Whew.

Hello everyone!  I'm finally finished with the EBay sales and everything is shipped.  What a disaster here.  The shipping supplies and paperwork are put away and the rest of the charts are being recycled or burned.  Selling 75 cross stitch items within a week was a stupid thing to do but it's done.  All the Klostern is gone!  All the Cork linen is gone!  All the ceramic Bush buttons are gone!  If it didn't interfere with postal weight I added a few bonus charts to get rid of them.  A few that I think are beautiful Santas did not get a bid for $1 and those were Alma Lynn's.  Some Shepherd's Bush samplers didn't go either which surprised me.

Now I can get the ornaments on the trees and finish up decorating.  I found my Lydia Hinckley sampler.  Red Santa will hopefully show up tomorrow.  I throw everything in one room when ridding clutter so I'm confident he's there.  Green Santa is sewn and I wanted to show a few pictures of ornaments that I stitched many many years ago on a light sage Aida. 

I have a few large Prairie Schoolers done on the same fabric.  I decided they needed a change so .... you guessed it....I stained them!   I used very strong coffee and dabbed with a soaked cloth.  I made sure I saturated the white beards first with water on a cotton swab.  I avoided them with the coffee and again flushed with a water soaked cotton swab to dilute after staining.  I like the difference and plan on doing the whole lot tomorrow.

The velvet hangers will be changed to hemp or homespun strips.   The small Santas are from Prairie Schooler's book #20, St. Nicholas.  Required fabric is 24 count cottage brown Heartland, which I found stashed in the leaflet.  Love the feel and color of that fabric which I may one day use to re-stitch them.  As for the Santas I finished and had in the bowl, I tried the garland idea....

I don't like it and I think I will just place them among the greenery on the mantel.  

Another little tree, this time a short cheap one that I hacked up.  It started out as a regular fully branched tree.  I used wire cutters and removed every other section, wrapped brown electrical tape around the trunk to hide the amputations, and will go over that tape with either brown matte floral tape, or a small brown print homespun strip.

Here's the Green Santa (without the brown jingle bell corners as of yet) from BOAF and I made a decision about the next finish.   If you notice the bottom, it's not very smooth and this is my biggest problem now when finishing.  Whether I hand sew or glue, I can't get a good line.  I stick a long needle into the backing and use it to move filling to the seam edge but it never comes out as nice as the other edges.  So.  I plan on machine stitching all four edges, using an envelope overlap on the backing.   Doing contrasting X's (Nash style) over the flap would be a nice touch, or a few dabs of glue would work too.  How easy will that be!  Access to all seams and corners for perfect edges and even filling.  

 Lydia Hinckley.  Short and sweet.  I missed out on a few sampler graphs that sold out on Scarlet Letter's sale.  She is still having a 50% off sale on selected graphs and kits so get your orders in before they're gone.  I totally missed Essamplaire's sale.   My list (lists) of charts to purchase is still missing, hoping it's in the mess room. 

 I went to my seamstress today with a jacket, and forgot the jacket.  Maybe I was flustered because I was trying to start the car with the house key.  And yesterday was very very strange.  I started crying in the car.  Don't know why, and it was very hard to control.  It was four years ago on December 1 that they took mom from my home for the final time, but I know when the tears are for her.  For an unknown reason, the day before, I had a flashback to 30 years ago.  I have claustrophobia which is why I can't go underwater.  It's like putting a plastic bag on your head to me.  Panic.  But as I laid at the pool on vacation in Florida, some odd colors or reflections on the water caught my eye .  I stood up and saw huge eyes and tiny little hands reaching up at the bottom of the pool.  I jumped in and grabbed the baby.  No one even knew he was gone and until they heard his choking screams, I had no idea who he belonged to.  They didn't speak English, took him from me, and moved on.  For some reason, this came flooding back and I don't know what, if any, connection this had to my crying jag. 

And finally, here's Junior.  You can see in these pics how he is a clone of his dad.  They both have white sandals on front paws and white boots on the back, same chest and throat markings.

Whoops! 

 Hit the publish button by mistake.  I had more but I guess that will be saved for another day.  Thank you for visiting!  Have a great week!