Goodness, it's been almost 2 months since I've updated my blog! Lots of crazy things going on the past couple of months - the biggest that my BF/fiance of 3+ years and I broke up...that's my big excuse & I'm sticking to it!
So I've been engaged in reading lots of self help classics & holing up, you know, the standard post-breakup fare.
Now I'm doing pretty well and stitching a bit more.
Saturday I went down to meet my sister & her guy in the city. Arriving home in the afternoon, it started raining and with the evening temperature drop there was about an inch of snow on the ground. This morning I woke to a beautiful blanket of snow! It was a nice last taste of winter.

By early afternoon the sun had come out and I got to watch dozens of birds hang out at the bird feeder while I stitched.

I finally got the chart for the last section of the Mystery Sampler from BBD, so I started working on that this week. Poor Beatrix Potter has been much neglected, but I did finish one big motif this month. The last pic is of a finished DT "Woodland Walk". As part of my recent re-decorating, I put up a wire curtain rod in the 2nd bedroom from which I can hang my stitched pieces and watercolors. It's kinda fun to see some of the finished things I haven't gotten around to framing!

I plugged away at the 3rd section of Blackbird Design's Mystery Bonus sampler, finishing it this morning. I learned something new about historical samplers when trying to figure out why there was no letter "J" charted on the sampler. Poking around the interwebs, I learned that prior to the mid 1700s, "U" and "J" weren't commonly used and were often left off of samplers. I thought that was kind of a cool explanation, so I modified the chart a little more and removed the "U", filling the space by making the "W" full size instead of over-one as charted.
Next up in my stitchy rotation is the Beatrix Potter sampler...so that will be fun to work on this week!

Last weekend I picked up a couple of frames that came in. After fiddling with the stretching, I got them both pretty straight. I never seem to notice some of the little bits that are off until I've finished putting everything together!







Bent Creek "All in a Row"



















Heart's Content - Splendor IX













Still plugging away on part 3 of the Mystery Sampler!

Oooh...lots of little Christmas gifts going out the door! Each year I resolve to get all the ornaments & goodies done months ahead of time & each year I end up throwing things together at the last minute in not-quite-the-way-I-imagined. Damn you, procrastination!!!

The first pic here is a little ornament and a loaf of YUMMY cranberry bread for one of my work friends.

Ornament from JBW's Advent Calendar

Fancy Work's Nature Sings from 2005 JCS Ornament issue

(Our tree makes me so happy. I just want to stare at it for hours)

JBW's Starry Night

Here's my bit of progress on the Mystery Sampler from Blackbird Designs. I'm partway through the 2nd section & I'm having a lot of fun with this one!

I pretty much went off my stash diet this past week - it all started when I saw the Blackbird Designs Mystery sampler & fell in love with it. So I now have parts 1-4 and the fabric (WDW "Straw) and threads to finish it. I wonder when they'll release the last part? As I went to pick up my needle, I noticed that the alphabet has no "I", I wonder if that's an oversight, or a common sampler thing I just don't know about. (c:

Since I was there...I might as well also get fabric & threads for the Beatrix Potter SAL that will start in January. I picked R&R Creme Brulee & WDW Lancaster Red to do that one with. I'm really looking forward to starting it.

Over the past week, I also worked on CDC, finally getting to the bottom right corner. And I did two of the JBW Advent calendar pieces, which I'm going to give away as ornies. I have a bow charm for the wreath, but can't find it right now!