Goodies from Friends ...

Before Christmas I received some wonderful exchanges and Christmas presents from stitching friends ... grab a cup of coffee, tea or your favoriate Christmasy drink and enjoy the pictures ...

Lenna and I were partners in the Fair and Square Christmas round. Lenna stitched T

he Huddle by Ink Circles for me. She also included a great pillow, with reindeer all over it :) Can't wait to finish this one and hang it on my tree next year ...

Amy of Cross Stitch Pals hosted a Secret Santa exchange. Ellen (no blog) had my name. She spoiled me with all kinds of goodies ... like a yummy smelling candle, reindeer pez and reindeer lollipop, a memo pad and older design by Waxing Moon Designs that I have wanted forever. She included some lovely 35 ct Aztec Red fabric and a skein of WDW's Whitewash. The design is going into my pile of 2011 stitching. Thanks Ellen for a fun secret santa exchange :)
I received a fun box of goodies from Diane ... I got some socks and some Christmas earrings/necklace, cute Christmas fabric, a Just Nan needle holder, some yummy lotion, some Christmas buttons and a very cute Christmas ornament.
Here's a closed up of the ornament ... how adorable is that tree :) Thanks Santa Juan *smile*

Staci was sweet and sent me one of her felted hearts, along with some yummy tea and Christmas candies. Thank you Staci for thinking of me this Christmas season ... I think this heart will hang in my stitching room all year long ...

Christmas Eve day brought a box from Karen. Karen has been stitching for me all year long through Friends Stitching Through the Seasons blog. I always look forward to seeing what she's stitched ...

inside all that white tissue paper ... a very fun M that Karen decorated with scrapbooking paper, ribbons, buttons and a flower. Love the red and brown combination! Also included was this adorable pillow. The design she stitched is called Merry Christmas by Carriage House Sampling. I just love love love it!

Here's a close up of the M ... this will look cute in my stitching room ...

and a close up of the pillow ... cute isn't it *smile*

Karen also included one of her homemade cards asking the question Naughty or Nice? Well she decided I'd been Nice this year and gifted me with a gift certificate to Down Sunshine Lane. How cool is that! This was the last exchange for the year. I was very lucky to have Karen as my exchange partner and I hope she and I can exchange again in 2011.

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas! We did and I'll share some family pictures later in the week. I also have stitching to share with you that were gifts, but I was so excited to get my exchanges/presents in the mail before Christmas that I forgot to take pictures! So I have to wait until the recipients take some pictures for me.

I hope you find your Joy in your stitches ...

I'm grateful for time with my family ...

3 Days and Counting ...

Can't believe it's almost Christmas! Are you ready?? I think I am ... but this has been helping me a lot! lol
A couple of weeks ago Lisa and worked on some Christmas crafts for friends and family. My son Chris has a vinyl business and helped with our craft this year. We found some designs online and had Chris make them out of vinyl. We found boards at Joanne's, stained them and he added the vinyl for us ... I love how this one turned out!
I decided to keep this one for myself :) I think it looks adorable on my kitchen table. You can see a small board with a vinyl graphic on the small red board. We painted some with red and some with green ... I think the gold graphic looks great on it.
I participated in an ornament exchange in a Yahoo group I belong to ... Carmen (no blog yet) was my exchange partner. She lives about 30 minutes from me, so we decided to meet in person for our exchange. It was so much fun to meet a fellow stitcher in person, especially one that lives so close! We're even planning to get together after the first of the year :) Carmen stitched for me Star (over one!!) from this year's JSC ornament magazine. She also included a little bear in a show, both made by her! And how cute is it that the bear is holding the ornament!
Here's the ornament I made for Carmen ... it's a freebie design from The Stitcherhood. The fabric it's laying on is the backing fabric ... it was a really fun stitch.
All leave you with a picture of one of my favorite reindeer ... all decked out and ready for Santa. I've had this reindeer for a few years ... found him at Pier One but he was too expensive ... but a couple of weeks after Christmas he was sitting all by himself on a shelf way up high ... and dirt cheap by then ... so of course I had to bring him home ... sure glad I did!

I've received some wonderful Christmas presents in the last few days ... I'll post pictures of them soon.

Than you all for your comments ... I love reading each one of them!

I hope you find your Joy in your stitches ...

I'm grateful for time with my stitching girlfriends ...

Happy December

Hope your December is going well. We're all decorated in the house, except for the tree and Terry is almost done with the lights outside. It's starting to look a lot like Christmas everywhere. Terry's birthday was on Friday. The kids came over on Saturday to celebrate. We went to see Santa and then to mexican dinner and games back at the house. We played some Xbox Kinect and had a blast. I think Terry had a good birthday ... I'm sure his 4 margaritas helped! lol

A little story about the Santa hats ... last year I was talking about how fun it would be if we all wore a red Santa hat for our annual Santa picture ... no one was really wanted to but over the year they all kept coming up with other kinds of Santa hats they could wear ... Like Rob wearing his Seahawk Santa hat ... so we decided everyone could pick any kind of Santa hat to wear. I wanted to wear a regular red one but was veto'd ... so I added a trim of reindeers to mine :) Monica made one for Chris because he wanted a Subaru one, it turned out great! So we have Terry in a Tony Steward #14 hat, Chris in a Subaru hat, Rob in a Seahawk hat, me in my reindeer trimmed hat and Monica in her WSU (Washington State University) hat. I think we look marvelous!

I've been stitching a lot but have nothing I can show you ... yet. Seahawks game is sucky so I'm off to my craft room for a little finishing.

I hope you find your Joy in your stitches ...

I'm grateful for time with my stitching girlfriends ...

Happy Thanksgiving

I have so much to be thankful for ... great family and friends. I hope you all have a wonderful turkey day!

and we have a winner of my 4th Blogiversary ... Congratulations Sharon (itsdaffycat). I'll be emailing you this weekend. Thanks everyone for all the lovely comments you left ... warms my heart *smile*

Hugs, Michele

Sunday Night ...

Hope everyone had a great weekend ... are you all ready for Thanksgiving? I can't believe it's only a few days away. I love Thanksgiving ... family, football and good food ... what's not to love! lol Last week Monica (my daughter-in-law) came over for a visit and brought me the cutest fabric pumpkins for Thanksgiving ... if you remember I shared some pictures of pumpkins she made for Halloween ... she's getting really good at making them ... they look so cute on my kitchen table.
Last week I finished BBD's Waiting For The Harvest ... I liked stitching this design until I got the my initials. My initials were too wide for the original design, so I stitched to keep the design square ... I really wish I'd left the initials off, for found a small alphabet ... funny how you can be in love with a design when you start on it, but my the end of it you are just kinda ho hum about it ...

Blackbird Design's Waiting For the Harvest

fabric - misc piece of linen

floss - GAST Dark Chocolate

I finished this cute design by Ladybug Lane Design ... it was in the 2010 JCS Ornament issue ... it was a really fun stitch ...

Joy ornament by Ladybug Designs

fabric - misc fabric

floss - Victorian Motto - Burgandy

I started this sweet design Friday and finished it on Saturday ... I just LOVE it! It's a freebie from Tanya, The Sampler Girl ... I can't wait to finish it and enjoy it for Christmas this year ... thanks Tanya for the freebie!

Christmas Eve freebie by The Sampler Girl

fabric - hand dyed by Staci

floss - dmc

Don't forget my 4th Blogiversary giveaway ... drawing is on the 24th ... just leave a comment on my blogiversary post ... Good Luck!

I hope you find your Joy in your stitches ...

I'm grateful for time with my stitching girlfriends ...

Guess Who's 4 Today??

That would be my blog is 4 years old today! And what a fun 4 years this has been. I have really really enjoyed blogging, even when I don't feel like I have very much to say. The stitching/blogging community is such a wonderful group of women. I've made some wonderful friends and I've been lucky enough to meet a lot of you in person ... it's been a great 4 years! And in honor of my blogiversary I'd like to do a little giveaway. This is my favorite time of year so I'm thinking my giveaway will have all kinds of fun Christmasy things in it ... I have the perfect Christmas basket picked out and I'll be stuffing it with all kinds of fun stuff ... maybe even some chocolate :) So all you have to do is leave a comment on this post, make sure your email address is available so I can let you know if you win. Thanks for making my first 4 years wonderful!

Edited 11/18 to add ... I forgot to put a date that I will be drawing the winner's name lol ... I'll do the drawing on the 24th ... leave a comment on this post if you want to be entered in the drawing.

Now a few Myrtle Beach pictures ... just to show you that we really do stitch at stitching retreats ... here's a couple of pictures of starts and finishes ... KarenAZ started and finished this cute Halloween design by Cherry Wood Design Studio. It's called Halloween Ribbon and is just adorable!

Diane started and finished Turkey Time by Lizzie*Kate and she's sooo excited to be done with it!

I started this design ... It's Blackbird Designs Waiting for the Harvest. I'm using GAST Dark Chocolate on a very yummy piece of linen ...

look at this messy messy work area!

and how can I leave out these great pictures of my stitching friends ... here's ChrisNC, Myra and Toni

I love this picture! Some of my oldest dearest stitching friends ... Laurie, me, Char, Theresa, Beth, Patti and Karen ... love you ladies!

more smiling faces ...

and some gifts from my dear friends ... Karen gave me this lovely chart of Christmas ornaments, complete with the board, floss and felt, some beads (red of course! lol) and a stitch charm that is hanging on my keyring ...

Chris gave both Karen and I this fun witch chart ... we drooled over it back in July when we all went to the stitching retreat in Tulsa ... and she remembered how much we loved it!
and from Sharon I got this hysterical bag! I will always remember who I got this from! Love ya Sharon *smile*

Thanks for letting me share with you my friends and our stitching retreat ... now I can't wait til next year!

I hope you find your Joy in your stitches ...

I'm grateful for time with my stitching girlfriends ...

I'm so spoiled ...

and so overwhelmed by the thoughtfulness of stitchers and bloggers ... my mailbox was full these last couple of days ... look what arrived ...

This lovely arrived from Lisa. She had my name for Round 6 on the Lizzie Kate Exchange blog. She stitched part of Lizzie*Kate's Thankful Sampler and finished it into this adorable pinkeep. Don't you just love the ribbon! I need to find some of that :) It now sits on my kitchen window ledge for all to see ...

Shelleen had messaged me the other day saying that a little gift was on it's way to me ... today arrived this wonderful coffee calendar! Yep Shelleen knows me all too well *smile* Here's the back of it so you can see all the different coffee and tea cups ... I just love it! and can't wait for 2011 to get here so I can use it ... I think it might go to work with me ...

This package really surprised me ... it's from Faye and Karen who I got to meet last month in Myrtle Beach ... we've been blogging and exchanging this last year and it was just a joy to meet them in person. The little card said this was a thank you from both of them for the little gifts KarenAZ and I brought to Myrtle Beach with us ... here's a picture of the wonderful fabric they sent ... I can't wait to stitch some Christmas designs to go with them, they are lovely!!

and here's a picture of the gifts we took to MB with us ... Karen made the pin cushions and pins for them, I made the scissor fobs ...

Jan had my name for the Seasonal Exchange blog Autumn Round. The design is from The Prairie Schooler "October" leaflet ... it's stitched so nice and finished beautifully into a tin scissor/needle holder ... I was so excited to see it because I don't have a tin like this ... how cute is this!

Thank you everyone for your wonderful gifts and exchanges ... you guys are the greatest!

Hope everyone has a great weekend! I'll be back with the last of my pictures from Myrtle Beach soon :)

I hope you find your Joy in your stitches ...

I'm grateful for time with my stitching girlfriends ...

Happy Halloween ...

We are so excited! Our Seattle Sounders are in the MLS playoffs! Tonight is the first game, and we are hoping it's not the last one! GO SOUNDERS!!!

Hope your weekend has been a good one. It's been a nice Fall weekend here ... rain, sunshine, wind, leaves blowing all around and just a tad cold in the morning ... love it!

Before I left for Myrtle Beach, Monica came over to give me three pumpkins that she had made for me ... aren't they adorable! She's making some with Fall/Thanksgiving fabric. I can't wait to see them.

This afternoon I finished stitching this scissor fob and then finished it using the finishing kit I had purchased. I really like how it turned out. The ribbon was fun to do ... it's attached with beads and straight pins.

Lizzie Kate Autumn Scissor Fob

stitched on fabric that came with the kit

stitched with suggested GAST and WDW threads

Earlier this month I started on this sweet Halloween design by The Trilogy, it's called Sneak Peak Halloween ... can't wait to get it finished and framed for next Halloween.

of course now I really want this one ... lol

Looks like this will be my last Halloween finish for 2010. I gave it to Karen to finish it for me ...

Lizzie*Kate's Boo, from Eek, Boo, Hiss leaflet

Stitched on 32ct Tabacco linen with suggested GAST/WDS threads

I'll be back in a couple of days to finish up my pictures from Myrtle Beach.

I hope you find your Joy in your stitches ...

I'm grateful for time with my stitching girlfriends ...