I'm late getting started with blogging for the new year, but better late than never! I can't believe that January is already half over!

When looking over my goals for last year, I realized that I completed 3 out of 6, so not bad! The best thing is that I managed to make more time for stitching last year and I am really glad about that.

I've listed some goals for 2007, as well as some designs that I'd really like to stitch in the coming year. I still have too many WIPs, but hopefully I'll finish some of those too!

One goal I have for 2007 is to finish "Three Things" a beautiful sampler by Moira Blackburn. I started this as a SAL with an on-line group of friends (I can't even remember how long ago!) and a few of the friends have finished theirs. It's a huge piece for me to be working on, but the finished piece is so lovely and I am determined to complete it! I am about 1/4 of the way through...

http://tinyurl.com/2j5ouw

I am determined to keep up with my blog in the new year.
I have some stitching time today, so I have pulled out "Three Things" by Moira Blackburn.
I started this as a SAL with an online group of stitching friends...can't remember exactly
when, but it was awhile ago! Anyway, some of us have decided to try and finish it
this year. I still have a long way to go...this is a huge piece! After putting in just a few
stitches today, I realized that I had miscounted before and had to rip out 4 of the letters.
I've redone them now and am on my way again! This picture shows my progress as of
December 27. I'll try and post progres pics every week or so. Now it's time for a cup of
tea and back to the sampler.
Happy New Year's Eve!

Trying a new way to load pictures to this blog.
Let's see if this works!
This is my progress so far on "Celtic Autumn"

I really love all the lights at Christmastime, and ove the past few days I have been having the best time! Over the weekend we drove up to Leavenworth, Washington. This is a Bavarian village and every year they have a Christmas lights festival. The whole village looks like something right out of Germany. There are lots of shops and restaurants. It's really quaint and beautiful. The lighting ceremony is wonderful. There is music and a procession that starts from either end of town. As the procession comes down the street, they "light" each storefront as they pass by until they meet in the center opposite the large tree and gazebo. At this point all the stores are lit up with the most beautiful lights. Then they proceed to the gazebo and light all the enormous trees in the park.It is really spectacular! Here is link with a picture of a bit of the town...all lit up: http://www.leavenworth.com

Then, last night we headed to the zoo for the annual zoolights display. (they also have zoolights at Halloween!) You can walk throughout the zoo and the light displays are phenomenal. There is also a train ride that takes you through some of the zoo and that'a also fun. Here is a link to see a bit of what zoolights is all about: http://www.oregonzoo.com/Events/Zoolights/preview.htm

Tonight, my daughter is flying in from Boston to spend a few days with us. I don't know how much stitching I will get done, but I am really looking forward to seeing her! We are on vacation this week, so we will have some time to spend doing fun things.

Stitching goals for the week were to finish my monthly block exchange piece...this month is a house design,and to finish my oldest UFO - Paula Vaughan's January Quilt for All Seasons. I did finish the block, but don't know how far I'll get onthe other piece. We'll see!

Well, once again I have been very negligent about posting here. So I guess it is catch-up time.
The weather has turned very rainy and cold, which makes for dreary days around here. I thinkwe will be putting our Christmas tree up early this year to cheer things up!

Jeff got me the best early birthday gift...it's a standing daylight lamp with magnifier, chart holder and accessory tray and I have been making such good use of it! You have to understand that before this I would stitch all crunched up on the couch, with not very good light, surrounded by threads, patterns, etc, and wearing huge mag-eyes so that I could see properly. Not a very pretty sight! And not very erlaxing either. Well, this lamp has made all the difference (although I still try to push the mag-eyes up, even thought they are no longer there!) Now I can just sit down and stitch and it is so much more pleasurable!

I am taking a long weeekend off for the holiday, so I spent all day Wednesday in my chair, in front of the fireplace stitching away. I finished Lizzie Kate's Christmas Blessings. I stitched them all on one piece of fabric (a Silkweaver piece called Precious Metals). The fabric was a little hard to stitch on, with all the sparklies it was sometimes hard to find my place and count properly), but the finished piece is very pretty with all the bright Christmas colors. I still have to stitch the charms on and then am planning on making a wall hanging.

For Thanksgiving, we went out to dinner with our daughter. The restaurant is one we go to every year, but I think they have new management, and it wsn't as good as before. Oh well...it was still nice to be together. The rest of the day was spent watching football and stitching. I was working on a piece by Sisters and Best Friends alled "Christmas Wishes". I've had this one for uite some time but haven't got around to stitching it before now. It's fun to work on though. Here's my progress so far:

I wish I was better at keeping up here...ever since we got back from vacation, things have been really busy. We've been doing demos for a new computer system at work for thepast 2 weeks so I haven't been able to get anything else done there. But I have been stitching some. I managed to get a few small things done...finally got the charms sewn on my LK Flip-Its, finished another small block for the monthly exchange, and I also stitched uip a cute scissors pattern that Meri designed and shows on her blog. There are so many cute designs...I did the butterfly ones but plan on doing more. I think they would make a really nice gift for stitching friends. I'm still working on a round robin piece...EMS "Monkey Baby". It's really a cute little design and it stitches up pretty quickly...unfortunately I'm not a very fast stitcher! And I won't take this one on the bus/train with me...if it ever got lost I'd be mortified!
This Saturday is my hubby's birthday so we are going up to Long Beach, WA for the weekend. We've never been there so it should be a fun adventure.
I'll try to post some pictures of my finishes when I get home.