The Christmas Tree

Here is the famous Christmas tree and some of the stitched ornaments. I have included pics of the pickle ornament as well as some favorites. I have pics of my two ornaments sent to me from friends in exchanges. The crocheted white snowflake is from my friend Caroline that I talked about earlier. I also have some green and white crocheted ice skates that were made 35 years ago by a little 90 year old blind woman who had a stroke. I hope you enjoy these pictures as much as I enjoy the tree!
Donna

Thanksgiving

I finished "Thankful Sampler" by LK. I haven't finished into a flatfold hanging picture yet. I am just glad I got it done before Thanksgiving.
Which brings up a thought. Why do we wait until Thanksgiving to give thanks? I mean, I know most of us say prayers of thanks in one form or another everyday, but why do we wait until this one day to give thanks to each other?
I don't know that answer, but I do know I am thankful.
I am thankful I have a God who loves me no matter how I am. I am thankful I have a husband who loves me unconditionally and takes such good care of me and my family. He married into this ready made, crazy family. And he loves each one of us.
I am thankful my mother lives with me and I am thankful I am able to care for her. I am thankful for my daughter and son-in-law. She is so much help to me, esp. on this blog. She is talented in ways that I am not. I am thankful for the two little boys that are my grandsons. They give me such joy. Having all girls in the family, I could not imagine what it would be like to have boys. But it has been a fun ride.
I am thankful for my sister and her family.
I am thankful for my job, in which I get to make a difference in someone's life each day. I am thankful for working with the wonderful folks I work with. Carter BloodCare is a family. My boss even gave me away on my wedding day. I am thankful for the donors who come in each day and give a part of themselves and their time to help someone they don't know.
And I am thankful for all of you who read my blog and make comments. I have stitched more and enjoyed more of my stitching since I started blogging and joining Yahoo groups. I so enjoy looking at other's work and being amazed at how beautiful they are. I am thankful that this next year will bring more opportunities to see more work and share more of my work.
I pray each of you will have a wonderful Thanksgiving and will enjoy your friends and family this holiday. Thank you for sharing your lives with me.

The Altoid Tin

I have been interested in doing a covered Altoid tin. Problem is I hate Altoids. But my boss eats them like crazy. So day before yesterday I ask him if he could save me one so I could do a project. He said he had several saved and would bring them to me.
Imagine my surprise when I arrived at work yesterday morning and there was a canvas bag filled with Altoid tins. About 100 or more.
What in God's green earth am I going to do with 100 Altoid tins? He was pleased as punch with himself that he had brought them so I managed a smile (and not a hearty laugh) and said thank you.
I told my EGA group about it last night and we are going to do a project next year with them. There are only 30 of us in the group.
So that leaves me with an extra 70 or more Altoid tins...
Stay tuned to see what marvelous ideas I try to come up with to use these.

Ladies & Gentlemen, we have a winner

The correct answer for my contest is BIG GIRL PANTIES by Lizzie Kate. The winner of the contest is Kathy in New York, http://kathystitchcomments.blogspot.com
She has won her choice of 10 colors of Sampler Threads. Kathy, please e-mail me at dwooleybooger@yahoo.com and let me know your mailing address and choice of colors. I will get them in the mail as soon as I hear from you.
Stay tuned, this was so much fun we will do it again.

The Pickle, Part two

Ok folks. I received this from Gaby:
Einschies stitching blog said...
This is soo funny ro read...ähem, I am German but never heart about that tradition and I am not sure what a pickle is??? Can you descibe it????

Gaby

So I did some more investigating. What did I find? Well according to Wikipedia, along with some other sources, I found this:

Christmas Pickle

A Christmas pickle ornamentThe Christmas pickle is a pickle-shaped ornament hidden in the tree. The child who finds it first on Christmas morning receives an extra present. While the Christmas pickle is believed to be a German custom, it is fairly unknown in Germany but widely spread across the USA. In fact it is completely of American origin. [1]

So what I thought was a nice German tradition, was actually a hoax. But it has become my tradition. And I will continue the tradition, but probably will leave the German part off!

A new kind of tag

I was tagged by Carolyn NC

Here are the rules:
Find the 6th folder in your photos folder and then the 6th photo in it.
* Pray that you remember the details *
Post it on your blog
Tag 5 others, leave a comment to let them know they’ve been tagged.



My 6th folder was Ornie Exchanges and I only had one photo in it.

Here are the 5 people I am tagging:

Penny

Sue Fitz

Rene La Frog

Cindy F

BW

The Pickle

One of my favorite traditions is hiding my pickle ornament. A few years ago I ran across a beaded paper pickle ornament pattern. I thought to myself, now why in the world would anyone want to stitch and hang on their tree a pickle?
So I did a little research and found (now if I get this wrong, please do not be offended) that it is an old German tradition to place a pickle ornament on the tree, hidden away so you have to look for it. I have read two different versions. One says to put it on as the first ornament and the other says to put it on as the last ornament. I chose to do it first.
Christmas Eve, the children look for the pickle. The first one to find it gets a special gift.
I carefully stitched my ornament on paper, with blending filament and beads. Cut it carefully out around the edges. It is beautiful.
I then place my pickle on the tree. I only have one daughter, but I have also have two nieces that I am close to. I tell them about the ornament and the game. My dd is about 15, one niece is 11 and the other is about 3 on that Christmas.
They almost tore my tree apart looking for it and when it was found by my dd they fought over it. I ended up almost losing the tree and the ornament. I gave them all a gift (which I had intended on doing anyway).
That was the first and last year we held an official contest. From then on, my dd just simply looked for the ornament and let me know where it was.
I now have two grandsons. Last year my oldest, then 5, found it with help from his mom.
I now have my big tree, with all the stitched ornaments, at my work. It is admired by many and gives me great pleasure to look at and remember the past everyday from the day after Thanksgiving until New Years.
In my coming posts I will be talking about more Christmas tradition. Did I tell you about my Star of David made from gold beads?
And the year we had the haunted, needs to be in a brothel, red tree?
Come back often and remember with me these fun times. And think about all of your fun times during this holiday.

New Clue for Contest

Yes it is a LK design. The new clue is: It is not a holiday pattern (no holiday at all). Keep guessing. I am going to have to really make this prize a doozy!

A contest, a start and a finish!

Now here is the contest. What in the world is this going to be? A clue is that it is done by my favorite designer and it is the middle of the fabric. Who is my favorite designer? Just check my past pics and see whose work I have stitched the most. The first person to post a comment with the correct answer will win a prize! I will mail out the prize on next Thursday, November 20. I will announce the winner on that day also!

Here is a picture of my latest start, Thankful Sampler by Lizzie Kate. I am doing it on a piece of hand dyed Jobelin called Days gone by. It is made by Silkweaver and looks like suede. I think it will be pretty. I have been meaning to do this for years.

Here is a picture of my latest finish, Don't get you tinsel in a tangle. The picture doesn't do it justice. It is on a beautiful purple hand dyed fabric from Silkweaver. The colors just "pop". I made it into a flat wall hanging.

I've been tagged!

I have been tagged by Sue and Carolyn NC !

The rules are as follows:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know your entry is up.

Here are the 6 random things about me:

I like to watch NASCAR.

I waited until I was 43 before I got married for the first time and had a real, walk-down the aisle, 4 foot train wedding dress.

I love to get pedicures and manicures.

I love BIRTHDAYS!

My hair has been every shade of blonde, brunette and red in the color chart and some off the color chart.

My favorite color is green (but if you ask my husband he will say purple. Go figure).

I am tagging:

BW

Staci

Ange

Penny

Melinda

Jen

Christmas, The Carolyn Saga

Carolyn Bibb was my best friend. She was the most talented person I have ever met. She could paint, sew, embroider, quilt, just about everything I love. But I can't do most of those. And spell! She could spell ANYTHING!
She and I had a lot in common and we spent a lot of time together. We met at work. We went everywhere together.
But one Christmas it all almost came to an end. We had an incident that made me so mad I didn't talk to her for a month.
The whole nasty event came during one of the ornament exchanges with my EGA that I talked about earlier.
Here is how it went down: I invited Caroline to my annual EGA Christmas party. Paid for her meal. Stitched an ornament for her to participate in the exchange. Sat next to her during the exchange. I drew number 21 out of 22 numbers. She drew number 22. All through the exchange I drooled over a cross stitched paper ornament that was a picture of a quilt shop. I whispered to Caroline, "when it is my turn, I am going to take that ornament". Then finally my turn happened. Snatch! I took the said ornament. I was pleased as punch. Then came Carolyn's turn. She turned to me and said "I want that ornament". I thought I was hearing things. Then I saw her reach out and take my ornament. My jaw dropped. Surely, no, surely she wasn't taking my ornament. Not my best friend. Not the woman for if it weren't for me taking her to the party and stitching an ornament wouldn't be taking MY ORNAMENT! But she did. And she kept it.
Luckily we didn't have to drive home together for I might have dropped her off in the lake. And when we returned to work, I didn't talk to her. She called me to ask what was wrong and I let her have it. One month passed before we spoke. It took months to get back to where we were.
All over a Christmas ornament.
Carolyn died about 8 years ago. Wish I had that month back. Wish I hadn't been so selfish and stupid and wish I hadn't fought with her and said those nasty words. You can't take it back and you can't get time back. She forgave me and I forgave her, but we still missed that time.
We made a pack after that. She went to many, many more EGA events with me. She made her own ornaments from then on. One of them I have. It is a crocheted snowflake. I treasure that snowflake. Love to look at on my tree. But I still miss my friend.

I won an award!

I have been chosen for an award by Carolyn



Here are the rules:

The rules for acceptance of the award are as follows:

1. Pick 5 blogs that you consider deserving of this award based on their creativity, design, interesting material and also for contributing to the blogging community, no matter what language.

2. Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.

3. Each winner has to show the award and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.

Here are the blogs I have nominated:

Andrea

Staci

Olenkas

Cindy

Jen

Thank you very much for this award!

Christmas

Some of you might have noticed the countdown to Christmas on my sidebar.  Let me tell you, I am just a little crazy for Christmastime.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are not my favorite though.  It is the whole time leading up to Christmas, from the day after Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve.

Let's start with the tree.  All of my ornaments are handmade.  When my daughter was little there were some of hers on the tree.  Now they are all stitched or crocheted.  Mostly stitched.

I have stitched some of them.  Well, a lot of them.  I also belong to an EGA that has an ornament exchange every year at Christmas.  You might as well say an ornament fight.  We all make and wrap a stitched ornament.  Then we draw numbers and like a Chinese gift exchange, the first person picks an ornament.  The next person can chose a new ornament or can take the first ornament from the first person.  It goes on until all the ornaments have been opened.

This is a group of lovely, well refined ladies (and a gentleman or two).  But there is so much lying, conniving, hiding, cheating that it might as well be a back room poker game.  But in the end we all come out friends and have a new ornament.  Since this is my 16th year in the group, I have 16 of said ornaments made by friends, some who have passed on out of this world.  I treasure them.  

I also have a few made by some friends other than my EGA.  One is made by a 90 year old blind lady, thirty years ago.  She crocheted a little green and white pair of ice skates, with paper clips for the blades.  They are precious and are the first thing I put on the tree, after my cross stitched pickle of course.  More on the pickle in another post.

One ornament is made by my best friend Caroline, who died of cancer several years ago.  I get teary eyed when put her ornament on the tree.  But things weren't always fun with Caroline.  I will post this story later also.  Let's just say it had to do with the ornament exchange I mentioned earlier...

I am so crazy over all my ornaments that I did an inventory of them, with dates and who made them.  They will be passed onto my daughter once she has proven that she will care for them with all her heart.  Actually they will be taken from my cold, stiff hands once I pass from this world!

What are your traditions?  Do you have a special tree or a special way to celebrate?  I will be posting more this month into next month on my love of this holiday.  More about the tree, the pickle and Caroline.

Check out my other blog

Check out my other blog, http://stitchingforacure.blogspot.com for a chance to help cancer patients.

Ornie Exchange

This is the ornament I received from Mary in the ornie exchange. She also sent this cute little snowman from Mill Hill that I can stitch later. She did a great job on it and I LOVE IT! Thanks.

HoHoHo

This is the piece for my secret Santa gift that gave me so much trouble this past weekend. As you can see it is rather simple, but with Mr. Froggy visiting it was quite challenging. And I can post it because the person receiving it doesn't know I am the one sending it! It is a Lizzie Kate scissor holder. I purchased two of these on E-Bay and I used one (unstitched) for another exchange and stitched this one for this exchange.

Froggy go away

This weekend Mr. Frog has visited me.  I did a small piece for an exchange.  Should have taken me 2 hours to stitch but no, took me about 6 hours.  Each new detail I stitched, I would get about 3 or 4 stitches in and realize I was 1-3 threads off or I had crossed 1 thread instead of 2.

It is a good thing it is being mailed out, because while it looks great, I hate it now.  I will post pics later because my partner doesn't know I have her name.

But the good news is that Mr. Frog seems to have gone away to visit some where else.

Also, a post on my hair color.  I washed my hair today and no pink bubbles and no pink on the towel.  So maybe that experience is behind me.  

And today when I was at my DS house she asked me if I could color her hair for her with the stuff she had bought.  Clearly, she never reads my blog and clearly she is blind for my hair is still this radical red color.

But I did as I was told and put her hair color on.  It turned out fine.  Maybe it is just my hair that has issues...