This one really snuck up on us and the Christmas tree guy at the farm we went to on Christmas Eve said we weren’t alone! We are never the “put up the tree Thanksgiving weekend” people, but this year, we were ridiculously late. The only trees left were short, fat ones– what else could we do?

I guess I’m happy we swooped in and saved this little guy from the wood chipper, and we made up for his lack of height with a small table. We hastily decorated first thing Christmas morning with the first bulbs we could put our hands on. I think our beautiful, cherished family ornaments are gonna have to take the year off! We will probably make up for our late start by keeping the tree up well into January– the living room smells divine.

Next problem– one of us had an awful cold! You know you can count on me as a wannabe defense attorney to protect the guilty, so all I’ll say is, it wasn’t me! I do have a bit of a scratchy throat right now which is a real bummer for this, my favorite week of the year.

It might sound like I’m complaining, but Mr. SFO and I really had a lovely day. Presents were opened, ham was consumed, and sewing occurred! None of my haul was fabric this year– what a relief, as my “uber-sort” organization binge is about to begin.

Santa brought me a couple of books– both beautifully illustrated. One is in hope I may be a better queen to my poor bees…

And the other is to help me finally master the app “ProCreate” on my iPad. I’m fantastic with Adobe Illustrator, but ProCreate uses a pen and is much more like really drawing.

I’ve discovered it is FANTASTIC for pulling up photos of quilts and auditioning free-motion quilting. I bought this app for just $9.99, but it’s very different from the Adobe suite of software I am used to, so it’s been a learning curve– or more like a cliff. The book has already helped immensely.

I also fancy myself going down to the lake this summer and making pretend water color paintings while the breeze blows by.

Then– a chicken incubator! It’s no secret I’d love to hatch a few eggs around here this spring and see what Poppy the Rooster and my various hens have been up to in that cozy coop this winter! I’d love to see a Rhode Island Red/Brahma combo. That would be a red rooster and a white hen– would they come out pink? What would the name of my new breed be?– Sugar Meadow Pinks? This avenue of thinking has given me many a pleasant stroll over the past few months. Of course, you will be the first to know in the spring what we’re hatching!

I also got an extremely snug and warm new robe from the Blanket Company— it might even be too hot for those in front of the fire evenings! This is not going to help my resolution to get up and get dressed in the morning one little bit. Since it is dark blue and has yellow stars on it, the DD said I look like a wizard!

And now for the big present– and doubles as a business expense! Mr. SFO bought us an X-Tool– it is a wood laser, like the GlowForge. We have been thinking of it for awhile, since I started ordering cute wooden boards for cross stitch display. You can never find the perfect one, right? (This state of mind is what launched me into digitizing machine embroidery years ago– when I couldn’t find exactly the right embroidery design for what I wanted to do.)

The DD had this set up and running in no time– no small feat! And look where we are already!

I’m sure you can see where this is going– are you ready? Customized embroidery and display boards. Our first batch will be up for sale in the next couple of days– there’s an extremely limited amount at this time, but if you miss out, we can make more– many more!

This tiny cross stitch I’m calling the 2025 Sampler– made in minutes– no, maybe even seconds, and ready to display for the entire year. I’m also releasing a hand chart for it, and the entire set of hand charts for the Village of the Month are just about ready to debut. I’m adding a new tab on the website for HAND XSTITCH– look for it early next year. I had my hand cross stitch designs on Etsy to avoid confusion with my machine embroidery, but everyone was getting confused anyway.

Lots of great ideas to launch into 2025– but let’s get back to my favorite week of the year!

Part of my Christmas morning was spent with this cute project– do you remember I bought this kit from Herrschner’s last year? I barely got one ornament started before it languished all year in a drawer in my coffee table.

These types of projects remind me of something my grandmother would have made with felt and sequins and they are super relaxing and a little different from my usual cross stitch projects. Maybe I’ll even have one finished this year! I’m clumsy, and there’s going to be many sequins and beads down the back of my couch. I can just imagine my kids fighting over who gets to inherit these lovely ornaments mom made when I’m gone. Not. But I love them.

The appalling cross stitch is taking a back seat for now but has still had some progress. Someone on Facebook corrected me and thought I meant to write APPEALING. It’s appealing only to me. But henceforth, I’m referring to it as the appealing cross stitch to be a little more optimistic.

I am going to start another row of designs on the bottom soon featuring snowmen. These little squares were originally designed as separate ornaments, so I’m having to arrange them myself. No sign of the blue matching set on Herrschner’s the customer service person promised me to put back up. Maybe that’s for the best, as this could easily keep me going till the summer with 9 of 24 done in about three months.

I’ve been wanting to start a new tab on this blog with my 2024 quilt finishes, and as soon as I figure out how, I will! Anyway, I went through all of my photos for the year and I made over 20 quilts– depending on how you define “finished!” I define it as “top is finished.” I can hardly believe it. I should feel better about my productivity than I do.

Of course, 2025 quilt-y goals must now be made– I’m just going to start off with two quilts and not plan the whole year just now. I will desperately try to work on what I have– that’s the main idea. One of them is “Moonbeams,” a quilt-a-long by Fat Quarter Shop. Thw quilt-a-long finished months ago and yes, it was a bit vexing to see the kit for 50% off last week.

To motivate myself, I’ve decided to turn it into a wedding gift for one I have coming up in June– better start now! I do have some blocks done– what originally attracted me to this was the birds– I am now going to make them into dragons for this couple who met playing Dungeons and Dragons. I already drew it up on graph paper like I’m always telling everyone else to do, but it’s a lot of pieces. We’ll see what happens. Worst case, I’ll use the birds which are already done. This is a nice combination of kit/original work to keep it fun and interesting.

The Village of the Month finishing kit is the other priority for 2025. I already have gray backing fabric picked out, and we’ll work our way through it on the blog early next year. We’re going to learn how to make tiny cross blocks, then combine them to make a little picture for in between each embroidery design. Aha! I may just be using my 2025 Sampler pictured above as inspiration for it…

Once we figure out how to make these blocks from a cross stitch design, we could make a cute 2025 Sampler Quilt without the machine embroidery as well– are you in need of a squirrel to chase in January?

My nose is now starting to run a bit, but all is happy at the end of 2024. Since a day in bed may be in my future, I just want to wish you all a Happy New Year ahead of time. I hope your 2025 is full of promise and lots of sewing ideas. Thank you so much for reading and caring about my little corner of he world– you mean the world to me!

xox
Carol