Let It Snow is finished.  I'll post a pic of it in the snowman basket soon.  

Deer Two By Two by Prarie Schooler was stitched over a couple of nights.  The pattern had a miselto sprig, which I swapped for a star and what looked like a cut off candy cane under the deer's feet.  That was swapped out for smyner eyelets. The next one is ready to go.  

Still stitching on Grey's wolves during the day.  Plus, adding one length of thread a day to the hand quilting.

Grey got his first vaccine yesterday.  I rode over to keep him company....and got in some extra knitting time in the parking deck while I waited for him.  Of course BEB waved her phone over him when he came back to check if he'd been injected with a booster wireless signal.  Haha!  She's also checked him for marks of the beast, a second head and whether he's getting undue attention from Alexa.

She's also looking for signs of DNA mutation and hasn't seen any yet. BEB has also told him he now has the mantle of designated survivor. 😉

In all seriousness, I'm relieved he's had it done.  I'm hunkering down at home even more than before.

 

Finished the stitching last night.  Next step is to make it into a pillow. 

Ordered a buffer from Harbour Freight.  It'll come sometime next week. BEB says it's too peopely out there to go in person.  All I have to do now is find out how to use it.

Every year I make Grey his favorite meal for his birthday....eggs Benedict.  Every year I say I'm going to start training for all the whisking in September! lol

He now has a favorite dessert....pavlova, which I also make on his birthday.  It started out as I had to do something with all those egg white!  Now, it's a birthday tradition.

 

Last night I started stitching a snowman and checking the weather report every few minutes.  Yes, it will snow.  No, it won't.  Etc, etc.

When the rain turned to sleet, I started rugging up and checking outside. Until the rattling stopped and I went outside....

.....to see my first Christmas snow!

Merry Christmas!

 

The fabric was quite dense on 6.5mm needles.  I started again with 8mm needles.  Swapped out the slip stitch honeycomb for mistake rib.  Now it's squishy.....just as I envisioned it.  Made the stripes narrower, too.  Seven rows instead of twelve.  

I found out how well the ends are weaved in when I started frogging.  That's just taking a bit of patience and my smallest knitting needle.  Everything is being reknit from the originals or they'd never be frogged.  😊

My hand quilting skills have cobwebs on them.  Started off with a sharp, as I had no idea where my hand quilting needles and I had to start stitching right then!  lol Found them the next day in a box with a thimble, needle threader, scissors, tiny pin cushion and bees wax.  I'm sure at the time it made perfect sense to put the box in that cupboard.  lol

The thread blends in nicely.  It's Gutterman CA02776 from stash.  Years ago, Spotlight (Aussie big box store) were selling baggies of twelve Gutterman thread for $4 in different colors and I snagged a few, so I'm thinking it may have come from there.

I'm quilting it in hand (one length of thread a day), as I don't have a quilting hoop atm.  I do have an eye on one from Missouri Quilt Co. for sometime in the future, if I decide to keep hand quilting.

Spent a lot of time stitching, frogging and restitching.  The whole stitches are almost finished.  There's just over four hours left on Pride and Prejudice audiobook.  Fingers crossed it'll be enough.

Did you see the Great Conjunction?  It was cloudy here, so we couldn't see it on Monday night.  I did see a meteorite, which I was happy about.  I just happened to look up at the right time. It's too cold to sit outside for hours watching the sky.  

I have an app on my phone called Skyview Free, which I use most nights to look for planets and constellations.  I can usually spot Mars and Orion without it now.  I'd been watching Jupiter and Saturn over the last week or so.  

The app is a great help, as things that look like they should be constellations are not! lol The only gripe I have with it is, as usual, it is made for right handed people.  The star "names" are in the bottom left corner of the phone, which is a bit annoying and awkward.

Merry Solstice and  blessed Yule. 

These three are going to their forever homes tomorrow.

The photos just don't do them justice....

but they're better than yesterday's! lol

 

These were fun to make.  Mind you, I was heating, not twisting them!  It's hard to get a good pic when it's overcast, even with lights on.  Not complaining about the weather, though.  A bit of freezing rain in the morning and "ordinary" rain on and off all day led to a picturesque foggy view through the leafless trees this morning.  There's a chance of snow for Christmas Day.  I'm so stinking excited!  lol

The bags are done.  I like them and so does Grey.   I think we are finished making ornaments now. Grey found a tin of Johnson paste wax, which I used on the last of the snowflakes.  I'll be using that from now on, instead of boiled linseed oil.  No more smoking gloves and burnt fingers! lol

This Prairie Schooler was my motivation to get everything finished today.   It's the first 2021 Halloween ornament, not one that was too late for this year.  lol 

All four sides were sewn up, a stuffing hole was cut in the back, stitched up and an appliqué leaf was added.  It'll be tucked away until next Halloween.  I have about another 6 ornament size aida scraps, so the hunt will be on for some more witchy patterns.  If I can't find any, I'll pull out the graph paper and design some.  

 

40 something knitted Christmas balls on the tree from the book 55 Christmas Balls by Arne and Carlos.  I wasn't holding a clandestine disco.  The lights on the tree gave a nice atmospheric glow with the overhead light off.

Bringing out the big guns as I work out the best way to seam the pieces together.  There will be a bit of swatching and experimenting before finishing.

I thought there would be some sewing to show tonight, but it was so ugly, BEB tossed it in the bin, then threw rubbish on top of it, so there was no going back.  (She was living up to her name....Bitchy Exasperated Broad)  It was an attempt at teeny draw string bags for Christmas gifts Grey is giving to the people on his shift at work.  I'll try something else tomorrow.  They work their arses off for him, so BEB has decided they are sew worthy. 😉  

 

Rip it!  Rip it good!  Picked up the ripped stitches on a long 4mm circular, then transferred them to the 6.5mm needle.  It was quicker fiddle faddling about switching out needles and tips than tinking each individual stitch.  Very tempted to knit on this all day, as it's soft, squishy and fast to knit.  Buuuutttt......

This will be my main focus this week.  There's a lot of color changes in this last part, so it's slow.  After that's finished, it will go fairly quickly as it's tent and back stitching.  The Queen of the Last Minute crown is still sitting firmly on my head.  lol

I'm a sucker for a sheep in a Santa hat. 

 

Chatting with a friend a couple of nights ago about scrap quilts reminded me of this book.  It was published in 1985 and it's written in a very different style than they are now.  It's much more succinct, which I like.

This little cutie caught my eye.  The background will be all one color and there WILL be a border.  I only use borders if they add something to a quilt and don't look stuck on just to make it larger.  I like the way this one frames the flowers, but it may end up a little narrower.

After a bit of a rummage in the stash, I came up with this combo.  The red is a bit darker and the green is a bit lighter.  They're both fossil fern.

The background color is more like a light, creamy coffee color than how it looks in either pic.  Neutrals, along with fossil fern are my favorite fabrics. 

This ornament has been restuffed.  It looks "right" now.  The pattern is Snow Birds by Country Cottage Needleworks.  It was stitched on 14 count aida that I dyed.  

This is where I stitched up the gap.  It's in ladder stitch, which takes longer and is more fiddly than whip stitch, but lies flatter.  

This one looks better, too. 

Last night I watched a modern version of A Christmas Carol.  It wasn't bad....good enough to not notice I didn't swap the knitting needles to a larger size on the body.  I eventually noticed after nearly 600 stitches that the fabric was stiff.   Looks like some tinking is in my immediate future!

It was much more fun to start the center of my first crochet flower that's not for practice than fix a knitting project.

 

Another little finish.  The fabric reminds me of swirling winter winds.

These little clips came in handy yesterday.  I wasn't sure if the sleeve on my worsted jumper would fit, so I clipped I used them to temporarily join the seam....and it does!  The length is just right, too.  Now I can finish the other one.  The back is started, so it's well on the way.

I've just finished listening to it on Audible.  Tim Curry was the narrator and I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Earlier today, Jenny and I found a patch of sunlight out on the back porch.  I was feeling rather toasty unpicking the seam on this ornament.  It needs a bit of extra stuffing and the machine sewn seam is going to be replaced with ladder stitch.  It's a bit fiddly, but gives a nicer seam.  It'll only take a few minutes to do and is totally worth it, as the machine seam was bugging me.  lol I've always sewn the ornament seams by hand.  This one was an experiment to see which method I preferred.  Now I know. 🙂

Progress on Yuletide.   I'd like to have it out for the 21st (start of Yule), so I need to get a wriggle on.  It may be small, but it will never be finished if I don't stitch on it!

I drank the Lion Brand mill end Kool-aid last Monday morning.  It was about 5am and I was delirious as I hadn't slept all night. (That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it lol)  I'm getting ready to run out of practice crochet yarn and 

I'd like to make a small version of Arne and Carlos' Primrose blanket.  

Something in here caught my eye and the fabric has been pulled from stash.  More soon. 😉

 

The pic is a bit gloomy, but you'll get the idea!  I made this six years ago.  It was the first quilt I made in the US after a visit to a quilt store in Charlotte.  I swap out winter, spring/summer and fall.  Grey designed and made the hanger.  It's all made of copper and I love it.  It hangs in my craft room.

There's 53 tiny snowflake buttons on it, instead of quilting. 

This one is by Laundry Basket Quilts and comes out each year for winter/Christmas.  I made it a million years ago in Australia for summer/Christmas.

I've been putting off cleaning my sewing machine this week, but I've had it on good authority that I just need to get it done!  lol. I'm in a finishing mood, so it will be cleaned today, as there's another mini that just needs a binding and sleeve.

There's a few tins for notions that just need a bit of sanding and modge podge to seal them and another cross stitch piece to put on a canvas board.  

Those will be my focus projects for the weekend, along with Grey's wolves cross stitch.  That's at a fiddly section, but the whole stitches are almost finished.  Another two weeks should see that completed.

Decided to add a border on Winter is for the Birds.  It's a no brainer, so that's being stitched for five minutes here and there and will be finished sometime this weekend.

This is the (partially cut out) pattern for a metal Christmas ornament I drew that Grey's making for a customer.  When he showed me the pic the customer wanted it based on, I was (almost) speechless.  

A few years ago, I designedand Grey made a stained glass window based on a tattoo.  I thought that was a little weird, but this one takes the cake!

Four more of these to go.  This time with names on the back.  I'm looking forward to getting a buffing machine, before the end of next year.  It'll get a nice high buff that would take hours to get by hand. We're not having a table at the Christmas Market this year, which means I'll have my hand in at using the buffing machine by the time we start for next year's.  

A few hours later......This is the third pice that will go on a canvas board.  It needs a border to finish it off..  I don't like the one in the pattern, so I'm swapping it out for Montengrin stitch in this book..  Mountmellick Thorn caught my eye originally, but it's too ornate.

I've started making notes for ideas to make a band sampler.  I've got tons of different alphabets in books, patterns and a cd.  They'll be separated by lines of embroidery.  They'll be drawn up on graph paper, separated and switched around or discarded.  It's going to be a slow stitching project, which will be fun.

A few more hours later....I didn't get the job.  I'm a bit disappointed, but I'll live!  lol  Something else will come up.

It's finishing time.

Iron on tape worked better than glue to make the fabric taut.  I cut a wood scrap made the stand. (The groove was already in it.)

The aida and red fabric were also scraps.