Happy Thanksgiving

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving with my husband's family and all my kids except for Chris (who is on base).  Hope yours was great too.

Advent by Candlelight

My current church has a ladies' advent by candlelight service every year.  Because of my work schedule, I have not been able to attend the past two years because I always worked Sundays.  This year, I don't work Sundays so I decided to sign up.  But I looked at the signup sheet and there were like 24 ladies signed up to attend but only 1 hostess.  So, I signed up to be a hostess.

The ladies are all arranged in tables and there is a service with Advent readings and songs by candlelight.  And the hostesses are responsible to decorate their tables and then they also have to bring dessert and serve it to the ladies and also serve coffee and water.

I don't have a lot of funds to work with so I went through my stuff to see what I had.  The email I got said I had to have table settings for 8 and lots of candles and a water pitcher and coffee carafe. 

I have two sets of china.  One set looks like fiestaware but it's really china and wouldn't work so well because it's multicolored.  The other set is gold-rimmed but I only have 4 dinner plates.  I dug through my china which was still boxed up and found that I had exactly 8 medium sized plates in that set.  I also had plenty of coffee cups and saucers but I only had 7 juice cups because one was broken!  Ack!  So, we got another set of the glasses we use for everyday and I will just use those instead (we broke a couple so now we'll have more that actually match.

Here is what I'm planning for my table layout.  The blue candle holders will have white votives in them, I just don't have them yet.  I also think I'm going to swap out the red candy dish for a white one.  Tell me what you think

I

Dentist Visit and a Finish

Hi Everyone!

Happy weekend (well, my one day weekend anyway).  I went to the dentist today.  I'd been dreading it because when I went when I was pregnant, I was told I needed a deep cleaning and I had 7 cavities to fill.  Today, I was told that my teeth just needed a good regular cleaning and I only had 1 actual cavity.  He doesn't know what the other dentist saw but this new dentist has digital x-rays which is pretty neat.  Gums are a bit raw but my teeth feel nice and slick!

I also finished the Adèle picture.  Here is a picture:

My husband also took me on a date.  Emily watched the girls.  Went to Outback and picked out a toy for Zoé's birthday.  Almost had a gingerbread martini but that steak really filled me up!

Some stitching

Today, I did some more stitching.  I had previewed it earlier but I haven't had any time to work on it.

Carpal has really messed things up.  For Christmas, I planned to do this one Iris piece for my brother-in-law and this other piece for my in-laws and catch up on Zoé's ornaments and I was going to get the Pooh quilt done by her birthday.  Well, none of that is happening.  I will be lucky if I get the quilt done by Christmas.

So anyway, the piece I am working on is a mat for a picture frame.  My mom had pictures taken of the girls and I'm making a mat for them.  I'm using perforated paper.  Currently, I'm doing Adèle's.

For hers, I went through my DMC box and matched colors to the colors in the picture.  I was going to design my own motifs but I am not that good of a designer so I've raided my alphabet and Mini books.  This is actually made of strips of perforated paper.  I am attaching them at the corner by outlining it and stitching a heart through both pieces of paper.  Seems to secure rather well.

I found this alphabet out of one of my alphabet books.  Good old Leisure Arts.  Altered the colors to match the color scheme I had created.

I couldn't figure out what to do on the long sides so I found this cute butterfly border from my trusty Better Homes and Garden book.  I'm only doing one repetition.  The heart will match the ones on the corners to tie them all together.  Might add something like a flower in the white space, not sure yet.  The bottom will be a white picket fence if the white on white shows up ok.

For Zoé's frame, I'm using primary colors.  Not exactly sure what I'm going to stitch yet.  Trying to finish this one first.

Cease and Desist?

So, I got some kind of notice from Google saying that some of my pictures violate copyright.  Then, I tried to follow the links that they provided and....it doesn't link to anything and one links to an album that is not mine so I am thoroughly scratching my head.  I have gone over my Picasa albums and nothing seems to be in violation.  The links supposedly go to the album with my cross stitch book covers.  However, none of the internal content of those books has been posted, just the cover which should not be a violation of copyright.

I also noticed some comments on Picasa from people requesting that I email them patterns.  I have deleted these comments and posted notices up in the albums now and I guess I should be clear.  I DO NOT AND I NEVER WILL EMAIL YOU CROSS STITCH PATTERNS!!!!!  Now that we're clear on that, there should be no confusion.

Not letting carpal stop me!

I have decided that I'm still going to try to reach my goal by finishing the Pooh quilt by Zoé's birthday.  So, I resumed work on it at work yesterday and I am hoping to do more today and post my progress.