Ornament trees and stockings

Two posts in one day ate up my stitching time but I had time to take pictures today and thought I could share some of what is going on at my house stitchy wise or at least what is planned. Our sweet lab of love wrecks havoc on our Christmas tree so the last couple of years we have just not had one. He is home alone during the day now that our son is at school and tree became a target of his boredom. This year I decided I want to use some table top trees so I could leave out for my stitching. I really want to stitch the BBD stockings. I have been getting the patterns and even took advantage of the special fabric pack by Lois at Elegant Stitch. I don't have a lot of Crescent colors but am slowly collecting them to get started on them . I hope to get them stitched and use them on a little tree I got from Dyeing to Stitch in Virginia. They were so pleasant to work with over the email. It is cute and I think it will work just great for the little stockings. I really wanted to do the Halloween ones for my friends for the stitching retreat but it is not going to happen this year. We always try to have an October retreat so maybe next year. I think they would make great favors for my stitching friends. I am always a day late with my stitching. That is why I buy designs when I see them. Sure enough I don't buy it then when I do get around to wanting to do that design it is not available anymore.

Along with stitching and reading blogs and websites about stitching I am addicted to buying books about stitching. I usually buy used books and even got a book shelf for free for my stitching room to keep them all in. I love reading them and studying the pictures of what others have done before me. This time I splurged and bought some new copies of some older titles I got on sale on Amazon. I bought The Embroideries of Hardwick Hall by Santina M. Leavey , and The Silk Ribbon Embroidery Bible by Joan Gordon and a new book by Judith Baker Montano Embroidery and Crazy quilt stitch tool. I saw a sweatshirt with crazy quilting designs all over it for a price I couldn't go for and it made me decide I should try that as a hand embroidery project. I found the sweat shirt and have tons of ribbon I got at garage sales one summer. Now we will see if it goes anywhere. I got a white sweat shirt with the intent to overdye it when I get the embroidery on it. I may dye it first and then stitch. Still plotting with that whole idea so far.

Hope your days are stitchy. Thanks for stopping in to visit.