Christmas Gifts

My good friend and I exchange stash goodies a few times a year and Christmas is one of those times. We decided to stitch a book mark, send a pattern, and a needleminder. Here is what I received:

Bertie's Stocking by Shepherds Bush

The Bookmark
I must say this is gorgeous! We also found it a little funny as she sent me one that says The End and the bookmark I sent her said Once Upon A Time so we had the beginning and end all covered.

Needleminder and a great smelling sachet pack.

I just love having a stitch friend to exchange with as they always know the perfect gift to give.

Weekly Stitching and Haul

I hope everyone had a great Christmas! I sure did, lots of time spent with family and eating good food. So, I have to know-what did you get?? Please comment below.
I only received one stitch gift, my mom said I put my request in too late, as she already had my gifts purchased. So, I am already planning to let her know much earlier next year!

I received the Autumn Sampler kit by Janlynn.

The last time I posted 272 Words, this is where I left off.

I was able to work on this piece quite a bit over the weekend and this is where it is now.

I started a new project yesterday. A friend gave me this in one of our exchanges and the colors are just beautiful. The linen is so soft and was just a joy to work on yesterday.

I am gearing up for new starts on January 1. I know that I will start the first Brookes Books Advent Animal ornament and possibly the Henry VIII kit, but I may change my mind before then. I can't wait to hear what you are starting.

Christmas Wish List

Only one more week until Christmas! I hope everyone is getting ready to spend some good time with family and friends and eat lots of goodies. I didn't stitch one bit this past week. I have been taking a medical coding course and I am determined to get it finished by the end of the year so I have been concentrating on that. So, I will be all ready to go January 1 with some new starts and plans for the Year of WIPS. I did want to post today as Monday is normally my update day. So, I was thinking, did you have stitchy items on your Christmas list? Last year was the first Christmas I gave a wish list of stitching items and I thought well why not? I would much rather have that than anything else. I would love to hear the items you have on your Christmas wish list. I have asked for any of the Janlynn Seasonal Kits, except Winter, as I already have that one.

Please share your wish list with me! If you don't have one, please tell me what your long sought after item is.

2017 Stitching

I have been looking over many SAL's and events that have been posted on facebook recently, that will take place in 2017. I have been trying to decide which ones to sign up for. I would love to know about the ones you are doing and perhaps it will give me others to choose from.

As of today, I am planning on these.

Year of Starts 2017-In this one, you start a new project on the 17th of each month. It is an event on the Stitch Maynia facebook group.

Year of WIPS-This event started in October and will end December 31, 2017. This event was set up by Melanie Watkins of Soulful Stitchers on Facebook. All of the participants picked a number of wips to get finished during this year. I chose 20 and I have finished one so far and pretty close on a couple of others. You can go to this post to see the wips I selected.

I am going to be stitching The Frosted Pumpkins year long SAL. I haven't purchased this yet but will before it starts.

I am going to be stitching the Clouds Factory year long SAL. I also haven't purchased this one yet but will before the start date.


A Canadian friend of mine is joining me in a SAL to stitch the Brooke's Books Advent Animals as ornaments. The patterns are FREE. Please join us!


A stitch friend of mine and I have decided to do a SAL with the Janlynn kit Seasons. Here is the winter kit on Amazon. A facebook group will be set up for this one.


The Stitch Maynia Facebook group has several monthly SAL's and I have decided to do the Color A Day SAL. The one is to stitch on a piece that has the color of each month's birthstone color. The piece for these are to be stitched on the 15th of each month.

I am in a Stitch from Stash group and they are hosting a Color Weekend each month where you stitch on the color of each month's birthstone color, so I will combine this with the Stitch Maynia SAL.

There are other SAL's for each month on the Soulful Stitchers group to include Nora Corbett SAL, Full Coverage SAL, Blackbird Designs SAL, and Northern Needlework Expressions, just to name a few. I will more than likely be participating in some of those as well as I do have wips in most of the categories.

I would love to hear about what SAL's or events you are participating in next year.

Weekly Stitching and Haul

This week I stitched on a bookmark that I will be giving as a gift but I will post that here after it has been received. The person it is going to, reads my blog, so I have to keep it a secret for now. I also continued working on 272 Words.

This is where I was at the last posting.

This is the progress made this week.

I only had one item of haul this week so I am combining it with this post. I received my November fabric of the month from Under the Sea Fabrics. It is called Aphrodite and I plan to use it to stitch Snapdragon by Mirabilia.

George Has Arrived!!

I had posted previously about this project and I had been eagerly anticipating getting started. Well, now it seems more real as my package arrived on Friday with my supplies. But just to refresh you, dear readers, I am participating in a large project of George Washington Crossing the Delaware. There are 112 stitchers that are each stitching a panel for the piece. Once all the panels are completed, they will be put together to make the largest cross stitch project stitched to date. It will be going to a museum and will be in the Guinness Book of World Records. We do not have our start date yet but it should be soon and we will each have five years to stitch the panel.

Wichelt donated the fabric and Sullivans donated thread, thread cards, needles, needle threaders, and a needle holder. Please support these businesses for their great generosity. I am posting pictures below of the supplies. The first picture is my portion of the pattern.

Stitch from Stash 2017

I have signed up with a group on facebook to attempt to Stitch from Stash in the first 6 months of the year. You can sign up for 6 months and then sign up again for the last 6 months of the year when the time comes. The purpose is to set a budget of under $30 a month to spend towards new stash and use the stash that you already have to stitch on. There are several rules for the group if you want to be entered in a giveaway at the end of the challenge. I have decided not to participate in the giveaway as I am only doing parts of the challenge in hopes of curbing my spending some and getting some of my stash completed.

I have decided on a budget of $25 a month for stash and to work diligently on finishing wips and ufos that I have at the moment. It is my hope that I will only need to buy thread in colors I run out of on the projects I am working on that are already started/in my stash. In the rules, any stash that you buy to gift to someone will count towards your budget. However, I am not going to use that rule for my monthly budget. I do a gift exchange with a stitch friend a few times a year and I just don't think that should count in my stash budget since it isn't stash for me that I will be using.

I would love to hear if you participate in any groups like this and how well you do at keeping on budget for buying stash.

Weekly Stitching

Hello everyone! I hope that you are all getting ready for Christmas and cooler weather. It has gotten quite cold here the past few days and I can't believe it is almost Christmas! I am way behind on gift buying this year and I haven't decorated at all. I didn't stitch much this past week so there isn't much to show. It was a rough week at work and when I got home each night, I relaxed and watched a bunch of videos on flosstube.


272 Words at the point I started this week.

272 Words at the point I stopped at last night.

I hope you all have a great stitchy week!