our cappuccinos and lattes and watched the parade. That was only the beginning of our restaurant tour. After the parade was over, stopped in a shop that someone needed to pick a Christmas present in and dropped it and our rain gear by the car and went to a small art show in the local arts center. Right across the street from the arts center was a little restaurant with made to order wraps, salads and Philly Sandwiches. So guess where we had lunch. We were waiting on a call from one person. She called as we were starting lunch and she was on her way to meet us. We waited on her, which was not a problem. Gave us more time to visit. Then we talked some more while she ate her lunch when she got there. After about 2 hours for lunch, we moved on to a little ice cream shop that makes their ice cream right there with many, many flavors. Let's see, I think we had Snickers, Kansas Twister, Cappuccino Chip. Those are the ones that I can remember.

Again, we had lots of time to talk. We spent another hour there. One had to go rescue her husband that was watching the new grandson, so we took her to her car. We went into our hostess's home and looked at her pictures of her recent trip to Italy. One other of us had been to some of the same places and her and husband are taking some college students to that same area this spring. Then around 8 we decide we needed to do dinner, so off to an Italian restaurant close by. Time to eat again. We sort of blamed all the eating on to one of the gals because when we lived in the scholarship house she was kitchen manager at least one semester. Don't you like our logic.

Way too soon it was time to say good bye, but with big plans to meet again. Plans were made to meet again in early summer to attend "Symphony in the Flint Hills". It is an event that has been held twice now and sold out where the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra does an open air concert in the wide open spaces of the Kansas Flint Hills. In 2008, it will be in the county where one of the group lives. From what we all have heard it is an event not to be missed. I did look up last night after I got home to see what the date is. It is to be held June 14, 2008, so I will be letting everyone know. I know everyone is looking forward to us getting together again. We had such a great time getting caught up with everyone and say "do you remember this person or when we did this?", which was usually followed with a great deal of laughter. When we lived together we always had a great time and our time together yesterday was no different.

Since I was gone all day yesterday, there has not been a great deal of stitching progress done on any one thing. I have stitched on the Sunflower Seed design model, my Giving Sisters from Notforgotten Farms and I did start Block 3 of Village of Hawk Run Hollow. I tried to wait until Friday night or December 1st, but just could not do that. When I realized I probably would not get much stitching done on the lst because of going to the reunion, I started some on the border on Thursday night. Below is my progress as of an hour or so ago. It is a little difficult to see. I was working all on one side and I also did not press it very good from where I had it rolled on the outside edge when I was working on the other blocks. Not much planned for the coming week. Need to spend time decorating my tree and the rest of the house. There still is Christmas shopping to do. Also, this morning the filling in my tooth that was going to be repaired in a couple of weeks fell out. So will need to call the dentist tomorrow. They may need to work me in sooner. In talking to my niece about our family Christmas, I ended up volunteering to bring noodles and mashed potatoes for our dinner. That means I need to make more noodles. Morris wants me to make sugar cookies for his barber. They are his favorite. Now I have listed several things that I can do this week. Of course, there will always be too much cross stitch that needs to be done. Friday night is one of the few Christmas dinner that we attend. That should be fun.

Oh, and I am still trying to get caught up on the blog reading. I have been averaging almost 25 read per day out of my Google reader and I cannot get caught up. Many of you are getting comments on blogs that are several day old. Hope you don't mind. That does not even include the blogs that I just have bookmarked and are not in my Google Reader. Man you people are busy, busy.

Well, it is off to finish up a couple of things and then off to bed. I try to keep my night owlness under control. Sometimes I think I could stay up most of the night and then sleep during the day, but that does work very well to interact with people that aren't night owls. LOL!!

Branson Report and Stitch Progress

Getting caught up after being gone for a week has been a major problem. Things really piled up while we were gone to Branson. The newspapers, the mail, the e-mail and the blogs on Google Reader. I had 150 e-mail and 115 unread blogs. Yesterday alone, I read 32 blogs and still have over 80 to read. More keep being added almost faster than I can read them.

The first thing I had to do when we got back was to go on Monday morning to pick up the dog (Muffin) from boarding from the vet. She was sooooo glad to see me. She was licking me all over and got so excited she nipped me on the nose. No damage, but I think it surprised us both. She has not let me out of her sight since. Poor baby.

Along with trying to get things caught up on Monday, had a church meeting and dentist appointment. Just for cleaning, but now have to go back for a repair on a filling in a couple of weeks. YUCK!!! Also so had Monday evening stitch therapy session. It was good to be back with everyone. Lots of things happening since I missed one week. One wedding done without a hitch and one of our group was at the hospital waiting for new grand baby. What fun we had. During our time together we manage to have a few laughs. You have heard the saying "died laughing". Well, I feel like I almost did. I was taking a drink of water during one of our laugh sessions and got chocked on it and spit water all over. Ended up coughing all night.

We had a great time in Branson with Martin and Mary, as usual. Went to 2 shows and road the Branson Scenic Railway while they were with us. We saw Moe Bandy in an afternoon show and The Haygoods in their evening show. The Haygoods are a family of 7 guys and 1 girl ranging in age from 30 to 14 and they sing, dance and play multiple instruments. One of the guys sang one of the best versions of "Mary, Did you Know" I have ever heard. It was so moving that you really got caught up in his singing. They also did a wonderful "Stomp" dance with one of the guys being on the top of a scaffolding. It was awesome. Never really expected that type of show. Later in the week, Morris and I saw "Magnificent 7". It was a variety show of 7 decades of music. It was OK, but we both said we had seen better.

Thanksgiving was spent with my sister and her family and her in-laws at her house in Nixa. We ate entirely too much food, but I think that is just part of celebrating Thanksgiving. There were not many of the homemade noodles that I took leftover. They are a tradition in my family and now we are passing it on to Ruth Ann's step-sons and in-laws.

While we were in Branson, we did get some Christmas shopping done. Still have a lot to do. Yesterday, I did some orders online. Have a few more places to hit yet. Also watched some football games. My team lost again and ended the season with 4 losses. Not sure what the problems are, but hope they can get them fixed by next year. However, it does save me money because they will not be going to a bowl game this year. The best part of my time in Branson was that I got to do a lot of stitching.

Block 2 of Villages of Hawk Run Hallow was finished on Saturday, November 24th. That block was a pain for me. At least, the trees were. I had already started the branches before we went to Branson, but I was looking at the pattern and realized I had made a mistake. The branches were one color and the leaves were another and I had started making them all one color. So ended up doing some frogging. Ugh!! Several people have told me that would have just left it. I decided that I wanted it to be right, since I was putting so much work into the entire piece. Here it is.

Now here is a photo of both block together. I am not starting the 3rd one until at least Friday night. That will be just before the 1st of December. In the meantime, I am stitching on various other things.
On Monday night, I finished the 4th of 4 Christmas presents. So it is off to the frame shop with it either today or tomorrow. I was afraid I had over extended myself in trying to get those presents done. While in Branson, I took time out from VOHRH to stitch on a few other things. None of which I have pictures of. Back working on a design model for the Sunflower Seed, and a couple of other UFOs. Pictures of progress and Christmas items will come later.

Remember in my last post I mentioned I was starting to do some crocheting again. Well, the next two photos are of crocheting that was completed while in Branson. This first is the beginning of a baby afghan for a friend's grand baby to be. It is really soft and fluffy. Then in talking to my niece, Megan on Friday, I found out that I am going to be a Great Aunt again in July, so I guess I am practicing for an afghan for her. That will also mean a baby sampler too.

Here is a dishcloth crocheted with Sugar & Cream cotton yarn. I just found this pattern for a crocheted dishcloth on Joann's.com web site. Always saw the knitted ones, but no crocheted,so I was excited to find the pattern. Now everyone at my stitching therapy group thinks they need one. I had thought about doing that, but they are going to have to be patient. I don't do them very fast. I used the wrong size hook on this one, so maybe the next one using the correct size will be better and faster. Still have to weave in some ends.
Here is a little ornament that I completed the stitching on. It is from PS "Button Up". That pattern is for a big sampler, but I just took one motif out to make an ornament. I guess my camera does not take good pictures when I get too close. Sorry for the blurry picture. It is on 28-ct Lambswool linen and I converted most of the colors to overdyes. The face color has also been changed. I stitched with what the pattern called for and it made the face so dark that he looked like he fell asleep under a sun lamp. Have a couple more motifs in this pattern that I would like to do also.

Today I will be missing Wednesday afternoon stitch therapy. My ladies group at the church changed their meeting today from last week. It was too close to Thanksgiving. Going to see if I can read a couple of blogs before I hit the shower and off to the group meeting. My dog has been fussing to sit in my lap and got tired and went over to the couch and laid down and now is snoring. LOL.

This weekend, my college friends are trying to have a little get together in a nearby town. We are trying to do this on a regular basis. In the summer, some of us got together and now we are going to try again and go see a Christmas parade. The weather forecast is not very good for Saturday, but we will see how it turns out.

Thanks to all that take the time to stop by and read my blog. I know it does take time, since I am so wordy. Also, thanks to all for comments regarding progress on VOHRH.

Enjoy the season we are celebrating and don't get to rushed. Find time to stitch.

Happy Thanksgiving (No Pictures)

Just a quick update of happenings. We leave in the morning for a week at our timeshare in Branson, Missouri. As I mentioned before, this has become our annual tradition. We see a few shows, do some Christmas shopping and basically chill out. For me, that includes lots of time to stitch. Seems like I have been slow to get things together for this year. I have done some food preparation. Taking beef stew, stuff for spaghetti, and an apple crisp. Michelle I could have used your apple peeler when I was doing this. For Thanksgiving dinner with my sister and her in-laws, I have made noodles and have stuff to make a cranberry salad.

On the drive down, we are stopping in Webb City, Missouri (near Joplin) to visit a cousin. This has become part of our routine on this trip too. They have two of the cutest little dogs.

As for stitching progress, I finished, on Thursday night, the design model for The Sunflower Seed that I had been struggling with. It is not in her hands to be framed and prepped for release. More about this in a later post. The last Christmas present is maybe a couple of hours away from being complete. I think I am going to leave it at home. It has so many colors with it, which takes up a lot of room. It will be no trouble to finish it as soon as I get back home. VOHRH Block 2 almost has the entire white part of the church with stained glass window. Just mainly roof and the willow trees left. They are really hard trying to follow all the back stitched leaves. My stitch bag is packed along with my lights and an old magnifier. Also have done some more crocheting. Working on crocheted dish cloths. Always saw knitted ones, but found a crochet pattern, so I am hard at it. That will be easy to do in the car.

Hopefully all of you bloggers will be so busy with Thanksgiving preparations, eating and visiting with family and friends that you will not be doing much posting to your blogs. That way I will not be overwhelmed when I get home. I hate to get behind. It seems like it takes forever to get caught up.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

Don't "gobble til you wobble".

Weekly (sort of) Stitching Update

It has always been my goal to do a post at least weekly, however it did not happen within the week this time. I tend to not want to do one when I do not have any pictures. I know that it is not necessary to include pictures, but it seems to make things more interesting with pictures.

This has been a particularly busy week, but I managed to get in some stitching. Helped with a soup and dessert fundraiser lunch at church last Sunday, including providing a soup and a dessert, helping set up, serve, and clean up. It was very successful, so it was worth it. Monday helped Anita, owner of The Sunflower Seed do a trunk show of her Christmas designs at the local Needlework Guild. Attended the funeral of the mother of a good friend on Tuesday and went to two stitching group therapy sessions at the LNS. Worked at the Sunflower Seed on Thursday, had lunch with another friend on Friday and had my annual mammo and bone density test on Friday, too.

In between all that stuff I managed to fit in some stitching. Most of which I cannot show yet. One of the design models that I am working on for The Sunflower Seed has been a bugger to do. Several different problems. Color issue that we had to work out and as I got further into it, I found that I had made a mistake in the first part of it. We tried to compensate and change the design a little to accommodate my inability to count and read the pattern. Well, that did not work, so I spent a lot of time with the frog. Last night, I finished all I can do, until Anita makes some changes in part of the design and then I will complete it. Tonight, I finished the 3rd of 4 Christmas presents that I am stitching this year. Now it is ready for the framer. One of the others, I picked up from the framer last week, the other one has the frame ready to go on it. I was getting worried that I would not get them all done and framed in time. The fourth piece is about 2/3 done, so will get it done, at least by December 1st. With all this stitching, did not leave much time for my Village piece, but I did do some work. Actually, I got more done than I realized after I went back and looked at the last progress photo. Here is the latest update. The church has a few more stained glass windows and the other tree trunk is started. Hopefully this week there will be more done it. I am not looking forward to the backstitching that is the leaves of the trees. Maybe it will not be as bad as I think. My friends locally started this on October 1st and she is on block 5. She is a really fast stitcher.

My Adult Attention Deficient got the best of me on Thursday when I was working at The Sunflower Seed. I have been looking at Notforgotten Farms - The Giving Sisters, ever since it came out. Decided that if no one had bought it by the time Halloween was past, I would. Well, on Thursday I bought it and came home to my stash and found some 26-ct White Birch Heatherfield that I decided was perfect for it. You know I just had to start it. Here is my progress so far. I am using 3 strands of black in order to get good coverage. Seem to always think that black does not cover well so tend to always use more strands than it calls for. Otherwise using the DMC that it calls for. Hard to see any colors, but there are a couple in the top border. I love this design.

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When I was at the framers last week, I also picked up another framed piece. I have had pictures of this one before, but before it was framed. I was not sure what kind of frame to put on it, so had Anita take it over and pick out the frame. She has such a wonderful sense as to what things need. It is just gorgeous. Here it is. This piece has always been difficult to photograph, so hopefully you can see the stitching.

The Workbasket

Quaker Odds and Evens

January, June, October and November

28-ct Mulberry Cashel

Needle Necessities Mauna Loa

Still disappointed to know that Needle Necessities is out of business. I loved that thread. I have managed to stock up on some of my favorite colors, so you will probably see some more things stitched with it in the future.

The week ahead does not appear to be as busy as last week. However, I will need the time to great things together for our annual trek to Branson, Missouri for the week of Thanksgiving. We have a timeshare down there and we have started our own tradition of going down and using it the week of Thanksgiving. It gives us a chance to see the Christmas shows, finish or get close to finishing our Christmas shopping and generally just kick back for a week. The most important thing is to get my stitching packed. Usually do a little extra cooking and freeze some things so we don't have to eat out all the time. One of our ideas for doing this was to get my family to come there for Thanksgiving dinner,etc. So far that has not happened. My dad thinks there would be too much traffic, etc. for him. One of my sisters lives in the area, so for the last 3-4 years we have been having dinner with her family and her in-laws. I also made the mistake of taking home made noodles one year and now they tell me I cannot come unless I bring them for our dinner. Silly me for starting such a thing. There is also a nice needlework shop in Branson. Have to make at least one stop during the week.

Tomorrow I think I am off to Joann's to buy some yarn. A couple of weeks ago I took a crochet refresher class and now I have the bug to do some crocheting. One of stitcher friend's is going to be a grandmother in March and I thought I would crochet an afghan for the baby. While I was looking for my patterns, I ran across one for a crocheted baby bib using cotton yarn like Sugar 'n Cream. Think I will try that too. Never enough time to do the things I want to do. I really am going to have to live forever to accomplish all the things I want to do.

Some day I am going to get the hang of this blogging thing, but now I cannot figure out how to make it put spaces between my paragraphs. When I am composing, I make spaces between paragraphs, but when it publishes sometimes it does it and other times it all runs together with no spacing. Sorry!! I think this is one of those times that it is all run together. Will try to do one more post before we leave for Branson, but no guarantees. Not looking forward to how many blogs I will have in my Google Reader after spending a week away from the computer.

Have a good stitching week everyone. Thanks for stopping by and commenting.