Happy Day After Christmas

I haven't been online in several days except to check my email. I went to my Dad's for a few days and returned home today. I have a slightly updated picture of Christmas Elf Fairy from a couple of weeks ago (I'll post a picture soon), but have been working on my Fair and Square piece and can't post a picture of it (it would ruin the surprise).

This entry is going to be a long one, but hear goes. I was tagged on Dec 19th by Teresa, Sew Many Thoughts, to tell you 12 Christmas related things about myself. Sorry that I'm a little late Teresa, but here goes (let's see if I can come up with 12):

1) My favorite Christmas movie to watch is "Its A Wonderful Life".

2) For TV Christmas "cartoons", my favorite is "Santa Clause Is Coming to Town".

3) I play in the percussion section in a community band and we play at the Capital Building for my state for the lighting of the Christmas Tree every year. It's usually during the 1st week of December. The Governor and his wife (surrounded by children) turn on the lights on the tree on the capital grounds shortly before 6:30pm (being broadcast at end of 6pm evening news). I love playing this concert.

4) I don't have any children, but am "Aunt Christine" to my best friend's 3 children and have enjoyed buying something for them for Christmas for years (although her 2 boys are old enough now that they love getting cash).

5) When I was growing up, my parents would sometimes give a present in a sneaky way. By this I mean the present would not be wrapped and under the tree ... there might be a note to go look in the basement, or to go look in my Dad's work shop. One year when I was young (but old enough to remember), there was a something I wanted that was missing from under the tree on Christmas morning. My Dad said he heard a noise during the night and thought Santa had turned over the sleigh on the roof. We looked outside and found the present behind the azalea bush. I remember back and loved those little surprises.

6) I like to bake and usually will take baked goodies to work (cakes, cookies, whatever I have time to make).

7) A silly Christmas song I love hearing around Christmas time is the "12 Pains of Christmas". I like all kinds of Christmas music, but still laugh every time I hear the "12 Pains of Christmas".

8) The last couple of years, I get asked to help out with the "orchestra" for a Christmas contata at a church in a neighboring town. I will play various percussion parts. I always say yes when asked, as I like playing Christmas music and can't say no when asked to help out for church.

9) I love the pine smell of a live Christmas tree.

10) When my Grandparents and Great-grandparents were living, we used to have many huge family get togethers when I was growing up at Christmas time. On Christmas Eve, we had to go to both my Grandparents (my Dad's Mom's house and my Mom's parents house) where my Aunts and Uncles and cousins all gathered. Then sometime in the days after Christmas, a larger gathering of family would get together at 2 of my Great-Grandparents houses. These get togethers stopped after the Great-Grandparents and Grandparents passed. I miss those.

11) I always thought it would be cool to be part of a cookie exchange, but didn't know anyone that ever had one. My local cross stitch shop stays open late on Monday nights for stich night and last year (2006), I threw out the question about the Monday night stitchers having a cookie exchange. Everyone thought it sounded fun and most had also never been part of one. We had the cookie exchange on a Monday night about 2 weeks before Christmas and everyone loved it. We had our 2nd cookie exchange this year and hopefully we will continue to have them year after year.

12) My longest tradition for Christmas is that I always visit my parents for Christmas. I can't imagine a Christmas that doesn't include a trip to my home town.

Even though its after Christmas (again, sorry Teresa that I was late in responding), I'll tag 2 of my cross-stitching buddies: Ruth, The Musing Badger and Michele, Just Another Stitching Blog.

Happy Holidays to all.

I stitched and stitched this weekend.....

And I made great progress on Christmas Elf Fairy. Here's how she looks now:



She finally has a face. I'll probably work on her 1 more night (at Monday stitch night at LNS), then will put her aside and get to work on my Fair and Square piece.

I'd love to say I got lots of other things done this weekend, but I didn't. I did get laundry done on Saturday and made a batch of oatmeal cookies today. I ran a few errands yesterday. Other than that, I stitched.

Happy Saturday everyone...

I had a busy week at work this past week. Very glad that the weekend is here. It's a beautiful day today, a little chilly, but sunny and pretty. I'm stitching while getting laundry done. Here is progress picture on Christmas Elf Fairy.



I can't wait to get the fill-in on the wing done. :-)

I'll work on her another day or so, then will switch to working on my Fair and Square piece.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend.

Progress picture of Christmas Elf Fairy

Time to put the stitching down and think about going to bed. I worked on Mirabilia Christmas Elf Fairy tonight. Here's what she looks like tonight...

Some stitching finishes....

This past week was very busy and I've stayed pretty busy this weekend. I drove down to South Carolina Friday evening and attended a stitch-in Saturday. Even though life has been extremly busy the last couple of weeks, I have managed to find time to stitch.

I've finished 2 RR squares in the last week. I started stitching the following little fella week before last and finished him last Sunday:





And yesterday, I finished the following square:

I finished the red square above at the stitch-in yesterday. I then continued stitching on Mirabilia's Christmas Elf Fairy, stitching about 1/2 hour on her before I had to leave to head home. I plan to stitch more on Christmas Elf Fairy tonight. I'll post a progress picture later tonight.

Back to work tomorrow. Between a few Christmas related concerts I have coming up and invitations to other holiday concerts, and baking to start working on soon, the next few weeks (and weekends) are going to be BUSY. Ho-Ho-Ho!!!!

It's been weeks since I've posted....

Thanksgiving weekend was busier than I thought. I had to work the 2 day for the holiday, but work was fairly quiet, as expected. But, hey, I get to take 2 free days off to make up for "working" the holiday. Will check with folks schedules tomorrow to plan my 2 days off.

I have stitched a little over the last few days. I quickly stitched a piece for a RR. It was a small design and only took a few days to complete. I'll take a picture and post tomorrow.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.

Thought I'd share a picture

Busy week at work this week, and a busy weekend coming up. I haven't been able to pick up a needle to stitch since Monday night so Christmas Elf Fairy looks the same as the picture from earlier this week.
With the warmer than normal fall, the NC mountains are sill in peak Fall color. Thought I'd share a photo from the NC mountains, taken about a week ago:

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.

Here's what I'm working on.....

I started working on Mirabilia Christmas Elf Fairy a little over a week ago. Here's a progress pic as of tonight:

Relaxing weekend almost over....

Is it just me or does the "recovery period" from the PALS Fling at Myrtle Beach get a little longer each year. Or maybe we're just getting a little old for staying up till 3 in the morning. Why am I speculating this? It took me most of this past week to get over feeling tired.

This weekend has been a relaxing weekend. After getting home Friday after work, I goofed off on the computer for a while, then started stitching around 11pm. I stitched a while and didn't go to bed till after 2am, so....

I slept in Saturday morning. Read for a bit, then ran out to the LNS to pick up some threads that had come in. Attended a concert Saturday night and had a late night supper with my sweetie after the concert.

Sunday, went to get groceries and settled in for a relaxing afternoon. Got caught up on some emails and watched bits and pieces of football games (I'm in 2 Fantasy Football leagues currently). I started stitching Sunday afternoon and stitched until I stopped for supper, which I've just finished. I'm going to stitch another couple of hours before heading to bed.

What am I stitching? I'm working on Mirabilia Christmas Elf Fairy. I picked it up in Myrtle Beach and, even though I have several projects I should be stitching on, I started working on it last Sunday evening. I don't have my digital camera handy. I'll take a picture and post my progress tomorrow night.

Hello to the cross-stitching bloggers

It's been pointed out to me that I've been missing out on lots of cross-stitch fun from the cross-stitching bloggers out there. So, I've created my blog site. Now to post to a few of my buddies so they know where to find me.