Santa from a friend

Here's a sweet little Santa ornament that a Yahoo group friend named Sandy stitched for me years ago. He's simple but perfect!

 I went to a stitching Christmas party recently and many of us make party favors for the group members.  My friend Linda and I created little freebie kits as our favor.  We thought the New Year needed some attention...The design is by Carol over at istitch.  We think her designs are awesome and she's very generous for providing us with a bunch of freebies.

Stitched on opalescent PTP Dawn Aida, with white DMC. 

Oops! I should have been more clear.

In my post from earlier today, I should have told you that my Santa candle is a candle holder made of porcelain.  I drop a tealight candle into the fireplace.  I bought him at one of those candle home parties almost 30 years ago.  I used to LOVE those candle parties.

I think that same year I bought a white porcelain Madonna and baby candleholder, too.  But the candle placement was odd and when it was burning it left a sooty residue on the porcelain.  Jesus had a bit of a dirty face, but Mary looked like she was sporting a day old beard.  It found a new home via Goodwill.

Santa Candle

Do you remember the Santa figures that you had in your house when you were a child? My mom had one - it sat on the fireplace hearth every Christmas. He was just a rubber squeak toy, but we loved him. And when you have five children and two crazy Irish setters running around a small house...a  Rubber Christmas is probably your safest bet. I sure wish I had a picture of him, though.

 I bought this little Santa candle the first year we were married. I love the way that the candle lights up this sweet Santa's face.

My time is short today, but I have more to say, so I'll be back tomorrow.  Right now, I'm off to shop in the rain.  Better than snow, though!

I knew you'd like him!

We stitchers sure do appreciate some beefcake in the world of Santa, don't we? Thanks for the comments - They all gave me big smiles yesterday!

So...today's Santas are from Siobhan's blog, Notes from Blue Hen Hollow.

Siobhan has one of the best collections of stitched PS Santas I've ever seen!  And they're not sitting in a box somewhere...she actually finishes them. She has so many wonderful Santas photographed and posted on her blog, and I'm only sharing one photo of many.

Now head on over to her blog to see more.  Just plop "Santa" into the Blogger search bar and be prepared to scroll to your heart's content! 

I can finally show you a couple of finishes from a little bit ago.  The two ornaments were exchange gifts and last night they found their way to their new homes. 

LK Flora McSample from 2011.  For my Scottdale friend, Pam.  It's on Opalescent Hazelnut  from Silkweaver.

HSE Sampler Snowman. For my friend Linda, who loves alphabets!  On 40ct. Cocoa linen

And for me. A quick Pine Mountain kit.  Just because I felt like it.

Pretty Santa

I've had a very busy couple of days and fell behind a bit on my month of Santas. I should be back with some interesting stuff tomorrow, (well...I hope you find it interesting!), but I thought I'd give you something pretty to stare at mindlessly while you wait.

Forget the chimney, honey.  Just knock on the door.

Sue's Santas

I'm only mildly successful at setting stitching goals and actually achieving them.  In 2009, I thought I'd stitch a new yearly PS Santa card every Christmas from now until....well, I guess until forever.  Actually, if we have a zombie apocalypse and these designs stop flowing, I have enough yearly Santa charts, thread and fabric to get me through several years of stitching these fellows.  Hey....a girl needs to relax after running from zombies all day.

Must. Learn. to Count. and Run. at the Same. Time.

 But I'm getting off topic here.  And probably watching too much Walking Dead.  Anyway, I stitched this one in  2009.

Then this one in 2011

So I guess it's more like every-other-year.

And here's my Kansas friend Sue, who has actually stitched every single yearly Santa, and even had the sense to leave some spots blank for future years. 

Don't worry Sue.  If the zombies come to Kansas, I'll rescue your Santas, too. 

Football Santa

Poor Santa.  When he's not busy making toys and visiting department stores, he gets shoved into various uniforms and made to play sports.

Here's Football Santa, playing quarterback on any collegiate field and a credit to the sport:

 And then there's Drunk Football Fan Santa.  A credit to the sport?  Not so much.

For our European friends, let's see their FOOTBALL Santa, too.

But this is just wrong.  

And dudes....that's a basketball.  If you can't get the mythology straight, at least use the proper equipment.

It has nothing to do with Santa

Still, it has a mythical creature! 

My daughter Colleen is a senior at the College of Wooster (no...really?  You didn't know that? I haven't wallpapered my blog with her pictures enough?).  All seniors must complete an Independent Study project.  You can only imagine the variety of projects this small liberal arts college turns out each year. 

Colleen - an English major - decided to create a magazine for Ohio outdoor activity enthusiasts.  She's written and organized a number of articles about running, hiking, camping and biking.  But recently she wrote an article about the Southeastern Ohio Bigfoot Investigation Society.  Her adviser encouraged her to submit it to Outdoor Magazine and what-do-you-know, they published it online. 

So you can click over here if you'd like to read about Sasquatch in Ohio.  Yes.  Ohio.  Evidently, Squatch doesn't mind flat, flat land.

Memories of Santa

I was a child of the 1960's.  In my Philadelphia neighborhood, very few mothers worked, most households only owned one car, and families were bigger.  I grew up with four younger brothers and sisters, always sharing a bedroom and often sharing a bed.  (But that was nothing compared to the family down the street.  The Carusos had twelve children, ranging in ages from 28 to 8 years old. In a three bedroom house.  You do the math)

A very 1960's sensibility was that when women went to a big department store - even one in the suburbs - they dressed.  Hosiery, hats and gloves...the whole deal.  I remember wanting to stop at Wanamaker's in Jenkintown on the way home from school one afternoon.  "Oh no..." said my mother. "I can't go in there dressed like this!"  She was wearing slacks. So going to the Center City John Wanamaker's was pretty big on the dress-up scale.  And my parents took us to Wanamakers' in town every year to see Santa.  First there were the store window displays to see.  Then we'd head inside to visit Santa.

I'm sure the lines to see Santa were long, but I don't remember being bothered by that. Wanamaker's had so many wonderful things to see as we waited.  We'd watch animated figures of children and elves and reindeer doing all kinds of fun things.  Seriously, it was like magic.  After we had been to the Worlds Fair in New York and visited Disney's It's a Small World, we came away thinking it couldn't hold a candle to a Wanamaker Christmas.

And then finally...finally, we were on Santa's lap!

It's funny, though.  I don't remember seeing Santa like this:

Don't we all have pictures like this in our photo albums?

I remember him more like this:

What a difference a year makes! And look!  Wanamaker's magically moved over 14,000 miles closer to the North Pole!

My grandmother worked in the lamp department at Wanamaker's. Hmm.  So maybe my love of lamps is genetic?  Anyways,  after we had visited with Santa and saw the light show (at the Eagle), my grandmother would meet us for dinner at the Crystal Tea Room.  I can't tell you how special that was to us.  We used to eat in a restaurant exactly once a year and this was it.  As a child, I remember thinking that the smells were so exotic and the sound of so much silverware hitting so many china plates was music to my ears.  (With five children, my family used Melamine for every meal.  You can imagine why.)

The Crystal Tea Room still exists, but I couldn't find any 1960's photos of the dining room.  Now it's used for banquets, meetings and weddings. 

 Imagine though...a ceiling high Christmas tree, surrounded by colorful boxes.  It was spectacular.  And larger than life when you're a little girl.

Those were some wonderful memories.  I love thinking about them. Thanks for letting me share them with you!

You had to know this

If I'm writing about my favorite Santas, you can bet that there'll be several pictures of Prairie Schooler Santas in the mix.  I think they're so appealing!  Is it their simplicity?  Their variety?  The way you can adapt them to several sorts of finishes?  Whatever it is, I love to collect PS Santa designs.  I stitch them as often as I can, and I LOVE it when fellow bloggers show off their accomplishments, too.  So look for some of those soon.  Meanwhile, here's one of my favorites - given to me a few Christmases ago by Carol, over at Stitching Dreams. 

He is so charming!  And many of you know Carol and her blog.  It's an extraordinary blog and she's an extraordinary friend! 

Shepherds Bush Santas

I couldn't get enough of Shepherds Bush designs in the 1990's.  I loved everything about them - the thread colors on creamy ivory linen, the whimsical characters, the lovely vines.  Loved them.  Then time passed.  I had another baby.  My stitching time was pretty much non-existent and when I got back to stitching again, my tastes had changed.

So I missed lots of really great SB designs, including their sweet Christmas stockings. One of the stocking designs has an adorable Santa figure.  Here it is, stitched by Miokka and posted on her blog, Gone Stitchin' Instead of Just A Wishin'

You can see more photos and the entire stocking when you go visit Miokka's blog

I love so many things about this Santa.  The charms, the vine on his jacket, the plaid pants, the bell on his hat.  But I know that if I started stitching these, it would be a slippery slope.  I have friends who've stitched several  SB stockings as gifts, and it didn't take too long before they became known as the Damn Stockings. 

So I think I'll just admire them from afar.  Unless someone wanted to stitch one for me.  Then I'd admire it real up close!

I'm determined!

Ya know....there was a time when I was a pretty decent blogger. And I seem to have complained about not blogging all through 2012, but then I did precious little about it.   What the heck happened?

I was going to blame it all on Dave, aka the Computer Hog.  Ever since he more or less retired from the pharmacy business back in March, he's been home a whole lot more and that means sometimes I have to arm wrestle him for computer time. 

You see, earlier this summer, Dave opened a hobby shop.  You know, model and toy trains, rockets, remote control cars and other assorted stuff.  You can go HERE if you want to see his web page.  So he works at the store for part of the day, then comes home and sits down at the computer for the rest of the day.  He says he's working, but I think he's really just Googling all kinds of hobby stuff for his own personal enjoyment and calls it "work".  Riiiiight.

I'm actually very happy for him.  I'm happy that he's taken the big plunge into this and finds it so enjoyable and exciting that he works on it from home.  Dave is a great retailer and I'm sure that between his excitement and his experience, this will be a good thing.  Even if he is hogging our home computer.

But then today he told me....listen to this....he's started a hobby shop blog.  And he's posted to it twice already.  This is serious.  And now I'm determined to post more because I can't let him outdo me in the blog world!  Call it my competitive nature and my need to win.  Even if it's all in my head. (My daughter would call it that).  Call it whatever you will.  I just hope that in a couple of months I don't have to call it Yet Another False Start.

Maybe it would help me to write if I have a theme, at least for a little while.  How about a month of Santas?  Some stitched, some not.  I'm going to try this theme on for size and see if I can spark this blog a little.

Let's start with one of my favorites, stitched by my dear friend Barb in 2009.  This Santa says it all, doesn't he?  Time!  We just need more time! 

My Yahoo account was hacked

You may have received an email from me with your name in the subject.  Please DON'T follow the link in it.

Lee

Still stitching Fall!

But soon I'll be switching to Christmas and Winter.

In the meantime, what is it about Fall stitching that's so much fun?  Is it the richness of fall colors?  The whimsical designs?  Whatever it is, I've had a wonderful time starting a few new things and finishing a few older projects this year.

This first pic is part of a Blue Ribbon Designs sampler, called Autumn Leaves and Sunflower Seeds.  Belinda's samplers can be stitched all as one big design, or broken into smaller designs.  Something about this flower basket called to me.  I think it was the red flowers! I used most of the recommended threads and stitched it on 32ct. Lambswool linen.  It'll make up into something cute, but I don't know what yet.

And this little LK design had been floating around in my To Do basket for years.  I like everything about it, so why on earth did it take me years and years to stitch it?    That's a piece of 28ct. Newport linen and WDW thread.  Super fun!

Dave and I have been traveling every single weekend this month.  We spent a wonderful weekend in Cleveland for a hobby show.  Well, he went to the hobby show.  While he wheeled and dealed over hobby shop purchases, I grabbed the car keys and took myself on a shop-hop of sorts, visiting Crafty Ewe in Broadview Heights one day and Clare's Stitching Post in Vermillion the next. It was heavenly.  Both shops were wonderful and I was able to find lots of the fabrics and threads I had been looking for.

This past weekend we took a quick trip to New Jersey to look at another type of camper.  Airstream makes a conversion van style camper and we had been kicking around the idea of using something like that instead of our trailer.  It didn't take long for us to see that the van-style camper wasn't for us.  But it was worth the trip to see them in real life. 

I have two more weekend excursions coming up and then I think I'll be home for a while.  Meanwhile, the dust-bunnies are thriving!

Some more fall stitching

Last year I decided that La D Da's Pumpkins Three would make a good car project during our fall road trips to College of Wooster cross country meets.  So I stitched it for a while, then XC season ended and this sweet little design never found its way out of the bag again.

To be honest, it was a project I grabbed last year and threw into a bag without much preparation.  I wanted some larger count fabric and I had some 28ct. white linen, and I had a couple skeins of DMC variegated floss and I figured I was good to go.  Even though later on I wasn't really crazy about my fabric and thread choices, the design was still nice enough that I picked it up again this year and kept at it.  And I finished it yesterday - a perfectly dreary afternoon with lots of football to keep me company.

Except I still wasn't in love with the color.

 

So I decided to experiment, and I gave the whole thing a bath in water that I had boiled with onion skins. (thanks Pinterest!)  I like these colors much better.  It's hard to see in my photos, but that stark whiteness is gone and it toned down the DMC a little, too.

Earlier in the week I had finished stitching another Halloween kit, too.  Here it is, ready to be made into something - either a flat fold or a pinkeep style ornament. 

So I guess it's time to find another car project.  Because we're still driving around Ohio, watching this girl run on several Saturdays.  I marvel that she's coming to the end of her college cross country career...  Dave and I couldn't be more proud. 

Atta girl, Colleen!

Stitching Bloggers Question(s)

 Because I've spent minimal time on my blog for the past few months, I haven't put up any of the monthly Stitching Bloggers Questions.  As usual, even though she's a super busy mom, CinDC has been kind enough to pass questions along to me.  So here are three months worth that I've been holding for you:

Dog Days of August: Does the weather affect your ability or desire to stitch? Do you work on different projects in heat or cold?

September transitions/occasions: Birth and wedding samplers abound. Have you ever stitched a piece for a different commemorative occasion, like starting school or graduating? A death sampler? What's the oddest one you've seen or stitched?

October bounty: What's your favorite fruit or vegetable related stitching?

Are you pecking about on your blog, trying to come up with something to post?  Then let the SBQ help.  Think on any or all of these and then right about it on your blog!

Halloween smalls

One of the (many) nice things about my stitching friends is that they make me think out of my box.  I'm a terrible stick-in-the-mud about most things.  Trying something new is not in my DNA.

For instance, Dave and I are terrible travelers.  Oh...we love the idea of travel, but whenever we get to our destination, we'll usually complain about it for the first 24-48 hours.  After that we settle in and we get happy again and the rest of our vacation is wonderful.  But that initial jolt of newness?  It's not pretty. Fellow travelers would probably refer to us as Mr. and Mrs. Crankypants.   And this definitely has a lot to do with our decision to buy a camper.  That initial uncomfortable jolt is softened because we haul our own familiar stuff behind us.  Yes.  We're crazy.

But back to the real topic of the day.  Halloween smalls!  I've been doing a year-long kit exchange with the Kansas girls, and September's theme was Halloween.  For years now, as Halloween has built up in popularity, my constant refrain has been, "I don't really like Halloween.  I don't like Halloween stitching.  It's just not for me."  But Halloween was our September theme and as September rolled around, I knew I needed to find something to create for a kit.  Luckily, I was able to borrow the JCS Halloween issue from my bud Linda, so here's the ornie I chose to stitch up, kit and send to my KS ladies.

"Boo" from 2012 JCS Halloween issue, on PTP Crystal Dawn 32ct. linen

Cute, huh? And so much fun to stitch!  Maybe I DO like Halloween.  At least in small doses.  So I decided to keep moving forward and stitch one of the kits I received.  My friend Sue had even included that funky trim.  And what to do you know?  It was delightful!

 

2010 Lizzie Kate design, stitched on brown linen with recommended threads.
Finished with a 4X4 Styrofoam cube.
(It's straighter in real life.  It's my deck railing that's crooked...)

I have another two kits to stitch and then maybe I'll have a real Halloween collection.  Go figure!

If there is ever a good time to jump-start a blog,

I guess this is it.  My poor blog was sitting in the blog storage garage and dying bit by bit as each day went by, but today I'm dusting off my blog jumper cables (and hoping that I have them attached correctly).  Let's see if I can get this thing started!

So.  I'm just back from an ultra fun girls' weekend at Deep Creek Lake in Maryland.  Seventeen of us shared a fantastic 8 bedroom house with a lovely water view, a giant deck,ample space to walk and plenty of parking. But you're not really interested in that stuff, are you?  I'll bet you just want to hear about the food and the stitching.

This group likes to do its own cooking, so we each took a meal assignment and of course we all brought snacks.  It's the honest-to-God-truth to tell you that the food was to die for.  These girls can cook!  And do I need to say it was plentiful?  And the fall weather was perfect for outdoor eating.  Isn't there something delicious about being outside and eating food that has been prepared by someone else?

As for the stitching, I think that everyone felt pretty comfortable as they settled into their stitching nests on Friday night.  The house had a big sectional sofa, a couple comfy chairs, a big dining room table and a smaller side table.  And although all seventeen of us kind of had a "home base", we moved around a bit, too.

We had a variety of stitching themes going on, including samplers and Christmas and Fall and baby gifts.  We had one finish (that I know of) - it was Deb, who also had a finish at our last retreat.

(I lifted this pic from Facebook, but I don't think Colleen will mind!)

I worked steadily on my Moira Blackburn sampler.  I managed to finish a tree and I started building a house. 

And I'll tell ya, this group got along marvelously well through the weekend.  There was minimal drama, except maybe the Thermostat Wars.  But that's normal in a group of women in our age range.  One gets too cold and turns the thermostat up, then one gets too hot and turns the thermostat down.  So the thermostat got a good workout.  There weren't any TV issues, because I believe they settled all of that before the retreat.  And that was a good idea, because I've seen a TV-watching meltdown once before and let me tell you....it ain't pretty.

We even got to watch a wedding happening across the lake on Saturday.  I hope the bride and groom didn't think we were nuts, but as soon as one of the ladies yelled "Hey look!  There's the bride!", we all ran out on our deck to watch.  There's something about a wedding that you just HAVE to go watch.  So we were quietly oooohing and aaaaaahing as they posed for the photographer, but then when they finished we burst into clapping and waving and cheering.  I think we gave them a laugh, because they all waved back.  What bride doesn't need a cheering group of strangers intruding on her wedding photos? We were happy to fulfill that need.

Her gown was lovely and her bridesmaid dresses were perfect for a fall wedding.  Black and white and simple and I'll bet that worked perfectly in the colorful autumn setting.  Otherwise I would have had to go over there and give them some formal dress advice.  

In family news, we took our camper out on its first real trip earlier in September and it was absolutely wonderful.  But I'll save that story for another day.

Simple Joys

Simple Joys has been riding around in my stitching bag for quite a while now.  Earlier this year it made the journey from my box of ready-to-go stitching into the bag where there's some hope that it may actually BE stitched.  And once I started it, it was fun, fun, fun.  My favorite part to stitch was the flower pot, mostly because I loved the purple flowers with that overdyed thread (CC Plum Paisley).  And the lettering.  I love me a nice purple!

I'm not sure about its final finish.  It needs to be stretched - either in a frame or box top, because, although you can't see it in this photo, the fabric has some pretty heavy duty creases in it.  A sweet pillow would be nice, but not with those stubborn creases.

What an odd end of summer I'm having this year.  My son, the researcher, was busy in Georgia and not able to come home at all.  My daughter, the traveler, left for another extended trip a couple weeks ago, and from there she'll be going straight back to college.  I'll tell you...it's weird being completely out of the "back to school" loop.  There was something solid about preparing kids to go back to school, whether it was kindergarten or college.  Schedule-producing, goal-setting solid.  Now I feel like August is melting into September.  There's not a single solid thing about it.

Or maybe it's just that I love school supplies and now I don't have a reason to go buy them.  Crazy, but true!  I think I'll go buy some nice pens and see if I don't feel better...

Sunflowers always brighten a day!

Earlier this spring, I dipped my toe into the pool of English Paper Piecing. Ho my! How addicting! So then I thought I'd love to make a Grandmother's Flower Garden Quilt.

Yeah. I was completely delusional.

I scaled down my expectations and thought I'd hand piece a table runner.

Still delusional.

Finally I decided that little pincushions were more my speed.  So I sewed these up and sent them on their way to my favorite Kansas Stitching Girls.  Oh, except I added orange rick-rack at the last minute. 

Those sunflowers make me smile!  The one in the middle shows the fabric I used for backing them.

So....I went to Stitch N Pitch last Sunday at PNC Park.  We had so much fun watching our Pirates - even if the knitters outnumbered us by like....ten to one!  And that's even counting our husbands.  I took a neat little design I found on Etsy and stitched away on a Willie Stargell jersey.  It was perfect because it was so simple and small.

Next year we have big plans for a tailgate party and matching t shirts.  We have to keep up with the knitters and if we can't match their numbers, we'll just have to have more fun per person!   (Nikki, if you come, we'll set up the cornhole game...)