Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Christmas Eve


Home for Christmas

With pomp, power and glory
the world beckons vainly.
In chase of such vanities,
why should I roam?
While peace and content
bless my little thatched cottage
and warm my own heart,
with the treasures of home.

Beatrix Potter


In all the preparations for Christmas, I still haven't had much time to stitch, but here are a couple of updates anyway :-). I continue my slow progress on my Mary Engelbreit piece, To a Friend's House the Road is Never Long. I am getting to the point where I can almost envision a finish.



And, I pulled out my Dear Diary sampler and began the fifth block, the Mary Heaton section. Here is a picture of where I was, and a picture of my progress. This is getting quite big, and difficult, therefore, to photograph.




My daughter and I have also been baking and cooking up a Christmas storm of sweet treats. Here is a platter with some of our creations. Starting at twelve o'clock and going around clockwise, we have peanut brittle, creamy butter mints, ginger snap cookies, peppermint bark, and fantasy fudge (using the old recipe on the marshmallow creme jar back from when I was a child). We also had coconut thumbprints, but even though we made two batches of these, none survived to get their picture taken.


Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas This Year




Friday, December 12, 2008

Some freebies

I hope that everyone is having a wonderful, merry time preparing for the arrival of Christmas.

I have no stitching pictures to share, but I thought that I would post some links to some freebies that I have come across lately.

This beautiful French sampler, called Grand Abcedaire, is being offered by Gazette 94 in eight parts, one part per month, from now through July 2009. There are a lot of other great freebies on this site you can browse also.

Also check out:

Madame La Fee for a pretty candy cane ornament
Joli Tambour Creation has three very nice ornaments
Isabelle Vautier, one of my favorite designers, has a beautiful Christmas freebie

That is all for now. I'll probably come back and add more later.

Enjoy the season!

Monday, December 8, 2008

Christmas Stitching Update

It is the most wonderful time of the year. The time where my family and I are so busy that we aren't home much, and when we are, it seems like we have endless Christmas chores to accomplish. I love it all, but it leaves less time to stitch. I have made some progress on my various WIPs, but not as much as I would like.

Here is what I have accomplished on my Mary Engelbreit piece. The yellow is gradually getting filled in, and the sign is almost done.



And I got a bit done on the North Pole project, participating with the Saturday Night SAL with the Only One Ewe forum. You can now see the elf's arm, appearing rather ghostly without its body.


And finally, I started an ornament from the 1999 JCS Ornament issue called Christmas Village by the Threads of Time. This is going kind of slow because I am stitching it one over one.

I have so enjoyed surfing around the stitching blogland this week, and seeing everyone's Xmas ornaments and other projects. It is very inspiring. Until next time....