Gifted Gorgeousness - January

This is a SAL where you post stitching that involves floss, fabric, charts, etc. that you've been given and/or items you're making as gifts for someone else. Check out Jo's Blog  for more information and to see what others have stitched this month.

I have two items that qualify this month.  The first is the Furry Tales square I stitched earlier this month.  This square will be added to 11 other themed squares and sent to WOCS to be made into a quilt, probably for a child.

My second item is Let's Learn From Our Cats which will be a gift when completed.  It's shown after 10 hours of stitching.

WIPacolypse - Introduction

The WIPacolypse SAL is  meant to help you finish all your WIPs before the end of the world.  Check out Measi's Blog to get more information and/or see other stitchers' posts.  For this post, we're supposed to introduce ourselves and share our goals for the year.

My name is Cathy and I'm married to David.  We are both retired and live about a mile from the Happiest Place on Earth. We have a daughter (Janice), a son-in-law (Devin) and the best granddaughter ever (Kyleigh).  Since I have out-of-state family that follow my blog, you'll definitely hear more about them in future posts.

My primary hobby is cross stitching, but I also enjoy reading, mostly mysteries and Amish fiction.  We also enjoy traveling in our motorhome, but haven't done much recently.  I've been cross stitching for about 60 years and do a lot of stitching for charity groups.

My goals for this year are:

1) Stitch Deer Scene from Dimensions.  This is for the BJD Year Long SAL on Cross Stitch Frogbusters.  It will be a new start that has to be started by March 15th.

2)  Finish Let's Learn From Our Cat by Ursula Michael. This is where it is as of the first of the year.  It was a new start in December and is not quite 1/4 done.

3) Finish Big Trees.  Again, this is where it was at the first of the year.  I haven't quite reached the bottom of the chart, but it is about 1/2 done.

4) Finish the Advent Animals by Brooke's Books.  I only have five left to stitch and hope to do one a month or at least one every other month.  #18 is done, but not shown in the picture below.

5)  Finish Tinkerbell - Spring Blossoms.  This one is almost 3/4 done and has been a WIP for so long, I don't remember when I started it.

6) Finish Leslie Teare's Owl SAL.  I have five months left to do and again hope to complete one a month or at least every other month.  Sorry, no pictures, because I only have the charts.

7) Complete the Peppermint Purple Year Long Blackwork SAL on Facebook.  There will be 52 squares on this project with a new square coming out each Wednesday.

8) Complete the 2020 Stitcher's Challenge on Q4OC (Quilts for Older Children and Adults).  There are three squares to be completed for this challenge.  I was given:  Aladdin & Jasmine (Royalty),  Picachu (Pokemon) and various sea creatures.  If I complete and mail them all by 12/1/2020, I will receive a packet of 12 floss.  (No pictures because I only have the charts)

In addition to these, I'll be stitching smaller pieces for Christmas ornaments, Charity Quilts and Kyleigh's quilt which still needs a few more squares.

I'm really hoping to be better motivated and not go into months long slumps like I did last year.

Happy Dance - St. Nicholas

Started: 1/4/2020

Finished: 1/11/2020

This is St. Nicholas, a Mill Hill Charmed Faces Santa from several years ago.  It's stitched as charted with the provided materials.  The only exception is that I used two strands of floss for the cross  stitch instead of the three called for.  I also left off the charm since it seemed to have enough bling without it. This is finish #2 for the year and took approximately 9 1/2 hours to stitch.

 

I've noticed that his hat isn't on straight, but it's stuck on pretty tight, so I figure no one will notice once it's on my tree.    It's also fully finished, but I'll save that picture for the Fully Finished Gallery SAL next month.

Next Up: Moose Joy (2019 JCS Ornament Issue by Angel Stitchin)

Peppermint Purple SAL - Week 2

The chart for Week 2 of the Peppermint Purple Year Long Blackwork SAL on Facebook came out on Wednesday, January 8th and I went ahead and stitched it immediately.  The hardest thing about this SAL is figuring out which colors to use.  I'm seriously considering frogging Week 2 and just using one color throughout.  Any opinions?

Week 2's block is stitched using DMC Variations #4190 and took about 1 1/2 hours to stitch since there was some frogging involved.

Here are the two squares together:

Happy Birthday to Me

January 6th was my 70th birthday.  My husband took me to breakfast at a favorite restaurant and then we met Devin, Janice and Kyleigh for dinner at Olive Garden.

Kyleigh handed me a balloon filled with helium that said "Happy Birthday" on it, so the restaurant knew we were celebrating a birthday; they just didn't know we were celebrating two (both mine and Devin's).

They brought us each a dessert and sang "Happy Birthday".  I'd forgotten my phone so I asked Janice to take a picture of it.

After the picture was taken, Janice had Devin and I switch desserts, since this was raspberry cheesecake and his was chocolate mousse.  She knew I'd prefer the chocolate!  BTW, Kyleigh ate the Happy Birthday.

I didn't receive anything stitching related for Christmas, but I did get two gift cards for my birthday.  One was from Jo Ann's and the other from 123Stitch so I see shopping in my future.

Middle School Mission Trip to Mesa, AZ

Elevate, the youth group for 6th, 7th and 8th graders at our church is emphasizing service to others this year.  So far, they've served a meal at Mary's Kitchen, packed Boxes of Love with supplies for Thanksgiving meals and went caroling to several of the older members' homes at Christmas Time among other things. On the 2nd thru 5th of this month, Janice and Kyleigh went along on their first mission trip.

This is what their leader posted on Facebook when they returned.

Amazing weekend taking 36 middle school students and 15 adults to Mesa, AZ to do a serving weekend. It was truly a ministry highlight. On Friday, my city kids did fantastic working at the barn at Sunshine Acres Children's Home cleaning up after animals and moving hay. We took a tour of this amazing 120 acre property with 7 homes, which house 70 children who might otherwise not have a home. Saturday morning they worked in thrift shops and visited nursing homes. Saturday afternoon was fun exploring Goldfield Ghost Town panning for gold, zip-lining and touring the mine tunnel. Our last service project was a personal favorite, packaging food at Feed My Starving Children. Thanks to my good friend Celeste Koski at St. Luke Lutheran church for helping make this dream a reality and for housing us. Praise God we arrived home today tired but fulfilled.

The Whole Group Getting Ready to Leave

The 6th Grade Van - Kyleigh's in the back

Sorting Incoming Items at a Thrift Shop

More at the Thrift Shop

The Group at the Nursing Home

At Goldfield Ghost Town

More at the Ghost Town

Packing Food for Feed My Starving Children

Both Janice and Kyleigh came home exhausted, but both had fun.  Janice said there's another trip being planned for 2022 and Kyleigh's already said she'll go.

A Finished Quilt and a New SAL

I've posted before that some of my stitching goes to charity stitching groups to be made into quilts.  I stitched this little dog for a SAL with Quilts for Older Children and Adults  (Q4OC).

I thought you might like to see the quilt is was used on.

Bottom portion showing my square

The whole quilt

I've also joined a new SAL from Peppermint Purple on Facebook.  It's a 52-part blackwork SAL that comes out every Wednesday and can be found here.

This is the first part.  The SAL will be done on 14-count white Aida and this part is done in DMC Variations 4022.  I originally intended to do it all in this color, but now I'm thinking of doing each block in a different DMC Variations or maybe alternating several colors.