Another Volunteer of the Year Award!

Tarrant County RACES* 2013 Jan and Ulis Hair Volunteer of the Year Award received at NWS SKYWARN (storm spotter training)  program today in Fort Worth. My goodness gracious! Thank you Tarrant County Office of Emergency Management and RACES!!

*Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service

Pam Kellogg freebie

Cardinal Guest Towel - by Pam Kellogg - 1 day only from CraftsNThings Blog, however this may continue to be available in the Archives for January 23rd. Click on ARCHIVES then SEWING, where you'll find a cross stitch "Love" pillow posted on January 14th, also a Pam Kellogg design.  There may be others in the Archives as well.

US Santa Finish!

I think, I may yet spot a missing stitch. Yeah!! I'll make it into a Christmas ornament for my sister (wish me luck as I am finish-challenged), and give it to her next time I see her, since it was my intent to have started and finished by last Christmas.  :D It is from a chart in Leisure Arts  Down Santa Claus Lane (c)1994.

1/19 Addendum: Well, phooey, I missed a few back stitches in the beard. Will take care of that. BTW, I had to frog the entire left hand (see WIP below). After quite some time trying to figure out what was wrong and the stitches weren't lining up I realized I'd inadvertently doubled the height of the furry cuff and it was something like FOUR spaces too high. Well, no wonder I was having issues. LOL BTW, last Sunday we were taught how to purl. I tried once at home but was doing something wrong so haven't practiced further.

Updated Finishing Tutorial Link

The Twisted Stitcher - Learn to Finish - various cross-stitching finishing ideas and techniques

New Projects for 2013

As if I need any more WIP's and UFO's!

Started on New Year's Day. For my sister. Have intended to stitch it for ... mmmm ... 10 years, at least. Santa has wrapped himself in a US Flag. The blue star field is over the other shoulder. It's from a hardback Leisure Arts book I have, but the chart is in color, which makes an awful working copy and stitching from one of those books is a pain, so I recharted it into Pattern Maker for the duration. It occurred to me after I started stitching that if I stitched it on 32ct white evenweave, I could probably avoid stitching all that white.    16ct white aida. 66w  x 59h

LEARNING TO KNIT! My very first stitches, almost. The first 6 rows were so much more awful I pulled them apart and started over this morning. As you can see, I have a LOT to learn!  The Ministerial Student at church is offering lessons as part of a program she's calling "Knitting and Spirituality." I need her to figure out  what I did wrong on: the first row, and near the middle, and how I managed to already add 2 extra stitches. and what the heck I did wrong to end up with that extra loop at the end. And how to avoid same in the future. Next lesson: How to purl.

New Wichelt Freebie

Tempting Tangles Quaker Valentine 2013

! ! ! HAPPY NEW YEAR ! ! !

My best wishes for your good health
and much happiness in the coming year. 

And may all your stitchy dreams come true /

Kind Regards from LindaMc at Bits of Floss

* * * * * * * *

Aha! I met my final stitching goal for 2012. At last I took up needle, eventually found the right threads and FINALLY finished my 3-PSSanta piece just before midnight!  I've got several other WIP's to complete in 2013 and more things I REALLY  would LIKE to stitch than I will ever get to. Don't we all??? And I have yet to design and stitch the Wedding Sampler I've intended for my daughter and her husband, who recently celebrated their THIRD anniversary. Oy vey! I need encouragement to finally tackle that one. Perhaps what I have had in mind since that day is more complicated than it really needs to be. 

Happy Stitching for all in 2013 as well!