“There is nothing like staying home for true comfort,” is a Jane Austen saying I keep seeing here and there, and I whole-heartedly agree with it. After driving five hours back to my old haunts for a visit mid-week, I am now back to my own lovely bed. Did you miss me?

The chicken quilt has been delivered to my son, one of the few times I’ve had a quilt ready for Christmas on time! Here’s my heavily photoshopped final picture.

I have chickens and so wanted to stage a picture in front of the coop– but every time they see me, they come running and then flying towards me like it’s a race. If I don’t have treats, I have to run away! It was the impossible task and I probably would have been on American’s Funniest Videos if we had done that instead.

I even remembered to make French knots for the tiny eyes–so cute!

After the quilt delivery, I met with some old quilt-y friends and it was very enjoyable to see them in person instead of through FaceTime. We exchanged gifts and I came home with quite a haul and a warm feeling– I haven’t been forgotten!

Then, another surprise– Mr. SFO put up my thread racks in my absence– I think my DD gave him the heads up that it’s all I wanted for Christmas!

I could ill afford the time away this week, but maybe that’s what I needed! Now that I’m back, I’m completely overwhelmed. The sewing space, in fact, the entire house, is a complete wreck. I’m still working through sales on the website, A-Z. Some of the Christmas sets I had started now look like they may be for next year!

My favorite week of the year is the one between Christmas and New Years and it looks like a good part of it is going to be spent cleaning. I need to do an “UBER SORT” of material possessions. I came up with this term and basically it describes the difference between having all the thread on the thread racks, and then finally having them in numbered order. This needs to happen in every corner of the house– clothing, kitchen, bathrooms, sewing room all need an extreme straightening out and organizing– you know, finally settling in after a move that was two years ago!

It doesn’t help that there’s still a trickle of new things being added to the pile. I am working the appalling cross stitch piece along– only a few more stitches on it this week. I noticed Herrschner’s resurrected this sister piece, which I just had to have.

I still like the one I am working on better, but I figured in some future life, I could make a couple of these as ornaments. I then contacted Herrschner’s to see if they would add back the elusive “blue” set– they said they would! I have yet to see it though. I wrote them three times about it– maybe they just wanted to get rid of me. I love this one– it’s forever in the shoulda woulda coulda category– I shoulda bought it when I first saw it.

I just about have nine done of the original set I bought in 2020– there are 24 designs in all, and I’d love to do all of them. If I keep going row by row, I’ll at least have something I could finish quickly if the next squirrel comes along. So I have a 3×3 piece at this point and I’m still have fun, so I’m going to add another row of three to the top or bottom– then maybe four to a side and continue along like that. I could decide it is DONE at any point.

Then, I adopted a village! At our local transfer station, they have a room of free stuff people drop off that’s too good to throw out. My DD and SIL call it “going to the the mall.” LOL

This set of five hand-painted rock cottages needed a home– so beautifully done on all sides, signed and dated 1994. I just couldn’t say no– so appropriate to my current work on the Teensy Village, right? See what I did with the free machine-embroidered tree, there? They have already been “uber-sorted” onto my shelf of houses, at least!

Some of you are asking what the finish is going to look like for my own “Village of the Month” cross stitch pieces– I have the answer! This is what I came up with:

I thought it would be appropriate to add little cross stitch blocks– they are 1-1/2″ and are very easy to make, I assure you! Just slice and dice.

The sketch just shows a snowflake block, but I also want to add other simple designs like an apple, a spool of thread, a pumpkin, a shamrock, and more, that go with the images in the machine embroidered blocks. The outside border is made of 3″ finished blocks and would be scrappy colors. The background is silver gray. If this looks appalling to you, you can make it more appealing by just cutting plain setting blocks. I’m hoping to design quilting in-the-hoop to fill them.

I’m not going to write up formal instructions for this– I’m going to put it on the blog as I go along and it will just be free. It’s going to go together over the course of the winter. Let me know if you are interested to make it– I like to know if I’m talking to myself! Otherwise, I may just continue along on my own.

So that’s about it– I need one big push just to get through Christmas. Then it’s time to get organized for 2025– my head is plenty full of another few years of machine embroidery ideas and I can’t wait for it!

xox
Carol