New Lovelies to Stitch

 I would be a bit embarrassed to share my collection of charts waiting to be stitched. But as others have said, half the hobby is stitching and the other half (or more) is collecting things to be stitched. 

My collection includes dozens of leaflets as well as full collections of three no longer printed magazine series. Everything is stored in plastic totes on bookshelves.  It brings me joy to look through these once in a great while, and choose a new project. 

In 2025 I started just one new counted project, and that was Pretty Little Los Angeles from Satsuma Street. I did not purchase one chart in 2025, in fact. 

Unlike many stitchers, I do not enjoy starting new projects much at all. I don't like kitting them up, either. I realize that makes me quite odd!  I just enjoy stitching, and many of mine seem to take a long time to complete.  I wish I had more of a spirit to quickly start a new project, but I instead plod along on my established ones. 

I also did several stamped projects in 2025, and they have been a nice thing to do rather than counting. I turn to those when I want to stitch but I don't want to count or look at a chart. 

At one time I had about eight to ten WIPs. Some of them were close to twenty years old, but now I am down to just three of them. My oldest one was started in 2023, I think. 

With that being said, I received a gift certificate for Christmas for a designer I enjoy, but her company only sells needlework charts.  I thus had to buy some charts, and it was a great activity for me! 

On a side note, I used to call them patterns, but someone complained vehemently online in a stitching group about this "error"  that so many of us seem to make. I am now trying to call them charts. But really, does it matter? Not to me.  I feel that communication is the part that matters, and we all know what is meant by calling it a pattern. 

So out of curiosity, do you call it a pattern or a chart in regards to counted cross stitch. I truly don't judge either way, just wondered! 

The gift certificate was for TinyModernist, and I ordered these beautiful charts. 

This is "Woodland Christmas Cross Stitch". I am not sure if I will do the whole piece, or break it into ornaments. Knowing my stitching habits, I will probably stitch the whole piece.  I love the look of this one.

I also purchased this beautiful "Mini Christmas Banner". I love the colors in the design, as well as the fabric. 

Another purchase was "The Magic of Christmas". I will most likely change it to a lighter fabric due to my eyesight. I do adore this color, however. 

Just for fun, here they are in a beautiful arrangement of color and design. 

I hope to stitch one of these in the upcoming months. 

If you have time, please let me know if you call it a "pattern"or a "chart".  I also would appreciate suggestions for fabric colors for the Magic of Christmas, since this one is so dark for my eyesight. '

Thanks for stopping by today. 

Welcome, 2026!

It is hard to believe that we are already getting close to the midpoint of January. Time is flying by so quickly, it seems.

 Last year brought extensive water damage to our home, so we are glad that those repairs are finally completed. It is disruptive to have a portion of one's house unusable, but we made it through just fine. The repairs took 1/3 of the year, and they were finished less than a week before Christmas. 

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I am starting out 2026 with just three WIPs.  

The oldest one was started in June of 2024, and it is Yvonne LeClerq 1905 from Reflets de Soie. I am using DMC thread on 32 count antique white linen. 

I am also working on The Night Before Christmas from Tiny Modernist. I also started this piece in 2024, but in November. It is really coming along, and I am 3/4 done. The fabric I am using is Silver Lining from Live and Dye LA. 

Finally, in October 2025 I started Pretty Little Los Angeles by Satsuma Street. I haven't done a terribly large amount on it, but some buildings are done, or just about done. It is being stitched on 32 count "Malt of the Fair" fabric from Live and Dye LA. 

Here are photos of my various WIPs: 

Yvonne Leclerq 1905

The Night Before Christmas

Pretty Little Los Angeles

I am certain to have some more WIPs at any time soon, but for now I am happily working on either of these three pieces.  

Thanks for stopping by today! 

Christmas is Approaching

Christmas is fast approaching and we were just about ready. I say were as we 'were' almost ready until we got struck with a cold virus. At this point we have delayed our Christmas celebration and we will have it instead at a later date when we are feeling better. 

I have been stitching just a tiny bit and enjoying the stitching time I find. Lately I have been working on Yvonne LeClerq 1905 from Reflets de Soie. I am using DMC threads on 32 count linen. 

I so love how this piece is turning out. 

Thanks for stopping by today! 

A Finish! Winter Quakers

 I am so happy to be finshed with Winter Quakers by Rosewood Manor.  I started this piece in June of 2023 and finished it a few days ago.  

It is stitched on the called-for cashel linen.  The color of the linen is "dwarf".  

I enjoyed using the Valdani threads for this piece. I did, however, run out of certain colors. I ordered more of the green color.  Fortunately I had the primitive blue color left over from my long ago completed Quaker Diamonds piece as I also did not have enough of that color. I also ran out of the cream Subtle Elegance Valdani color, so I substituted WDW grits and also DMC 822 here and there. I am happy with how the blending of both called for and 'new' colors turned out, so to speak. 

The snowflakes were plentiful and I grew to enjoy stitching them. I will confess that at first they were tiresome for me, to say the very least. I did see that some stitchers used two threads for them, and I loved that look. I did not see those particular stitchers' pieces until I was too far into the snowflake stitching to redo with two threads. One strand provides a nice look, too. The snowflakes are just way more subtle. 

The large greenish motif in the left center of the piece took me way too long. I found the outside of it to be tedious and thus I set this piece aside for way too long. Once I resigned myself to simply working on it again, it went just fine. 

Here it is:

Some more views:

This is the final part I just completed. I swapped out the initial that would be stitched in the lower diamond creamy snowflake for a coordinating design: 

This past weekend we celebrated four birthdays here, so I didn't have much time to stitch at all in over a week.  It was fun to get this piece done on Sunday evening! 

This is one of the birthday cakes we served, and it's a triple chocolate bundt cake.  The vintage holiday picks were fun to throw onto this cake just for fun. 

Thanks for stopping by today.   

 

Progress on Winter Quakers

Life has been busy but still finding time to stitch.  

Since I last shared here much has happened. Eight of us in our family traveled together to Norway to see our (both mine and my husband's) ancestors’ home area. It was an amazing trip! I would happily return there on a regular basis if life allowed that sort of thing to happen.  

We rented two cars and explored the western part of Norway.  What a peaceful, clean country full of lovely people. I have always been drawn to crystal blue lakes next to tall mountains, and that is definitely how it was in Norway. Of course though there are fiords instead of lakes!  

There was an abundance of driving through long tunnels that cut under mountains, oceans, and fiords. What an experience! It was precious time spent with family, which is the best of all.  

Later in the summer we came upon a very flooded home (plumbing) after we were gone a few days. Our home sustained a lot of damage. At this point we are still out of our regular sleeping area, but at least the work is nearing completion. No complaints, just disruption. 

Even with our home upset at hand, I always seem to find cherished stitching time. I recently had a small finish which will be shared later.  I now have less than five WIPs!  I did start a new piece in October which I will show later. 

I have been enjoying time recently working on Winter Quakers from Rosewood Manor.  The thread is all the special Valdani pack for this piece, except where I have used some WDW and DMC. I was running low with certain Valdani threads, but that was easily solved with my "on hand" threads.

On the bottom right motif I changed it a bit from the pattern. Instead of inserting my initial in the middle of the "diamond" motif, I instead stitched a little design in the middle. I hope this coordinates well with the whole motif. 

At this point I just need to stitch part of another motif that is not shown here, two small motifs, a few more birds, and a few dozen (or more?) snowflakes. I actually haven't counted how many are left.  

I am certainly enjoying this piece! I have seen that some people stitch the snowflakes with two threads instead of one. By the time I saw that method, I had already stitched too many snowflakes to go that route.I did like the denser look of the snowflakes, indeed. At this point I can appreciate these lighter looking ones as well. 

Thanks for stopping by today! 

Lots of WIPs!

We have had several busy months and there hasn't been much time for stitching.  It is all great though, precious time with family and friends is always the best! 

I have worked a bit on The Night Before Christmas and also Yvonne Le Clerq 1905. Here are some progress pictures of those pieces:

The Night Before Christmas

Yvonne LeClerq 1905 (above and below)

I recently finshed 2024's Year of Stitches. It is slow going for me. I am not doing a stitch icon for each day, but rather one for every several days of each month.  This is a project I decided to do for fun, but for me it has not been much of a blast! I definitely will not do this again, but I am glad I was able to complete the year 2024. 

I  have also been working on some stamped pillowcases. I find this fun to do when I do not wish to look at a chart. Here are a few views: 

Finally, I have been able to work a bit on Winter Quakers by Rosewood Manor. (Karen Kluba) I love how this one is looking. 

Thanks for stopping by today!