Finally, Some Quality Stitching Time!

Don't you just love the days AFTER the holidays, when you actually have the time to sit down and sneak in a bit of guilt-free stitching or knitting or reading or movie-watching or whatever else makes you happy?

Yesterday, January 1st 2010 was a deliciously grey, gloppy, gloomy day in Northern California - in other words, PERFECT STITCHING WEATHER.

Of course, the start of a New Year would have been the perfect time to start a New Project, and I intended to do just that. But I got sidetracked by an old project. Something I started a few months ago, got bored with, set aside and ignored...then VOILA -- it started calling my name yesterday from amongst all the other abandoned projects in the TO DO PILE, and so I picked it up again and started stitching on it.

Here it is. It's "SIERRA", a counted canvaswork design by Needle Delights Originals. I'm really enjoying the different stitch patterns - all easy and fun to do:

(Please forgive the less-than-wonderful picture quality. I was too lazy to remove the canvas from the floorstand, go to my office, turn on all the machines, scan & clean it properly. Instead I just snapped the photo in dim light and transferred it as is to my new laptop, just to see if I could do it that way, without moving off my comfy sofa...)

I am (of course) changing the colors on this design. And it has a rather holiday look to it, doesn't it - in green, cranberry and gold? Perfect project for the season, actually. So I plan to do a bit more stitching on it over the weekend.... (unless I get distracted by another project - which I'm guessing is going to happen more than once this weekend...ahem...)

Anyway, I also wanted to show you the wonderful stitching treats I got from my good friend, Laurel. She always seems to come up with some clever & useful stitching tool that becomes a favorite of mine. This Christmas, she made a holiday scissor fob with real red and green crystals. LOVE IT, LOVE IT, LOVE IT! And how nicely it matches my favorite green scissors...


And the little needle magnet (with the cute picture of the red bird sitting on the polar bear's head) has a hard, shiny, poofy top to it - like a layer of clear acrylic on it. She said she found a bag of these little squares in the scrapbook section of a local crafts store. I have NO IDEA what they're called, but they're really, really cute and the perfect size to make your own needle magnets. (And I'm certainly going to go looking for them next time I'm in a craft store!)

Anyway, that's what I'm up to this first weekend in 2010. I hope you're getting to enjoy some quality stitching time, too.