Christmas Open House, Day 2

Welcome back, y'all! Thanks for all the sweet comments about our ornaments and our tradition. It really is one of our favorite parts of Christmas, and our ornament tree is one of our treasures. I'm so happy to be able to share it with y'all. 

Let's get going, shall we? Because I know everyone is just waiting for the cookies. Here's 2002, my ornament:

Mr. Wonderful's choice for that year was a very detailed Santa. I don't remember why I didn't get it stitched, but it's on the to-do list. One of these days...

Here's 2003 (it used rayon floss... never again!), his:

And mine. The choice was inspired by our first kitty, a 10-year-old adopted sweetheart named Shadow. We adopted him in September of 2003.  The kitty on this ornament is way too skinny, though. Mr. Shadow weighed 14 pounds, had long hair, and had the most luxurious fluffy tail ever. 

Speaking of being ample and luxurious, how about another cookie recipe? I see y'all nodding your heads vigorously. Good. 

Now, we're from Texas. And being from Texas, Christmas means traditional Mexican foods. Hold on, let me be honest. Actually, every day of the year means traditional Mexican foods, but even more so at Christmas. This recipe for Mexican Wedding Cookies (polvorones) has been taste-tested on one of Mr. Wonderful's professors, a native of Mexico City. When Mr. Wonderful asked him if they were good, he said, "No..." {gasp} 

"...they're excellent." {Whew!} You may wonder why in the world I had the temerity to bake Mexican Wedding Cookies for a Mexican, but as we say in Texas, "It aint braggin' if you can do it." 

Mexican Wedding Cookies

1 c. butter
1/2 c. sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
2 tsp. water
2 c. flour
1 c. chopped pecans
1/2 c. confectioner's sugar

Cream the butter and sugar. Stir in the vanilla and the water, then add the flour and the pecans. Cover and chill the dough for about 3 hours. When ready to bake, shape dough into little balls, a little smaller than a golf ball, maybe about two-bites big. Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet (or parchment paper) at 325 for 15-20 minutes. Remove to a rack to cool. When completely cool, roll in the confectioner's sugar. Yield: about 3 dozen.

***

Now dust the powdered sugar off your face and hands and let's stitch. Here's a very sweet little freebie for a Christmas-y pinkeep. 

***

BONUS adorableness! Remember our little black visitor from a couple of weeks ago? Well, it snowed a few days ago and I managed to get a picture of him sharing a snowy table with one of his little grey cousins. I'm calling him Smudgy.

Merry Christmas, y'all!

Christmas Open House, Day 1

Wanna come over and stitch and eat?

Today I'm kicking off a little project I've had in mind for a while, a Christmas Open House here on my blog. Y'all are invited to drop in every day for the next week. Each day I'll be posting pictures of my stitched Christmas ornaments, a tried-and-true recipe that's a Christmas tradition at our house, and a link to a Favorite Christmas Freebie. How does that sound? Ready? Let's go!

Every year I stitch a Christmas ornament for Mr. Wonderful (which he chooses) and one for myself. I've been doing this for all of the 14 years we've been married, so we have quite a few. The only ones missing are his 2002 and my 2012, but I'll get those made up eventually! 

***All of the ornaments are from the Just Cross Stitch Christmas Ornament issue of that year.***

Here's 2000, the year we got married a week before Christmas. His:

Mine:

Here's 2001, his:

And mine:

Now how about some cookies? Who doesn't need a really good basic sugar cookie recipe, especially at Christmastime? This is a great recipe. These cookies aren't too crisp, and you can customize the flavor, if you like. But maybe the best part, if you're into decorating, is the icing recipe for these cookies. It's perfect. It sets up firm enough to stack the cookies when they're completely dry, but it still has a soft shine. Very easy to work with, especially if you use a little craft paintbrush to brush it on. If you want, you can thin it out and drizzle it.

Sugar Cookies

Cream together: 2/3 c. butter
                               2/3 c. shortening
                               1 1/2 c. sugar
Stir in:                  2 eggs
                               2 tsp. vanilla extract
Combine:             3 1/2 c. flour
                               2 tsp. baking powder
                               1 tsp. salt
                               1/2 tsp. cinnamon (optional, but I use it unless I'm making another flavor)

Stir the dry mixture into the creamed mixture until dough comes together. Roll into walnut-sized balls and flatten with a glass dipped in sugar. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet (I use parchment paper) about 2" apart and bake 10-12 minutes at 350, or until the bottoms are light brown. Remove to racks to cool. Yield: about 3 dozen.

Sugar Cookie Icing

Stir together until smooth: 1 c. confectioner's sugar and 2 tsp. milk
Beat in (with a spoon): 2 tsp. light corn syrup and 1/4 tsp. vanilla extract (and coloring, if using)

Beat until smooth and glossy, adding milk 1/2 tsp. at a time for desired consistency.

***

Okay, now that you've got your cookies in the oven, how about a little something to stitch?
Here's a freebie I stitched up last year. It's still in the finishing pile, but maybe I'll get to that next week. Here's Jingle, Sparkle, Joy. 

Come on back tomorrow and see what we've got to eat and stitch!

Merry Christmas, y'all!

Homemade Needle Minders

I love needle minders... especially sparkly ones. I have a nice little collection of them but, as with all other stitchy toys, I could always use a few more! I recently cleaned out a bunch of old costume jewelry and saved a few pieces to make into needle minders. All you need is some super strong magnets (found some at Michael's) and some super glue. Ta-da!

An old pendant:

An old brooch:

And my favorite, made from one of a pair of earrings. The other earring will be made into a matching scissor fob.

A little black visitor

Before we moved here, I had never seen a black squirrel. There is a small population of them where we live, and occasionally one will wander by for a snack. Isn't he cute?

Kenny Kangaroo

Lots of changes to this guy! As charted, he's in the sun and sand with his sunscreen and his drink, but I wanted him to look a little more like the other animals in the set so I changed the sun sparkles to snowflakes and the sand to snow. I also substituted a candy cane for the sunscreen in the stocking, and substituted a gift for the drink. I changed the color of his sunglasses so they would stand out a bit more, and I also changed the blue on the stocking to red. Here he is!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope you get some stitching time, once the cooking is done and the kitchen is cleaned up!

First Snow!

Tiger Lily watches the first snowfall of the year... the earliest we've had since we've lived here. 

Pearly Pig

At last! A finish! Here's Advent Animal #8, Pearly Pig. The only change I made, as with the others, was to give her brown eyes instead of blue.

If you're just joining us and don't know about these, they're free and can be found here.

I'm back! ...Again!

My triumphant return didn't go quite as I had hoped it would, so I'm taking another run at it! I hadn't been to my LNS in over two months, so I went on Saturday in hopes it would help re-start my stitching mo (as in, motivation). I'm ready to move on to a little Christmas stitching. I didn't buy much, but I did get the sweet new design from Little House Needleworks. 

Also picked up some threads for my Christmas ornament. Pretty colors.

I missed this for Halloween, but they had some very cool wooden needle minders left. 

And here's a little sneak peek of the Advent Animal I'm almost finished with. They normally take me 2-3 days, just working a few hours at a time in the evenings. This is the September animal. That gives you an idea of how little I've been stitching. I haven't even started October yet, and November is due out tomorrow. sigh

Finally, here she is. It's been too long since we've had a Tiger Lily beauty shot. She's still beautiful. Still stealing my seat. Still supervising the stitching, when any gets done.

I am determined, determined, to finish that pig today and get a start on #9. 

Determined.

Happy Halloween!

I'm back!

Hey y'all, I'm still alive! Yay, me! I've been dealing with a flare-up of a health issue for the last couple of months and hadn't touched any needlework in weeks. Happily, I think I may be getting better, s-l-o-w-l-y, and I did get started on the latest Advent Animal on Saturday. I had finished stitching Mr. Wonderful's Halloween ornament last month, but never got it posted. So it's stitched, but it's not going to be finished in time for Halloween. Oh well. At least it's stitched. Here he is:

I'm off to try to get Advent Animal #8 finished before #9 is posted, which should be some time this week. Still waiting for a fox!

The Thesis Project

Mr. Wonderful is in graduate school and will begin writing his thesis this winter. I suggested he choose a project for me to start when he starts writing. Here's his choice, which will hang in his office when I finish it.

Isn't that gorgeous? It's a Riolis (Russian) kit, and I plan to switch out the fabric for evenweave or linen. It's a pretty good sized project, but not a difficult stitch as it only has 11 colors. 

Other stash has recently made its way to my house. Of course, the Just Cross Stitch Christmas Ornament issue is here, and we've already chosen our ornaments.

Here's a new Halloween design by The Drawn Thread.

Some pink polka-dot evenweave with a slight shimmer that I have no idea how I will use, but  knew for sure had to come live at my house. Just in case.

And finally, some gorgeous new threads from GAST, Frozen Grapes (limited edition) on the left and Dragonfly on the right.

I'm working on Halloween ornaments right now. Hope to have the first one finished in a couple of days. 

Ichabod Crane Inn

Another long-time WIP finished! This is Ichabod Crane Inn by The Primitive Hare. It's stitched on Weeks 30 ct. Beige with Crescent Colors Black Coffee, Cocoa Bean, and Barn Door, and GAST Gingersnap. This design is in the book, "Le point de croix au fil des saisons"  which is a collaboration between three designers: The Primitive Hare, Atelier de la Comtesse, and Madame Chantilly. As far as I know, it's not available as a separate design. I got my book from Amazon France.

For some reason, no matter what light I put this fabric in to photograph it, it looks washed out. It looks grayish, but it's actually a much warmer brown, a little darker than parchment. 

Last week in Michael's I stumbled across a black, crackle-finish frame that would be perfect for this... on clearance for $10. I love it when that happens.

Next up is Mr. Wonderful's Halloween ornament. 

Happy Stitching!

Skeleton Crew is FINISHED!

I cannot believe I'm done with this thing! It has been a WIP for way too long, and it's actually been only a couple of hours' work from being finished for months. But that's how it goes when I only worked on it in little bursts every few months. Had I worked on it consistently it would've been a pretty fast stitch, even given its size. I normally stitch smalls, which is a good thing since I only stitch a couple of times a week at most, and sometimes don't pick up a needle for a couple of weeks (must fix that). This is the biggest piece I've stitched, so it was a major departure for me, and it's a major triumph that I stuck with it and finished it. Yay, me!

Off to knock off another WIP ('cause now I'm feelin' all big and stuff)...

Tea Box Bookmarks

So the other day I polished off another box of my favorite tea, Scottish Breakfast from The Edinburgh Tea & Coffee Company. I have always thought the box is pretty, so instead of pitching it, I set it on the counter for a couple of days to see if any use for it occurred to me. And I had an idea. Now, this has probably been done a zillion times, but since I don't frequent craft websites or blogs (I have enough to do already!), I had to think of it myself. 

Bookmark! I thought, "Hey, I'll just cut off the front of the box and put a little ribbon on it and have a nice bookmark." I am a voracious reader and usually have several books going at a time so I'm always in need of a bookmark. And we drink a lot of tea in this house. A lot. And tea boxes are often very pretty. I realized that I had just tossed an empty Bigelow Constant Comment box (a favorite tea since childhood--served with Red Hots!) so I rescued it from the trash to include in my project. Happily, it wasn't gross, just a bit mushed on the corners. 

Off I went in search of the perfect ribbon. Found it. And found some glitter paper to glue the box fronts on because I thought they needed a little more weight. Also because sparkly. Here's what I came up with.

As you can see, they're quite large, which I like. I don't know why bookmarks are always skinny, flimsy little affairs, but we're having none of that here. I thought about using my fancy scrapbooking scissors and punches to pretty up the edges and the corners, but I decided I liked the "boxy" look--they being tea boxes and all. The only thing I did was round the corners with a little punch just to give them a more finished look.

Y'all, I have to confess. I'm sort of ridiculously pleased with how these turned out, given how simple they are both in concept and construction. But sometimes our simplest creations give us the most pleasure. I'm resisting the urge to raid our tea cupboard and empty all the boxes so I can make bookmarks. I'll have to make Mr. Wonderful one (if he doesn't steal the Constant Comment one) when he finishes his box of Earl Grey. No glitter paper.

Pierre Penguin

Caught. Up. I'm caught up! Cookies for everyone! 

Lots of changes on this little guy. I changed his eyes, eyebrows, and mouth; raised his left wing so he could hold the mistletoe (since I'm not stitching the borders on these--more on that later); fiddled with his bow tie because I had raised his wing; omitted the drinks; added a random snowflake where the mistletoe would have been. I think that's it. Here's my version:

And here are the first six all together. As cute as each of these are individually, I think they're actually cuter when grouped together. You get a good idea of the color palette she's using.

Now about the border. When I stitched #1, I wasn't too sure I loved the border so I stitched the next couple without and thought I liked them better without. Then Mr. Wonderful commented that the ones without the border looked more "free" so that settled it. No border. When I get a chance, I'm going to pull out the border on #1 and see how it leaves the fabric. I may need to re-stitch it, but I'm not going to bother with that just now. I'm just happy to be caught up!

Cashmere Camel

Another brown-eyed girl! The only change I made to this one was to tone her make-up down just a bit and give her brown eyes. 

My needle is smokin'. One more to go and I'm all caught up.

Hattie Hedgehog

Look at this cute face! The design has blue eyes, but I made her a brown-eyed girl.

I was so close to being caught up, and then #7 was released yesterday. But I'm determined to  whip out the last two as quickly as possible so I can move on to some other projects that are calling me. 

Duncan Dog

Here's Mr. Duncan! Just a slight change to his eye--instead of blue, I stitched it over one in brown and then added a little white french knot to the center.

I have two more to stitch to be caught up, but #7 should be out this week, sooo... 

Hope to get a good start on Hattie Hedgehog today. So far, I think she's my favorite. She has a teacup on her head, so how could she not be? But of course, y'all know what I'm really waiting for. A fox! 

Happy Stitching!

More Foxy Finds

Foxes are trending. As a fox fanatic, I have mixed feelings about this. Part of the fun of collecting something is that it's like a treasure hunt. It's so fun to run across a fox in an unexpected place and collect it. Up until this year, they've been few and far between. This fall, they're popping up everywhere. I certainly don't feel compelled to buy every fox I see (which is good), and as with anything that becomes trendy, you get a lot of really dumb-looking foxes. On the other hand, it's kinda nice to be able to find more of a variety of fox stuff. So, mixed feelings.

My weekly Hobby Lobby raid produced the following treasures: a pretty little dish,

a winter doll (check out the fur boots!),

and a lovely little glass ornament (sniffed and approved by Tiger Lily).

Bonus: all 40% off! Yay!

Now, when this will really get dangerous is if the fox trend catches on with the needlework designers like the owl trend has done. I may need to be restrained. And there are signs, y'all, there are signs. Just Nan has just introduced a fox needle slide and a fox charm garden pin. Yes, those are coming to my house. 

And so it begins...