Blessed New Year

Where did the year go? It seems that I just turned around and the whole year is gone.

So good bye to 2017 and hello to 2018.

I'm going to try and work on me this coming year, more exercise, getting organized, blogging more, start stitching, crafting and sewing. The hubs already has quite a few camping trips and day trips planned for 2018 starting after the snow melts, so that will help with the blogging part..

To give myself a little stitchin' motivation I've joined Heather over at Stitching Lotus 

for her Smalls SAL 2018. You can click on the highlighted link or on the Smalls SAL 2018 on my sidebar. Maybe I can at least get a few Christmas ornaments stitched up for the Christmas tree. 

We got just about a foot of snow out of this last storm and with single digits for the highs and below zero for the lows we had a couple of unwilling vehicles yesterday. The cold drained the battery on our Jeep so it needed the charger and our Dodge needed the charger and a jump start helper from the Jeep to get it running. Now our Jeep has an electric battery blanket and the Dodge has a block heater and an oil pan heater. They both started like champs this morning. 

According to the news it's supposed to get back up into the 20's and 30's in the coming days, I sure hope so. 

That's it for today, so until 2018.......

Wishing all of you a Blessed New Year. May it be filled with all that you want and more.

Hugs, Sandy

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas & Happy Holiday's.

May your day be filled with wonderful memories, Love & Laughter.

Hugs, Sandy & Robert

Celebrating the Winter Solstice

Today is the Winter Solstice also known as the first day of Winter, so in celebration I'm sharing a winter themed chart.

The colors I used are:

Heart - DMC 803 also first backstitched border

1 - DMC 334 second backstitched border

0 - DMC 3756 third backstitched border

Dot - DMC 3865 and backstitched snowflakes

The gray dots can be either French or Colonial Knots or Petite Seed Beads

Stitched size is 4" x 4"

Two strands of floss used.

Hope you all enjoy the chart, and as always if you happen to stitch one of my designs I would love to see a picture.

Take Care & Happy Winter Solstice

Hugs, Sandy

Stitchin' Gift for You

I haven't been in the designing mood here lately, but last night and then this afternoon I started and finished a little Christmas ornament design for all my stitchin' followers.

It is done in: 

DMC 498 for the heart symbol and lettering

DMC B5200 or white for the dot symbol

51 x 53 or about 3-3/4" x 3-3/4" (3.68 x 3.72) on 14/28 ct.

Stitched with two strands of floss.

Do Not Stitch the black line ;}

I included the numbers in case anyone wanted to add a wedding date or birth date in place of Christmas. 

Hope you all enjoy stitchin' this little ornament and if you do stitch it up I would love to see a picture.

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays

Hugs, Sandy

A Little Bit of Christmas at the Cabin

There is snow on the ground again and it looks like it may be sticking around till Christmas.

I finally got around to adding a bit of Christmas to the Cabin. 

 A simple artificial pine wreath with pine cones from my yard and a red wire edged ribbon. The ribbon can be cross stitched on as it has a weave that is close to 14 count. I got it at Walmart about 5 years back I think, when it was on clearance. Simple rustic country.

This is Bart he sits next to our front door, I thought he could use a little Christmas cheer, so I went through my craft stash and fired up the glue gun. Small straw wreath and some green tartan ribbon from a thrift store and some pine cones from a neighbor's yard held on by some jute twine that I always have in the craft room. He needs another coat of linseed oil this summer.

These are our Rustic Santa's on the bottom mantle of our fire place and one of our Angles. On the top mantle are two Santa's from my mother-in-law.

Mountain Man Santa had an empty hand and I had three different rifle style lighters that no longer worked, I sent pictures of him holding each one to the Hubs and he choose the Double Barrel Shotgun. Very suitable for the Mountain Man Santa that he is.

This is the very first Santa that we picked out in 1998, we drove to several stores in Billings just to find a Santa, not many stores had them or they were the cheap mass produced one's.

This is our second Angel. She has feathered wings.

Santa of the Forest,

we love this piece and keep him up all year long. He won First Place at the Montana State Fair in 2006.

Santa with a sack full of toys, stitched in 2004, so many 1/4 stitches I almost gave up on more than one occasion.

And last but not least is my Nativity Set, although I'm not a church going type I do carry on this one family tradition from my childhood. 

There is one of my stitched mini pillows from a couple years ago and a rustic fabric tree I'm working on, I still have two more to make in different sizes. More rustic country for the cabin.

That's all I have out for this year, didn't have room for the tree but hope to have things sorted and moved around by next December so I can put the tree up once again.

Merry Christmas Everyone

may the day be filled with Love, Joy & Blessing for you and your families.

Hugs, Sandy