Stitching it all Up at the End of the Year

Hope you all had a very merry holiday.  I did not.  I've been sick since Christmas Eve.  I managed to get through Christmas dinner; the guys cleaned up.  That night, I lost my voice.  I self-medicated for 6 days and steadily got worse each day.  Finally I went to the doctor's office.  I really like my doctor's office.  They are brilliant.  Last year they opened a clinic for patients.  If you're sick, you go in; no appointment necessary.  If you are just "sick" you get to see a nurse-practitioner.  If you really have something wrong with you, they put you in with one of the doctors.  It has worked out well for us - this was the third time now for the family.  Anyway, they take my blood pressure as a matter of course.  The nurse looks at me and asks if I'm on blood pressure medication?  Nope.  She goes out; moments later, nurse-practitioner comes in and looks at my chart and says my blood pressure is really high, am I on medication?  Nope.  Then I tell her what over the counter medication I've been taking for six days.  She looks at me very seriously and tells me no more of that.  So, when she checked me out, she said "Wow" and "you've certainly waited this thing out".  Then she put me on three medications.  My voice has only just come back today and what I mean by "come back" is that I can actually produce sound.  It's not sound like I usually make, but it means we don't have to play charades anymore.  Today is also the first day I've felt like my head isn't going to explode.

First thing out of my chair, I wanted to make my final entry for the year.

First of all, want to let you know, I found Spirit of America - somehow she got in with the finished needlework.  So, she's being worked on now - and doesn't count as one of the "finishes" - more on that later.

I've been in my chair for a while now, and have finished quite a lot.  First up is Spirit of Christmas Stitching.

Here she is with the background all done.  I showed you a preview of what I was doing last time.  You can see on the chart that she was supposed to have wings.  Well, since she's the Spirit of Christmas Stitching, I decided that she should have a quilt instead.  So I filled in all that white background - thought I would go CRAZY! - and then stitched on the poinsettia design from one side of the wings.

I left one stitch-width of the fabric undone between the woman and the quilt; that made it look more dimensional to me.

 Here she is with all her doo-dads that will go on the strings when I put her together.  That "sampler" (on the lower right) was a bear  to do.


I like the designs that Brooke Nolan does.  BUT, I think she needs to put more attention toward what symbols she uses on the charts.  Both in the light and dark of the symbols and on the shape itself.  On that sampler the same exact triangle was used twice - it was turned one way for one color and one way for another color - right next to each other - A LOT!  It was so bad my eyes got crossed; I'm not kidding!

Finally, I had to resort to the color photograph to do the stitching.  But, I did get through it.




I put this photo in so you can see how small the doo-dads are - scaled against a U.S. penny!  All the extras are stitched on either antique brown or gold perforated paper, but the Spirit herself is on fabric.
















Next up is Adam Names the Creatures - with my floss and color changes.  It's finished and I just LOVE it!  My husband really likes it too which is saying a lot.  He doesn't usually go out of his way to comment much on my stitching; other than, "that's nice".  This one he kept saying to me - now, that one we're keeping right?

This one shows how I did the birds at the top; changed the ones on either side to robins and made the peacock a little different.

This one shows my little Nehi.  I charted him out and put him in instead of the unidentifiable animal that was there.  When he saw this, my husband teared up.

And finally, here's the whole thing in all its glory.  I am really, really super happy with the way it turned out.  There was so much going on with it that I decided it did not need the final outer border.  That and the fact that I didn't have enough Steamed Broccoli to finish said border.

Now, I have something embarrassing to tell you . . . I have spent all year stitching like mad.  But, when it came to doing something with what I stitched - well, when I opened my "Finished Stitching" bin last week, I discovered I've been very bad . . .

There are Blackbird Designs 2008 Mystery Sampler, Windy Ridge Designs Bee Line March Sampler, Prairie Schooler July Sampler, Prairie Schooler Christmas Eve, With My Needle Token of Love, Prairie Schooler March, Windy Ridge Designs Marry Me Brittany, Prairie Schooler Country Seasons - Autumn, Prairier Schooler Rain Rain Go Away, Brooke's Books Spirit of Christmas Stitching, Prairie Schooler Farmer's Almanac, Prairie Schooler Country Seasons - Winter, Prairie Schooler Weatherwise - Red Sky, Homespun Elegance Flag Sampler, Scissors Keeper, Prairie Schooler Weatherwise - Sunshiney Shower, Prairie Schooler Home Sweet Home, Prairie Schooler Daffodils, Prairie Schooler Adam Names the Creatures, Giulia Punti Antiqui Canadian Journey and With My Needle, et al Petit Etui.  

All those listed in bold were finished this past year, but some of the others were completed back in 2008!  Good Grief!  So, I've made a decision.  While some have encouraged me to participate in the Crazy January Challenge, I must demur.  I have my projects for the coming year already set -

Blackbird Designs Anniversaries of the Heart
Lizzie Kate Christmas Rules (in time for next Christmas?)

I have purchased the charts for Brooke's Books Spirits of Christmas Baking, and have all the necessary materials.  They may go onto the to do list and they may not.  What I AM going to do this year is get those things in the bin taken care of.  Golly Days!  One of them is even a wedding gift!  Now, we were unemployed for a lengthy time and couldn't afford to do framing, but I think that one is going to be first on the list to be done so I can finally get it off to those two kids.  They've had a baby already!  And no, it wasn't one of those kinds of weddings, it's just been almost two years since they got married.  YIKES!  Poor Ellen at With My Needle has been patiently waiting for a photo of the etui for at least a year and a half!  And those of you who pay close attention will have noticed that all those ornaments that I've stitched over the year - were not put into that list.  So, I have all those to do as well.  It's all fun and games until the stitching stops; now it's time to put my nose to the finalizing grindstone!

Hope you enjoyed.  Happy New Year to you all, may all your stitches be without knots and twists!