Merry Christmas! !

I want to wish everyone a very merry Christmas and a new year that is filled with many blessings and much joy!

December Cottage

Good morning everyone!  It's beautifully foggy here. I LOVE fog! :-)

I am ready for Christmas. I have a very excited little one. I am afraid that he probably won't sleep for the next two nights!  ;-)

I have a finish to show you. I finished December cottage a few days before thanksgiving and had it ready to go in the frame by the first. I have stitched a little bit on an ornament but I am afraid that that is all for the month. When we rearranged our furniture to fit the tree in,  I lost my good lighting. I have been knitting a lot though. I don't need much lighting to knit, thankfully.  ;-)

We got some nice snowfall this month which thrilled my children's souls!  We have the perfect sledding backyard.  So little man trudged up and down the hill until it was a muddy mess!

I have been working on my stitching goals for next year and I hope to share them with you next week.

I hope that you all are having a happy and peace filled day!

Love, Heather

The giveaway winners

Sorry for the delay. I have had a nasty chest cold and have used what little energy I have had to do Christmas things. I am sure you all understand. :-)

The winner of the pattern Let us be truly thankful is Carol from Stitching Dreams.

The winner of the pattern Autumn Band Sampler is Tricia from The Stamper's Stitches.

And the winner of the Prairie Schooler pattern card is Joyce Clark Frank.

Congratulations ladies!  If you could send me your address. I will get them out to you. My email address is delightfulhands@gmail.com

Thanks!

3 free patterns and a couple of finishes.

Happy Wednesday afternoon!  It is a beautiful day here in northern Delaware. It is actually sunny.  ;-) 45 degrees but sunny.
Several things have occurred in the last few weeks to give me a lot of extra stitching time plus I have had a few projects that were close to being finished. I have 3 projects finished! !! Yeah for me.
;-)
The first thing I have finished is my November Cottage. Once I finished that I was on a roll and pulled out  Autumn Band Sampler by Little House Needleworks. I changed the colors of the words and sunflowers to GAST Harvest Moon and the center of the sunflowers I changed to DMC 3031.

After that I pulled out my Truly Thankful piece by Heartstring Samplery. I ran into a mistake but not until the very end so instead of frogging the entire right side, I decided to add an acorn down on the bottom right corner. I like how it turned out. I am not sure how I will finish it yet, so I will tuck it in the closet until I decide.

The final finish is an ornament that I started last Christmas day. Victoria Sampler's Button up Birdie English Robin. I stitched it on a scrap of mystery 32ct.fabric with all of the called for threads.

I am now working on December cottage and I have made pretty good progress and then earlier I noticed that I must have spilled a drop of my smoothie on it this morning.  :-(  I washed it but there is still a faint spot. I have decided to keep stitching as most of it will be covered by the frame.

I am trying to keep my stash to a minimum so I am going to start going through it and selling and giving away ones that I have finished.So if you are interested in the pattern for Autumn Band Sampler or Truly Thankful. I also have a little Prairie Schooler Freebie to give away. (I am saving the November Cottage pattern to sell the whole set.)Please leave a comment letting me know which one you would like or all of them and I will draw the winners here in a week or so. Please feel free to comment even if you haven't already done so. ;-)

Happy stitching!
Heather

(Sorry the photos are crappy! Next time I will use my regular camera, rather than my phone. )

Happy November

Good morning. I thought I would pop on here for a bit and give you a little update. Not too much going on in the stitching front.  I have mainly been knitting. I have made a little bit of progress on my thankful sampler. And I worked some on November cottage.  I have been knitting on a Christmas gift for my daughter that I will show you next month and I have also been knitting on my hitchhiker shawl. I really like it. It is a relaxing knit.

I can't believe it is already the 4th of November. Where has this year gone?  We are excitedly counting down to Thanksgiving here in the Pickle home. Our oldest son is flying out here to spend it with us. Thankfully it falls late this year and so he will get to be here for his 25th birthday too!  ;-)

I have joined the new CCN and LHN blogs created by Vonna and I am very excited about being a part of these. ;-)

We have been having fun playing tourist in our new area. We have been to Philadelphia, Brandywine Battlefield and Amish country lately. We have a whole list of places we hope to go to soon. I think next up is the Dogfish Head brewery when our oldest son is visiting. ;-)

You can follow me on instagram if you would like to see what we are up to?  ;-) I am sweetpickle02 on there.

Well I had better get busy with my day.I hope you have a great day!
Love, Heather

Autumn stitching

I had a few minutes, so I thought I would pop on here and show you what I am working on. I finished my October cottage and started November cottage. I didn't get very far before I decided that I didn't like the grapefruit color. So now I am trying to decide what color to use.
I have made some progress on autumn band sampler and then instead of just finishing that I had to start a new project!  ;-)
I have recently discovered the designer Heartstring Samplery and have fallen in love with several of her pieces. So my newest start is one of her thanksgiving pieces. I am loving it even though there have been frogs abounding!
Autumn has arrived in northern Delaware and I am thrilled! ;-) The leaves are starting to change and it is beautiful.
I have joined instagram and have found a few of you. If you want you can find me as sweetpickle02. ;-)
Well I have rambled enough. I hope you are having a blessed day!
Love, Heather

Trying to settle in....

Hi! I thought I would pop in and say hello. We are still trying to settle in. It seems that the older I get the harder it is to move. ;-)
We are learning our way around a bit. I have been to The Strawberry Sampler up in Pennsylvania and I have some new stash to prove it!  ;-) I tried to meet up with Catherine from Bramblewood Stitches, but it didn't work out. We are hoping it will work out soon.
;-)
I have a major case of startitis lately. I have started several new knitting projects and cross stitch projects too. I am thinking of starting Pumpkin Patch Inn too.;-) I am working on October cottage by CCN and Autumn Band Sampler by LHN.
It is starting to look like Autumn around here. It was 48 degrees when I woke up yesterday. It is so lovely after living in the desert for so long.
My daughter and I had a girls day yesterday and ventured up into Pennsylvania to a lovely tea room. It was so delightful!
Well the boys have gone down to the bay to go fishing so I am going to make a cup of tea and stitch for a while. :-) I will try to be better about posting!  ;-)
Happy stitching!
Love, Heather

On an adventure.

Hi! I know it has been a LONG time since I have posted. So much has happened since then. The major thing has been a new job for my husband. We have gone from living in south eastern Arizona to Northern Delaware. Well, technically we are in an rv park in northern Maryland right now looking for a place to live. ; 0)
We have been here 4 days now. So far we love it. ; 0) It is VERY humid and hot. The hot part we are used to but not the humidity.
Anyway, on to the stitching part. I kitted up a few things to work on before I packed all of my stitching treasures up.I decided that I needed to have some stitching therapy today (living in a 27ft travel trailer with an active 8 year old boy will make you need therapy! )! ; 0)
So, I pulled out my Victoria Sampler Christmas Robin ornament. There are a lot of Robins around our trailer. We are really enjoying watching them. Well I had better finish since I am posting from my phone. I hope that you all are having a lovely day.
Love, Heather

Three Finishes

Hi!
 Welcome to my new followers! I am very glad that you are here! I have three finishes to show you today.
The first one is Joy from LHN. I did the stitching a couple of years ago and it was waiting it's turn to be made into something and I finally made a little hanging pillow.

I also finished LHN's Poinsettia House and stretched it and popped it into a frame that I use for my April Showers piece. I haven't decided if I will eventually have it permanently framed or not. I hung them up together in my family room. I think they turned out really cute. ;o)

My third piece is one that I finished the stitching on last year and finally got around to stretching it and putting it into a frame I had ordered online for it. It is currently on my mantel in my family room.
I have been stitching on several different pieces and will show you those next time. I have also been knitting and stamping so I will have a post about those too.

Today is the 200th anniversary of the publishing of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. So, I am going to go and watch the 1995 version of it and stitch and knit away. ;o)

~Heather

~25~

 Yesterday, my darling husband and I celebrated our 25th anniversary! We had a great day. Our oldest son came for the week to help us celebrate! What could be better than having all of my children home!! We headed to Tucson for dinner at Olive Garden! ;o)We celebrated as a family today but soon my hubby and I will have a day just for ourselves.  The card above is what I made for him.

 Me and my darling hubby!

 My children. They are 24, 20 and 8! ;o)

A sweet gift from my darling hubby! Now, I need a manicure! ;o)

See you soon!
Love, Heather

Happy New Year and Exchanges

 Happy New Year!!! I hope today is a lovely start to 2013!! We are having a nice day, a little relaxing, a little cleaning, a little stitching and soon homemade Chinese food. YUM!

I recently participated in my very first exchange with the Stitched with Love Exchange group ran by the lovely Lainey! It was a wonderful experience and I am thankful for Lainey's hard work and my wonderful exchange partner Dawn. She really spoiled me and I LOVE everything that she gave me!! Thanks again Dawn!

 I had Lainey as the one I was to stitch for and this next picture is what I sent her. I stitched her the Let it Snow ornament (but made it into a pillow) from the 2010 JCS ornament issue. It is by CCN. I made a few changes and I even wrote them down, but do you think I could find that piece of paper?!!! Oh, well! ;o) Lainey said she loved everything and I am so glad!

I have quite a bit of Christmas stitching to show you and two new starts for next time.
Thank you for all of the lovely Christmas wishes! I hope that y'all have a very blessed 2013!!!

Love, Heather