Merry Christmas!

I wanted to wish everyone a very merry Christmas!!! We are having a lovely day and I hope you are too!
This Christmas is our 25th Christmas together, so I made this LHN ornament for my hubby and I stitched a 25 in the heart. ;o) He loved it.

I hope to be back in the next couple of days and show all of my Christmas finishes and my new start. ;o)

Have a lovely day!

~Heather

Stitching and Stamping

 Sorry for the cruddy photo, I don't know why this fabric wants to do this in the photos. :o( Anyway, here is my progress on Poinsettia House. Well , actually I have gotten a little farther than this photo. So, hopefully I will have it finished by the next time and I am ready to post. ;o)

 Here is my Gingerbread cookie ornament. I had to end up frogging that entire left border, as you can see from this photo I have it facing the wrong way. URGH! ;o)

 I actually did some stamping the other day. I had a birthday lunch to go to and my friend is a fellow lover of pink, so I had fun. ;o)

We are almost finished with the redecoration of our family room. I have spent most of today dusting, cleaning and putting books back on shelves. We hope to have it done by next weekend so that we can put up our Christmas tree!

In other non related news, our oldest turned 24 today!!! I am OLD! ;o) I actually had him when I was 18, so I guess I am not that old, but I do feel it today. ;o)

Welcome to all of my new followers! I hope to get to know you more soon! I hope y'all are having a lovely weekend!

Love, Heather

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of my American friends. I pray that this day is filled with many blessings for all of my crafty friends!!! ;o)

This is a basket liner that I stitched sometime in the late 90's or early 2000's. I pull it out every year for Thanksgiving.

 We had a lovely dinner today. We missed our oldest son as he is saving his holiday time to come out in January to help us celebrate our 25th anniversary. We are off to our friend's home in a little while for dessert and then I think we will finish the wine when we get home and maybe watch It's a Wonderful Life! ;o)

I will be back in a day or two to share some stitching and some knitting. ;o)

Love, Heather

Quietly stitching...

 Hi! Welcome to my new followers!!! Well, I am home from our wonderful holiday, actually I have been home for 2 weeks but we got sick on the second to the last day of our holiday so I have been coughing up a lung over here! ;o) I haven't coughed in two whole days. Yeah!! ;o) I have been busy stitching on my very first exchange piece (I am participating in the Friendly Stitchers' Christmas exchange), so I can't show it to you yet. I finished it a few days ago, so I picked up my Poinsettia House and have been stitching on it for the last few days. I only got a small start on it last Christmas time. The fabric has more of a pink tone to it.

I have also started working on Gingerbread Cookie ornament from LHN. It is so cute! ;o) I am stitching him on a scrap of 30ct Parchment.

 I wanted to thank everyone for their kind comments from my last post!! Y'all are the greatest!! ;o) We had some cold (well, cold for Arizona) weather here over the weekend. We had a fire in our fireplace! That was exciting! ;o) I am also getting new flooring in my family room, that is very exciting! We had a flood a few months ago and all of the repair work is finally finished, so now the redecorating has started. We went with a Hickory laminate. I will be sure and show some pictures when it is finished.

I hope y'all are having a wonderful week!

Love, Heather

Time Flies.....

 Hi everyone!! I am sorry I have been absent for 5 months!!!! Life has been challenging and my desire to stitch and blog left me for a while! :o( But, I have decided that instead of waiting for the storms to pass, I am going to learn to dance in the rain! ;o) I live with constant pain and sometimes I fall into a pity party and I didn't want this blog to be a part of that, so if I drop off for a while then you know what is going on. ;o) Well except for the next 2 weeks. We are leaving on holiday soon so I will be quiet again! ;o)

I haven't been stitching much but I did finish April Showers by Country Cottage Needleworks. I also finished June cottage, but I must not have taken a picture of it before I packed it away. When I put up my September cottage I will take a picture and show. I started on July and October Cottage, but didn't finish them in time. But there is always next year. ;o) I didn't even attempt August! ;o)
Here is September's cottage. I changed the window, skipped the flowers by September and changed the colours to what I liked better.

 Here is the September cottage on my piano in the sitting room.

Instead of stitching a lot the last few months, I have been knitting a lot. Here is one of the shawls I am working on. If you are a member of Ravelry you can see the details and see what I have been up to lately.

I have kitted up November cottage, an ornament and pulled Poinsettia House that I started last year and they are in my project bag ready for some holiday stitching. ;o)

I have slowly started commenting on your blogs again, and I hope to catch up soon.

Love, Heather

Some more stitching.....

 Here is May Cottage from CCN and the next picture you can see it in context. This is the wall above my piano in my sitting room, which is the first room that you walk into in my home. ;o)

 Here is the progress that I have made on European Goldfinches by Crossed Winged Collection.It is coming along nicely. I am really enjoying this one, I am stitching it on 32ct platinum linen with the recommended DMC threads. I have put it aside for now while I am working on June Cottage. I will pull it out again soon.

 Here is my before picture of In the Garden with Jane Austen.

 And this is what I stitched on Friday afternoon while I watched the first 2 chapters of the '95 A&E Pride & Prejudice. (I love that movie!!!)

I finished April showers by CCN on Tuesday evening. I am going to try and stretch it today and hopefully be back tomorrow to show y'all! ;o)
I hope all the mommas who read my blog had a lovely Momma's day on Sunday. I had a lovely one!! The only sad part was that my oldest couldn't come home! :o( I got some lovely stash and will show that with my next post.
I had better get busy and get some work done before it heats up! It is supposed to be 99 today! ICK! ;o)

Happy stitching1
Heather

Jane Austen Stitch Along

Hi! Thank you for all the lovely comments on my last post! Y'all made my day!

 I don't think I have ever posted on my blog how much I LOVE Jane Austen! ;o) Well I do and I am a major Janeite! I re~read her books every year, I love the movies (well most of them) they have made from her books, I have read several of the biographies that have been written on her life. Our family has a tea party on her birthday every year. I even have a window sticker on my van that says "My other ride is a barouche"! ;o) So, now y'all know how crazy I truly am!! ;o) Well, I have been enjoying being a part of the CCN's cottage stitch along that I thought it would be fun to have a Jane Austen one. I am planning on pulling my In the Garden with Jane Austen out of the UFO pile and ripping out some colours that I do not care for and stitching on it. I am going to be working on my Jane piece of Fridays while either watching one of the adaptations or listening to an audio version of one of her books. I thought we could post progress on our blogs each week. There are so many great Jane pieces over at Sampler Girl.
Anyone want to join me? I am going to start this Friday. I will show before and after pictures. Let me know if you want to join me! ;o)
~Heather

Catching Up

Sorry that I have been gone so long!! I can't believe it has been almost 3 months since I last posted. YIKES! Lots going on mainly company and sickness but I won't bore y'all with that! ;o) This post is mainly going to be pictures of what I have been stitching on these last 3 months and then I am going to try and post more regularly. ;o)

 March Cottage of the Month by CCN on 28ct Lambswool Linen with recommended threads except the pink which I used a DMC variation.

 March Flip it by Lizzie Kate finished into a little pillow with some scraps leftover from a skirt that my daughter made. ;o)

 April Flip it by Lizzie Kate not finished into a pillow with scraps from my fabric cupboard! ;o)

 April Cottage by CCN stitched on 28 ct Lambswool Linen using the recommended threads.

 Here is where my April Cottage is hanging with a lovely African Violet. The colours match beautifully! ;o)

 My new start! This is European Goldfinches by Crossed Wing Collection. I am stitching it on 32ct. linen. I remembered the name until I started to type it and then it flew out of my brain. I will look it up and post it next time.;o) I am a little obsessed ( or as my little one says "bazzest")with this project right now. I am loving every stitch of it!! I took this picture two days ago intending to blog that night and I have made quite a bit more progress since then! ;o) Sorry the picture is so dark.

This is another one I have started in March. I had hoped to finish it and have it hanging in my home for April and May, but other the April cottage, May cottage (which is finished I just need to stretch it!), and European Goldfinches have just got in the way of working on this! ;o)

Well, I wanted to thank everyone for commenting on my post last time. I am sorry I didn't email you back. And I also wanted to welcome my new followers!!

I hope that y'all are having a lovely spring! We are enjoying warm weather and our beautiful flowers. We already have baby tomatoes and baby squash! The rest of our veggies and herbs and growing nicely.

See you soon!!
~Heather

Happy ValentinesDay!

I hope y'all are having a happy day! I love Valentine's day. I love to show my family how much I love them and I love all the pink and the hearts! ;O)

I have been working on this for a few days. I finished it a little while ago and made it into a little pillow. The heart fabric it is sitting on is what I used for finishing it. I used part of the Sew in Love chart from I-stitch. I skipped the alphabet and replaced the year with H hearts S, for me and my sweetie. I stitched it on 28ct white even weave with DMC Variations #4180. It was a fun stitch and this is the second time I have stitched it. The last time I made it for a friend. I have also been stitching on CCN's March Cottage and I am about half way done.


Heather loves Steve! ;o)

This is it's home for the rest of the month until it will get packed up until next year. ;o)

Happy stitching!
~Heather

Lots of stitching......EDITED

February cottage by CCN.


Welcome February!! February is my favourite month. Probably because it contains two of my most favourite holidays. Valentine's day and my birthday! LOL!! ;o) I have been enjoying stitching lots of pink. ;o)

I wanted to thank you all for all of your kind wishes for my recent surgery and recovery. They have meant a lot to me!! I am recovering slowly but surely. It has meant for a LOT of stitching time! And more to come. I still have 3-5 more weeks of this resting! I am pretty sure I will be ready for a padded cell by the time this is all over! ;o)

I have been able to finish my January cottage, stitch my February one, stitch my Christmas ornament for January, stitch Rejoice in Winter's Song and finish my oldest UFO! Makes me tired just writing about it! ;o)
Here is a picture of February cottage and where my cottages will live each month. ;o)


This was my oldest UFO! I started it at least 12 years ago, but I think more like 13-14. It is Tea, Roses and Romance by Paula Vaughan. It is stitched on 22ct cream Aida in DMC. I would have ironed it but there is some stains that I didn't want to heat set. I am hoping they will come out when I soak it! If not, I guess they will add to the character of it! ;o) When I originally picked it back up two weeks ago, I was just going to work on it a little here and there, but I became obsessed with it! LOL! I am sooooo glad it is done. It has sooooo much back stitching. When I picked it back up I realized there was a slight error. It would have been major frogging and I decided I would rather just fudge it a little and I am soo happy with the results. I will be sure and show you when it is framed.

EDITED to add a picture of what it looked liked when I picked it back up. ;o)


The chart for Tea, Roses and Romance was a little used and stained! In some places along the crease I had to really guess! ;o)

Here is my ornament for January. It is from a JCS ornament issue. I am not sure which one and I can't bend over yet so I can't dig through my pile to find it. I will soon and edit this post. The designer named it Walt the Malt but I call it Mr. Mocha J. Frappacinno. It is for my coffee loving daughter! ;o) As soon as I am well enough to dig around in my fabric cupboard I will finish it and show y'all! ;o)I have always loved this piece. I have stitched it once as a gift for a friend. I will have to find that picture and share. I am trying to decide how I want to finish this one. ;o) It is by Plum Pudding Needleart and stitched on mystery 28ct cream fabric. With various threads. If someone wants to know exactly you can always email! ;o)


And last, but definitely not least is my lovely January Cottage by CCN. This is stitched on 28ct Lambswool Linen with the suggested threads. It will be already for next January! ;o)

Well my body is saying it is time to head back to the recliner! ;o) I hope my European friends are staying warm!!!

Happy stitching!

Love, Heather

A stitching update

Hi!!! Sorry I kind of just fell off the blogosphere for a while! ;o) My mom came for Thanksgiving and brought a lovely cold with her. ;o) So we spent most of December recovering from that and then all that comes with Christmas. Then I found out I am having abdominal surgery again on Monday at 7. It will be my 4th abdominal surgery in 18 months so I have been having me a pity party! ;o) But, I have snapped out of it and I wanted to get on here and update before I take another break to recover from surgery! In my last post I showed my Peppermint Lane before framing. Here she is in all her beautiful glory~ ;o)


Peppermint Lane by Country Cottage Needleworks

This is where she lived during December and the first part of January! ;o) I started on the January Cottage by CCN but I didn't get very far before I started on February last night! ;o) This is what I got finished. I hope to finish February and then finish January before March comes!;o)

Here are two more Christmas ornaments that I stitched in early December. They didn't get finished. Sigh! Well I am determined once I recover to make them up. I am also hoping this year to stitch an ornament a month. We will see how that goes. ;o)


January 5th was our 24th anniversary, so to celebrate we headed to Phoenix for the weekend with our family. We had a great time and I got to visit Attic Needlework in Mesa for the first time!! It was so lovely. The ladies were so helpful and friendly!! I could have spent all day there and I will some day in the future! ;o) These next two pictures are what I came home with. I was trying to be good, so I didn't get to much! ;o) I was so excited to find a frame for my CCN Cottages of the Month!



Well I started on the February cottage last night, I almost have all of the pink on the house done. Hopefully once I am not too drugged I will be able to finish it quickly! ;o)

Happy stitching,
~Heather