::deck the halls::

The daughter and I spent Saturday afternoon decking the halls for Christmas.

Normally, this is not something we do until a day or two after Thanksgiving,

but the daughter works retail and will be up to her eyeballs in holiday madness from now until the new year...

and she would kill me{figuratively, of course} if I decorated without her.

We've always been fairly traditional when it comes to our Christmas decor ::

lots of red and green, and always white lights.

Always white lights.

But not this year.

This year I had a completely different vision in my head, and it only took a little bit of persuading to get the daughter to see things my way, too.

{and we both agreed that the male opinions would not factor in, since the male beings don't help with the decorating}

We are both officially in love, and our previous prejudices against colored lights have disappeared.

Not only that, but we are giddy over the white tree.

We love tradition, but sometimes it's oh-so-much-fun to be a rebel!

::xo::

::a bit of vintage pretty::

Every once in a great while I manage to hit the local thrift store at just the right time.  Around here, vintage fabrics in great condition at ultra cheap prices are not easy to find...

so you can imagine just how tickled I was on Monday afternoon when I found all of this for just under $6!

That little half-apron is quite possibly one of the prettiest little aprons I've ever run across in my thrifting adventures, and I scored her for a mere $0.50 {I'm pretty sure I did a little happy dance right there in the store}.

All the lovely sheets/pillowcases have me envisioning multitudes of projects :: patchwork pillows, scrappy embroidery, granny chic wall-hangings and more.

Not a good time to be without a sewing machine, which {sadly} I currently am.  Hopefully I can remedy that sometime in the near future without spending a pretty penny.  My sewing skills are, after all, utterly and completely basic.  It would only make sense that a sewing machine for me should be the same :)



Anyhoo...

The color palette of my thrifty finds must have been in the back of my mind last night as I worked on these::

I'm officially in love with this super easy and ultra granny chic pattern for Christmas trees.  I definitely see garlands/buntings in their future, and will undoubtedly be making many, many more.


Hugs to all!

::xo::

::weekend embroidery play::

First, I doodled a little doodle on some graph paper...

then I transferred the doodle onto my fabric in a most primitive way, as I am not in possession of an iron-on transfer pen {yet}.  How?  By going over the back of the doodle image portion of the graph paper with an artist's pencil, covering as thoroughly as possible, then placing the paper right side up onto the fabric and lightly tracing over the doodle with a regular pencil.  Voila!  Image transferred to fabric :)

Definitely not the most ideal way to do it, but it works in a pinch.

If you look closely, you can see where I've pulled out the stitching on the words.  The thread I was using was too thick for my liking, so I'll be re-doing that.

When it's all stitched up properly, I'll be putting it into a smaller hoop where the design will meet the edges and hopefully look something like a christmas ball ornament.

We shall see.

Happy Monday to all... hope you have a wonderful beginning to a brand new week!

::xo::

::feeling stitchy::

Hello friends!  Just popping in quickly this morning before heading out to do the dreaded grocery shopping {definitely at the bottom of my list of things I want to do!}.  Thought I'd share a quick peek at what I worked on last night while avoiding making my grocery list ::

For some reason, I had the wild urge to do some embroidery and I had two little "practice" ornaments I crocheted awhile ago that I decided to incorporate into the piece.  I forgot how relaxing embroidery can be!


Thursday I whipped up another snowguy, at the request of my 16 year old son...

...almost as soon as I had finished my first one the other day {see previous post}, he told me I must make another one for him to give to his best friend's mom {isn't he sweet??}.  I love that my kiddos are such fans of my handiwork :)


Hope it is a wonderfully relaxing and enjoyable weekend for all...
I'm off for now.  The grocery store is calling my name and I can no longer ignore it.


::xo::

::it's beginning to look a lot like christmas::

November is just moving right along, isn't it?  I'm finding that my list of "want-to-do's" these days is getting longer and longer; and the more I add to it, the further blog posting gets pushed down on that list.  So we'll play the catch-up game now and I'll share a bit about the things that have been keeping me occupied for the last week or so...


1. More reading time.  Living in my almost constant crochet-obsessed haze, it's easy to forget how much I love to read.  Balance is the name of the game, even when it comes to hobbies... so I'm making an effort to swap hooks for books for at least a little while each day.  Currently reading Charles Dickens' Great Expectations and thoroughly enjoying it.

2. Further feeding my classic Brit-Lit addiction with the help of our Public Library's dvd section.  Thankfully, our library stocks plenty of BBC productions of classic literature movie adaptations, filling in many of the gaps in my own dvd collection {one day, I  will own them all}. In the spirit of having-my-cake-and-eating-it-too, I've been popping them into the dvd player to watch while working on some crochet projects.  In the past few weeks I've watched :: Little Dorrit, The Way We Live Now, Cranford, Return to Cranford, Wives and Daughters, and Tess of the D'Urbervilles.  Have seen them all before at one time or another, but I could watch them over and over again. I definitely have a love affair with Masterpiece Theater and the BBC.

3. Trying to teach myself how to knit, and failing miserably.  Hats off to all the knitters out there!

4. Teaching myself Tunisian Crochet.  Much, much easier to me than knitting.

5. Pouring over some lovely holiday edition magazines.  My most recent purchase was the Better Homes and Gardens Food Gifts publication.  Gorgeous pics, fabulous recipes, and oodles of creative ideas for packaging::

6.  Working on a little bit of Christmas decor for the house ::

{little wreaths to hang on the tree or attach to cards and packages}

{a holiday-worthy granny square for the end table...the daughter said it was time to put the fall leaves away and start decking the halls}

{a festive granny mandala to spruce up the other end table.  a huge thanks to Alice for the wonderful pattern, which can be found here.}

{my very first amigurumi project!  gobs of fun to work on, and oh-so-cute.  you can find the pattern here}

Lots of other things on the "to-do" list, not the least of which is catching up on some blog reading :)

Have a fabulous Wednesday!

::xo::

::welcome, november!::

"The thinnest yellow light of November 
is more warming and exhilarating than any wine they tell of. 
The mite which November contributes 
becomes equal in value to the bounty of July."

  

::Henry David Thoreau:: 

I've decided that if November were a book,

it would most decidedly be a Dickens novel.

Happy Monday,

Happy November!

::xo::

::oh, so cozy!::

Made a pair of these cozy wristwarmers this afternoon after fooling around trying to come up with a pattern...

I'm thinking they'd be a great shop item, if I ever get a shop off the ground :)

happy tuesday!

::xo::