Here are a couple updates on Needle Treasures' "Gentle St. Nick". The top picture is from a couple weeks ago, before I finished the snow covered pine tree on the right. The picture below shows the finished tree and the start of my backstitching. Starting from the top, I've been completing all the remaining stitches and backstitching my way down. I'm filling the snowflake spots with Kreinik cord - one of the opalescent whites. I still have some stitching on the bottom to complete; both trees continue to the lower part of the stocking. There's a motif with a bird and some holly in the "toe" of the stocking.
Drew thinks he's lovely (I do too), but in future stockings, I think I'll be careful to pick ones with less background stitching. It's been sort of tedious/boring and I've had a hard time motivating myself to finish this one. It's nearing the end though, and I can't wait until hes' made into a real stocking!
We had a really fun weekend - Drew and I made Thai curry on Friday night with squash, zucchini, and some shrimp in a coconut/cream sauce with green curry. Yum!
Saturday we just relaxed - stitching (me), napping, reading, and computer gaming. Have I mentioned that I'm addicted to The Sims? Sims3 is coming out next February and it looks like they're going to fix one of my major gripes about the game: once you're on a lot (like your Sim's house), it's a pain to go other places. It looks like the new game will be more realistic in having an open plan to walk around the neighborhood. Gee. I'm 31 and I'm playing dollhouse! This totally feeds my need to micromanage (c:

Anyway, on Sunday we drove up to Milwaukee to see Drew's sister J, her hubby P and their week old baby boy M. M is adorable and two year old A is an awesome older brother. Drew's boys were also there and it was fun to see all the grandkids in one place! They got a great picture of GreatGrandpa K with all 5 great-grands on the couch.

Made some more progress on the Christmas stocking for a special someone. I started this last fall and would like to finish it this summer so he's ready to go to his new home for the Holidays!

He's looking kind of creepy right now - He actually makes me think of the cover to a Rob Zombie album! Anyway, after the gobs and gobs of red are finished, there's lots of background to be stitched.

I've also made (some) progress on CDC - finished the first page, plus a bit to finish up the first big circle. I'm not sure what the best way is to progress - I'm using silks & I don't like to crush them with the Q-Snaps (scrolls would have been unweildy with this size piece). I'm trying to decide whether I should complete each vertical section, going left to right, or do the top strip all the way across, and come back for the bottom strip. Kind of like whether you nibble your corn typewriter style, or spin it while eating vertically. I sure don't have much to complain about - the news is full of floods, earthquakes and tornados and I'm concerned about whether to stitch across or down!