Our December

Winter skies and healing bodies; decorating, music lessons, and a birthday; cozy fires; fog and rain and snow; Christmas shows and lights; a candlelight service and celebrating with cousins... it has been a lovely, full month.

We are now almost giddy at the end of every day as we notice the lengthening hours of sunlight.

I'm caught up now on the long backlog of photos to share with you. December is a dark month, so it wasn't too hard to narrow down the photos that were the least grainy, and get them all fit into one post. I hope you have all had a wonderful holiday season... now breathe deeply and take a day or two to rest.

Winter Sky :: Healing :: Rainbow :: Trimming the Tree :: Not Quite a Duet Yet :: Nine Years Old :: Hi I'm Olaf and I Like Warm Hugs :: Warming Our Toes :: Crabapple :: A Smile at the End of a Busy Day :: When the Christmas Tree Stands in my Stitching Lamp Spot :: Raindrops :: Festive :: Foggy :: Mossy :: Apparently I wasn't Supposed to Take This Picture :: Out Seeing the Lights :: Love Has Come :: Shining Through the Snow :: Outside Inside :: Candlelit Christmas Eve :: Ready :: Joy :: My New Bass-Guitar-String Necklace :: Afterward :: Cousins :: Remembering :: Cold :: Sparkly

This One is Pretty Sweet Too

My kids see me stitching and sewing all the time. After repeatedly showing interest, I got them both started on a project of their own a few years ago.

While Little Miss has a short attention span and is still working on her first attempt, my Boy has advanced to project number two.

And this time a larger hoop, dangling thread tail (instead of looping it through the eye for him).

He has been given full supervised access to the colors in my DMC organizer, carefully choosing what he thinks is just the right shade for each section.

AND... he is stitching one of his own designs! I transferred (by tracing with a pencil) his favorite drawing of Mario onto plain white cotton material.

This is how we spent a few Summer afternoons together, just enjoying each others' company.

Sitting under a shade tree on our picnic quilt, chatting about nothing.

I hope he doesn't grow out of his interest in stitching with me any time soon.

*NEW* Christmas Band Sampler

This is one of two brand new Winter/Holiday designs being released today... now doesn't that make you happy? It makes me happy... but mostly because I already finished stitching mine, and now all I have to do is wait a few months until its time to start displaying them. But don't worry, they're both very quick designs to stitch up, each taking me just under a month to finish, so you have plenty of time! *wink*

A few years ago, I purchased a very old and worn-out band sampler all done in reds and greens. With a little research, I’ve decided that it is most likely Scottish in origin, and perhaps from the late 1700’s or early 1800’s. I’ve often thought of it as my Christmas band sampler, just because of the colors. This year, I decided to chart the antique, missing stitches and all, then used it as a springboard to create a truly festive sampler just right for holiday decorating.

I filled in the missing stitches, did a little re-arranging, added a bit here and a bit there, using other old Scottish samplers for inspiration, then finally, embedded the classic American phrase, “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year” within the classic layout.

This sampler is stitched entirely with cross stitch with the exception of the large capital V, and the words MERRY CHRISTMAS and YEAR, which are stitched with eyelet stitch.

Stitch Count: 120 x 295
Model stitched on DMC 28ct. Natural

Using flosses from The Gentle Art: 0350 Mulberry, 7019 Pomegranate, 7061 Caramel Corn, 7080 Endive,

And from Weeks Dye Works: 1240 Dirt Road, 2202 Bullfrog

This design is now available in my etsy shop, and will be going out to my distributors and the shops on my automatic shipments list soon. If you prefer to bypass etsy and order directly through me, you can send me an email: beth@heartstringsamplery.com

Cheese Country

We took the day off on Friday to squeeze in one last adventure before school starts. We went to cheese country.

Otherwise known as Ice Cream country.

But there were no ice cream photos to be had, because we were in constant imminent threat of losing our melty treats due to bumping past people and warm Summer air. Sometimes there are just more important things than being camera happy. Like a double-scoop cone of Peppermint and Banana Split.

Cheese and Ice Cream country is also known as the Oregon Coast.

And it went something like this...