Saturday Sampler: Snowzilla Edition

The Washington Post named our storm "Snowzilla" and this pretty much says it all:

We woke up to about a foot of snow. Tiger Lily's window was blocked by a snow drift. 

I was throwing birdseed out every few hours. We may have been having a blizzard, but the birds at our house were feasting! See all the little footprints?

Whiteout conditions... can't see the houses behind us.

Tiger Lily spent the entire day at her window on her heating pad, watching the birds and the snow. She was so busy she missed her nap. She finally hit the wall about 5 this evening and went to one of her upstairs baskets and went to sleep. Blizzards are so exciting.

Here's our street Friday night.

And Saturday night. I think we've got a couple of feet, and it's still snowing. It has been snowing continuously since 1.30 pm on Friday.

Finally, a sneak peek of my "blizzard project." Hmmm... who could this be?

Saturday Sampler

I haven't stitched at all this week... which irritates me and puts me behind in my stitching goals for the year already. {sigh} What have I been doing? A major, major, clean-out and re-organization of all our Christmas decorations. I wish it hadn't taken me the entire week, but I know when next Christmas rolls around I will be giving myself a big ol' pat on the back for getting it done. It will make getting things out and decorating so much faster and easier. 

Anyway... here's a look at other stuff that's been happening this week. We had our first snow! Well, our first flurry anyway. We've lived in this area for 6 1/2 years and this is the latest first snow we've had. Here's a picture of the snow on its way... I love the color of the sky!

We also had rain. Here's my pretty girl. 

And we had a good mail week. First, Vickie in Kentucky sent me an adorable little fox granny square that she crocheted just for me! Isn't it adorable?! This will be an ornament for my fox tree. Thank you, Vickie!

And some stash arrived. One of my year-long projects for 2016 is to stitch Little House Needleworks' Hometown Holiday. I think there are 10 designs in the series so far, and this tree lot is the latest. I'm trying to make up my mind about the fabric. I'm leaning toward gray, and found this Fabric Flair (!) gray evenweave. I like the look of a wintry sky, but I haven't settled on it yet. What do we think, stitchers?

Sunday Mystery Sampler Update: Eleventh Day

In my last update, I mentioned I would be taking a break from this sampler to see what the remaining blocks would look like and to do some other Christmas stitching. I want to make some changes to blocks 8, 9, 10, and 12, but I liked block 11 as it was and went ahead and stitched it out of order. For all those who have been asking about this sampler, I really appreciate your interest and yes, I will finish it, but it will take me a few more months. I have a lot of other stitching I want to do, and I will have to fit this sampler in with my other projects.

My color choices (apart from the border, all threads are Caron Wildflowers):
border: DMC 938
words: Blackwatch
crown: Spice
snowflakes: Dawn
musical notes: Dark Shadows
house: Cinnabar
roof: Graphite
wreath: Moss
bow: Spice*
plaque: Blackwatch

Piper:
hat, pants, sleeves: Copper
coat: Storm Clouds
stockings: Chili
buttons and shoes: Dark Shadows
pipe: Dense Fog

*The yellow ribbon on the wreath is my little tribute to all the troops serving abroad and those standing watch at home who cannot spend Christmas with their families.

First Finish of the Year

A cute new year freebie available here (plus more versions with different animals).

I made changes, as usual. I filled in the red fur around the eyes and nose, added some DMC blanc and 838, swapped the blue and the green, and added my initials.

My color choices (all threads are DMC):

blanc
brown: 838
green: 4045
copper: 4130
blue: 4235
fabric: 28 ct. Rosemary

Saturday Sampler

First Saturday Sampler of the year!

My Amaryllis

 This little wooden Highland cow was in my Christmas stocking. I named her Flora.

First sunset of the new year

And a sneak peek of a little project I started on New Year's Day

Happy New Year!

Wishing you oodles and oodles of finishes in 2016!

Our 2015 Ornaments

Every year Mr. Wonderful and I choose our ornaments from the current Just Cross Stitch Christmas Ornament issue. We've been doing this since our first Christmas, so we have quite a collection (which can be seen under the Christmas Open House 2014 label).

Here are this year's ornaments! His (scroll down to the 23 December post for information on the color conversion):

 And mine:

Here's a close-up of the fabric. I wanted to show it because it's very unusual in that it is flecked with silver instead of having a silver thread woven into the linen, as with other silver/natural linens. Unfortunately, I don't know the manufacturer. I picked it up from the scrap basket at my LNS some time ago and it was just labeled as 32 count silver/natural. I love it because it looks like falling snow.

Merry Christmas!

The Fox Tree

There are way too many ornaments on this tree to show each one, so I've just chosen a few. I'm not thrilled with my photography, but I've had a lot of requests to show this tree, so hopefully you'll be able to get an idea of how it looks. The pictures aren't great, but the tree is beautiful! Click on the Fox Tree Project label to see more pictures of the ornaments I've made for this tree.

Here's the tree topper, in her warm wool dress, cozy sweater, and furry boots.

This Jim Shore Santa ornament was a gift for my tree from Mr. Wonderful this year. The china fox with the mug is from Williamsburg, Virginia.

This one is a souvenir from Maine.

Here's an adaptation of Country Cottage Needleworks Snowy Foxes.

This little red fox was a gift from a sweet friend. The Arctic fox and snowman ornament is from my mom.

This glass fox is from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The white fox in the background is from Wal-Mart and cost me a whole dollar!

This was a $1 kit that I spiffed up. 

I got this fancy girl from Hobby Lobby.

Here's another $1 kit.

Merry Christmas, y'all!

A Christmas Ornament Color Conversion

If you've been here for a while, you know that I love to play with color, sometimes just changing one or two, and sometimes doing a complete color conversion. For me, being comfortable with changing colors opens up so many more designs as potential projects because I don't look at a design and automatically rule it out because I don't like the color. I suppose I would have less stash if I did rule out designs based on color... but where's the fun in that?

For his ornament this year, Mr. Wonderful chose "Plenty" by Hands on Design from the 2015 Just Cross Stitch Christmas Ornament issue. And being a very traditional guy, he wanted it stitched in more traditional colors. Here's what I came up with:

My color choices:

fabric: 32 count Chestnut
deer: DMC 3862
swirls, antlers, letters: DMC 3031
leaves, border: DMC 4045
poinsettias: Weeks Dye Works Turkish Red
red and gold beads

Off to get some more stitching and finishing done.

Happy Last Minute Christmas Stitching!

Mr. Wonderful's Tree

Here's Mr. Wonderful's pond hockey tree, a collection of hockey players and other wildlife.

Top to bottom: Mario Lemieux (white jersey, no head... sorry Mario!), Alex Ovechkin (red jersey, right), Patrick Kane (red jersey, left), and Wayne Gretzky (white jersey, bottom).

Mario Lemieux, Bobby Orr (black jersey, on the right), Alex Ovechkin.

Bobby Orr, and Ryan Miller (goalie).

And who else would be atop the pond hockey tree but The Great One (Wayne Gretzky, for all the no-hockey humans)? That silver thing is the Stanley Cup, and you can also see Gordie Howe peeking through the branches down there on the right.

We are both huge hockey fans. I actually converted Mr. Wonderful to the most awesome sport in the world, not the other way around. I kept telling him he needed to see an NHL game in person to really appreciate it. In 2010, we went to his first game and he was instantly hooked. It gets pretty wild around here when Washington is playing... Tiger Lily stays upstairs!

Christmas At Our House

I've been getting a lot of requests to see our Christmas trees. I'm not wild about Christmas tree photography, mainly because I just feel that photographs never do justice to the beauty of Christmas trees, but I've decided to give it a whirl and over the next few days I'll be sharing some pictures of some of our trees. 

Here are a few shots of our living room, where we have three trees. On the left is the tree with all of our annual stitched ornaments and on the right is Mr. Wonderful's pond hockey tree. If you'd like to see all the individual stitched ornaments, click on the Christmas Open House 2014 label on the right sidebar. The peppermint afghan on the couch was made for me by my mom.

In the background, the stitched ornament tree; in the foreground, the fox tree.

By day:

The stitched ornament tree:

The fox tree:

Later this week I'll post close-ups of some of the fox ornaments, and of Mr. Wonderful's tree.

Christmas Crafternoon: Stitcher's Necklace

Well stitchers, here we are. Friday already. I hope y'all have enjoyed the week, and I hope y'all are settled in because this is the Grand Finale of my Christmas Open House 2015 and it's gonna be looooong! 

Just like all of the other projects I've shared this week, this one isn't difficult, but it is a bit more involved and requires more stuff. And just like my other projects, this one can be adapted in so many ways... colors, themes, occasions, seasons, holidays.

I've had the idea in my head for at least a year, and finally got around to translating it into a real object. The concept behind the Stitcher's Necklace is an accessory that allows me to have my main tools attached to me so that I can move around, get up, etc. without having to find a place to put things where they won't go missing. Now for stitching at home in your favorite chair, this is probably not much of an issue. But when traveling--in a car, at a hotel, at a friend's house--or sitting at the hospital, or even at a stitcher's retreat, it's nice to be able to wear your scissors and stick your needle to yourself, safely! And if that accessory is cute, cute, CUTE... well, so much the better! Let's get started!

Stitcher's Necklace

What you'll need:

*beads
*spacers with relatively large holes (the silver things in the baggie in the pic below)
*beading nylon
*bead board (not absolutely necessary, but a big help)
*plastic floss bobbins
*felt
*measuring tape
*retractable badge reel (office supply store)

The first thing you need to do is unstring all your beads and design your necklace. Honestly, this is really the most time-consuming part of making this necklace. A bead board is very helpful for this step. Mine is just flocked plastic and was very inexpensive. 

The top part of the necklace is formed by a length of measuring tape with small holes punched in each end. I did this for a few reasons: 1) it's handy to have a measuring tape! 2) it makes the necklace lighter since it requires fewer beads, and 3) it also makes it a bit less expensive to make (again, fewer beads). If you keep a look out, you'll frequently be able to find beads on sale for half-price at any of the large craft store chains. I used a 12" length of measuring tape for my necklace, but you could certainly make yours longer if you like. I wouldn't go any shorter, though. It needs to slip comfortably over your head. Position a plastic floss bobbin just below the measuring tape on both sides. Make sure the spacer is at the bottom center of your necklace.

Once you have your necklace the way you want it, string the beads, making sure to leave plenty of nylon on both ends to work with. It's better to have too much than too little.

Cut a strip of felt about 3/4" wide, or to fit the bobbins you're using. Set aside.

Thread the nylon through the hole in the top of the bobbin. Making sure the nylon is centered on the bobbin, and making sure the bobbin is snug against the bead below it, secure the nylon on the back with a small piece of tape. This is just to hold the bobbin in place while you finish working with it.

Hot glue the strip of felt to the bobbin, wrap it around a couple of times, and hot glue the end of the felt to the back of the bobbin. 

With the excess nylon, make a little knot at the top of the bobbin. They should be nice and secure now. Add a couple of small beads above each bobbin. You'll need them when attaching the measuring tape.

To attach the measuring tape, thread the nylon up through the back of the measuring tape and out the front. Then thread the nylon down through the top bead, then down through the top bead again, and then down through the bottom bead. Tie off the nylon below the bottom bead, at the back of the bobbin.

The front should look something like this:

Attach the badge reel to the spacer at the bottom center of the necklace. You want to make sure when purchasing your spacers and your badge reel that the badge reel clasp will fit through the spacer. Also, you don't have to decorate the badge reel, but I just happened to find a snowflake charm that fit perfectly. Badge reels can be a bit pricey, so I designed the necklace so that if you make more than one necklace, you can transfer the badge reel from necklace to necklace. That would be a good reason not to decorate the badge reel, so that it will go with more than one necklace.

In this close-up, you can see how the clasp of the badge reel fits through the spacer, and can be easily removed from the necklace.

And here's the finished necklace!

***
For the last recipe of my Christmas Open House 2015, I'm sharing my Grandmother's recipe for pound cake, because it just wouldn't be Christmas without pound cake!

Pound Cake

3 c. sugar
1 c. butter
1/2 c. Crisco
5 eggs, beaten
3 c. flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 c. milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. lemon extract

Cream butter, Crisco, and sugar until sugar dissolves. Add beaten eggs and mix well. Sift flour with baking powder. Add flour and milk alternately to creamed mixture. Add flavorings. Spray pan with Baker's Joy. Place in a cold oven and heat to 325. Bake about 1 1/2 hours or until done.

***
Thanks for visiting my Open House! 

Tiger Lily, Mr. Wonderful and I all wish you a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!