What a week. ER Visit and Christmastide update!

Boy oh boy. What a week it's been. First the stitching update. This was accomplished between last post and this past Wed evening around 5pm.

After that, my world went a bit sideways! Seems my gallbladder picked Wednesday night to tell me it was done. The pain was terrible. I thought initially it was heartburn, but 12 hours of immense, non-stop pain meant otherwise.

One trip to the E.R. coming right up! I arrived around 5:30 a.m. and by 3pm was in surgery to remove the pesky organ. Yeah, that was a loooooong time to wait with pain and adverse reactions to pain meds, etc.

Long story short, I'm home and eager to finish up this project, so I may put in a few stitches (no pun intended!) tonight and for sure tomorrow too.

I hope none of your week was as eventful as mine. And I hope to not have this happen again anytime soon. Last surgery I had prior to this was 2006. I had a good run, lol.

Have a great stitchy week! Until next time,

Christmastide update!

The only snowflakes here are the ones I'm stitching myself. I cannot believe we've had ZERO snow. There was ONE day where it snowed for an entire morning, but the ground was so warm it just melted right away. That's it for this year I think.
I'm stitching snow, even though I'm longing for Spring weather and all the cute Spring stitching stuff I'm seeing for Market previews!

Here's my update!

Moving on down the pattern and enjoying it all. The reindeer are so much fun to stitch! I'm going to make one of them a reddish brown, which I saw someone else do.

Have you seen Knives Out? Mom and I saw it recently. We were lucky it was still in the theater. It was great! I heard they are coming out with a sequel. I'll have to catch that one too.

I hope everyone is having a good stitching weekend! I spent a good portion of the day today cleaning out my office bookcases and getting rid of some books that were just weighing me down and taking up space. I had read them once, liked them, but now what? Time to unload! Ever heard of Swedish Death Cleaning? I'm not quite there, but it sounds good. No one is gonna want my stuff when I'm gone!

Except the stitching stuff. I'm taking that with me.

Until next time,

Pretty crochet heart finish!

That pattern did NOT best me! I worked and worked and found that trying to do it all in just one color was the problem for me, at least initially. I made one for all the important ladies in my life, but forgot to snap a pic of the one I made for my mom, which was white and teal colors. So pretty!

Once you get going, it doesn't take long at all! I made several in quick succession.

My husband surprised me this morning with several items from my Amazon wish list. Among them, was a Scotch tape gun, and a point gun for framing! I ordered a frame recently from Hobby Lobby with the intention of doing everything myself. So we will see how that goes! Practice makes perfect I think and I hate to give up on something (even though I do it sometimes, lol).

I'll be sure to show my results and process on that. I'm never quite satisfied with what I get back from a framer. However, I never had a problem with the results from In Stitches, in Alexandria VA. They do a lovely job. But wow, is it expensive. Fantastic quality however.

I'm working on Christmastide this weekend, so hopefully have a good progress update soon!

I hope everyone has a lovely Valentine's Day!

Stitchy Update and Pretty Pink Crochet Heart

I was pleased to get just a tiny bit of stitching done on Christmastide. It was enough to make me realize I DO want to continue with it. Sometimes I get an itch to just abandon a project, and I did with this one too, but I have persevered!

Doesn't look like a lot, but those swirls gave me a fit. You gotta think about where to put the stitches, or just do half the stitch, so you can circle back and complete them. Can't wait to get this top done and move on to those cute little reindeer and house!

I also wanted to crochet something pretty for Valentine's Day. I started a pattern called Grandma's Heart, which you can find HERE.

I gotta tell you, this has confused me SO much. I don't think I'll be able to finish it based on my current level of confusion, but I thought the beginning of it was super cute!  If you happen to try it, I wish you luck, and maybe you could let me know what you think of the actual written pattern, and what I may be missing. I'm a pretty experienced crocheter, but this one may have bested me. I'm not giving up/in just yet. But I'm close. :)

This week is Valentine's Day, and I hope everyone has a good one-even if it's just by yourself. Sometimes, these holidays can make a person feel very lonely. But grab a friend and have a "Galentine's Day" lunch or take yourself to a movie!  By the way, my mom and I went to see Knives Out last week and I HIGHLY recommend! We loved it!

Until next time,

Crochet Baby Hat

I made a list of goals for this year, and I am knocking them out, which surprises me! I went to a sweet little holiday craft market in early December with my mom, and I may want to have a table of my own this year, so I am doing a bit of crocheting in preparation. I made a couple more little tiny baby hats and here is one of them!

Crocheting is so much fun. Something about working with a snuggly or pretty and soft yarn. And at the end I'm like "WOW! I really made that!"  I feel the same way about cross stitch to a different extent, but yes, the same.

Hard to believe January is nearly over, isn't it? I haven't been feeling too swift this month, but I think it was a couple colds just making me miserable. The weather has been just unseasonably warm and I don't think that helps things either.

Be back soon with a Christmastide update. I hope everyone is getting some stitching done!

Drive by update!

Slowpoke update! Work has been crazy busy and there have been doc and dentist appointments, so this is it so far.

I did indeed pull the "t" out and am doing it again. But otherwise, I am on to the next snowflake, which shouldn't take long, if I actually put the time in!

Not much else happening in craft land here. Catching up on some shows and trying to fit in time to go to a movie soon. I have Monday off from work so I'll probably spend a good part of the weekend stitching or something else crafty related.

I hope you all are making more progress than me with your stitching! Have a wonderful weekend, and until next time,

Christmas Catch Up and a Pitiful Pineberry Lane Christmastide update

Here's my SUPER SLOW update on Christmastide. This will be so pretty when it's done. I've switched up the colors already, to go with the gray fabric, and when I'm done, I will make note of those conversions for anyone who might be interested.

The actual fabric color seems to have a bit more blue to it, but I can't get it to read very well with a phone camera. I love my phone camera, but I think we lose something in the translation. I might experiment with going back to my old Nikon for a while.

My kiddos bought me some stash for Christmas! Actually it was my son's sweet girlfriend. She asked about my wish list and I sent it to her and received these lovlies.

Are you kidding me with this sunflower design??!!  My goodness. That is such a happy, warm, sunshiney design I can't stand it. It's just the cutest thing. And the hearts on the chimneys?! Love.

Anyone else have holiday burnout? I enjoyed it, but I'm feeling less friendly towards Christmas every year. So much pressure to buy, buy, buy. We were lucky enough to have the whole family come over for dinner and exchange gifts. It was really nice. I'm sure everyone went home and slept well! As nice as it was, there is something great about getting back to a regular routine, isn't there?

This is one of those gifts that was really meaningful. I ordered this for my mom. It's my grandmother's (her mom's) recipe for a Lady Goldenglow cake. It turned out better than I expected. Gotta love Etsy. I am going to get one for myself also at some point this year.

I made the Flourless Chocolate Cloud Cake for Christmas dessert. It was gone in about 5 minutes. If you haven't tried it, make it this year. You will not be disappointed!

Three days after Christmas, we celebrated my husband's birthday. We went out to our local restaurant with my in-laws and the kiddos and had a nice dinner. The kids bought him a gourmet Oreo cake, for which I was very thankful. They really are sweet and thoughtful.

Overall, good holiday season, but glad to be back to "normal", whatever that is!

I hope everyone gets off to a good start and you crush all your goals, crafty ones and otherwise!

Back soon with a hopefully less pitiful update on my Pineberry Lane wip!  Until then,

Happy New Year!

A Happy New Year! Grant that I May bring

no tear to any eye When this 

New Year in time shall end Let it be 

said I've played the friend, Have

lived and loved and labored here,

And made of it a happy year.

  

--Edgar Guest--

See you next year! Until then,

Christmastide update, Stash and Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. Hard for me to believe that Christmas is next week. I've tried really hard not to stress. It's not working real well. Well, I dyed another piece of fabric because I wasn't pleased with how little the snowflakes were showing up. I changed the color to regular DMC white instead of the cream color that the pattern called for. I think it looks better.

OK, there is NO pink in the middle of the fabric above. I have no idea why phone camera photos show up like that. It's very annoying!

This is a much prettier gray color. I'm definitely continuing on with this piece.

Some stash that has come in recently from one of my facebook groups. I really gotta get a handle on this, lol. I think I bought Prairie Flowers twice recently. Wouldn't be the first time!

I just LOVE all these patterns so much. I don't think I'll live long enough to stitch them all, but whatever.

Thanksgiving was good. It was nice to have my home filled with family and friends. We all had a good time and everything turned out perfectly, if I do say so myself. My husband helps with a good deal and considers himself the sous chef. I can't argue with that.

I pulled out some of the vintage Pyrex my husband bought me last Christmas. Oh how I love that set. I look forward to collecting more as time goes on.
Have a great day and thanks for popping in. Until next time,

Pineberry Lane Christmastide progress and photo wall update

I changed over to aida. Story of my life these days. I liked the linen, but wondered how in the world I was gonna count up and over that many. Oy. Not sure I'm liking it all that much, but I'm going to continue a bit more and see how it goes.

The dye left little blots of dark color around in a few random places, but it makes it look old, so that's ok! I love the snowflakes-so pretty.

I ordered prints (I had too many to choose from) and we finally got the photo wall up. I'm pleased. I really hated that big blank wall for the past couple years. This was just what needed to be there!

The next couple of days will be spent trying to figure out what is left for me to get for Thanksgiving dinner and hopefully be able to get it! I've been reading about brining the turkey. Anyone have any advice on that matter? It seems to come out fine just the way I cook it, but apparently soaking it in brine for a day and then letting it rest for 30 mins to an hour after cooking is THE thing to do. I don't ever remember my gran doing that, or my mom for that matter.

Gimme your best turkey hints, if you got 'em!

May you all have a wonderful holiday with your families and those you love. Hang on to them. And tell them. We never know what life will bring us at any time. So if you are healthy and have those you love around you, then you definitely have things to be thankful for. I know I do.

Until next time,

New Pineberry Lane Start and Anniversary

Looks likeNovember is well underway and Thanksgiving will be here before you know it, right? UGH. Why do the holidays have to fly by?

This year, I have committed to slowing down, buying less for Christmas, and enjoying the holidays instead of stressing the holidays. Who is with me? I want to bake, leisurely drive around to look at pretty lights, do some holiday crafting, and baking, and read. I'm hosting Thanksgiving and Christmas and I just need to remove the stress of buying.

Part of that is going to be continuing to stitch and crochet! My new start is Pineberry Lane's Christmastide! I love the name, and I love the colors. I picked up a piece of Zweigart white linen in 32 count at Hobby Lobby today and brought it home and dyed it. I didn't want it quite as dark as the Rook that the designer used, but it's still in the same family, just a bit lighter. It's showing a bit more brown that it is here--it is a gray.

I saw a stitcher with another blog do one of the reindeer in red and I thought it was SO adorable. I might have to copy that idea! I just wanted something wintery and Christmasy to work on while the weather is cold and the holidays are looming. This really does the trick for me!

I'm using the DMC floss instead of The Gentle Art ones, mostly because I am impatient and didn't want to wait for them to ship! And if I could stomach the weekend traffic, I'd go the 1+ hours drive to my nearest cross stitch shop, but not on this Veteran's Day weekend. No way!

We celebrated our THIRTY THIRD wedding anniversary yesterday! I cannot believe it's been so many years. You know, I really am living the life I wished for early on in my life. We just enjoy our daily lives. Nothing super special, just relaxed pace of life most of the time and our home is filled with love. What more could a person want? We've been fortunate, for the most part, and I'm grateful to go through life with someone who takes care of us like my husband does. He also takes care of his parents and my mom and sets a great example for our son. Again, what more could a person want?

Wherever you are, from wherever you are reading this, I hope your weekend is wonderful! All the important men in my life (except my hubby!), have been veterans.

See you soon with some progress on this and maybe a finished pocket on the Oct 31 in the previous post! We'll see how adventurous I get this week and how busy work is!

Until next time,