Opening Door #9

Don't you just love Advent Calendars?  I sure do.  Jo is hosting an Advent Calendar Blog Hop, and I have day 9.

First up is a decoration I have stitched.  This is my latest Christmas Finish.  While I was stitching my Nutcracker Sampler I found this chart in the same magazine - Better Homes and Garden Christmas 1990, and I remembered how much I loved it when I first bought this magazine so I decided it was finally time to stitch..  This was such a quick stitch - and gingerbread is my favorite Christmas Smell/taste.  I finished it as a wreath - fit perfectly - just a regular foam wreath with ribbon.

Next we were asked to share a Special Christmas Decoration.  Below is a very special wreath.  Way back, in the early 80's, I did a lot of  macrame and created the wreath for my mom for Christmas.

  She then painted the picture of the shepherd child looking into the Manger and placed it in the center, and hung it in her home.

,My mom really taught me all about Crafting, and this is the perfect memory of her work and my work together to help celebrate a time of year  so important to my mom  and her faith.  I have the wreath now. The bow could use a little work. But I guess I just like it squished.  

Please take a moment and visit Jo's blog linked above to join in the Celebration of the Season.

11 Down and 1 to Go

Here is my Finished Nutcracker Sampler.  They will be finished and on Display with the rest of my little guys very soon.  These guys make 11 -- I did two of these as individuals the last two to the right.

Of all of my 11 Nutcrackers I have finished the little green dude to the far left of this picture is my favorite.

I have one more to finish before the end of 2016 and that one goal for the year will be met.  Meeting my goals by the original due date never happens - so there is not a very high percentage that this one will be met - but I am so very close.

This took me so much longer than I thought it would, but I have not really concentrated much on stitching over the past couple of weeks.  This is done on 22 ct white 1 over 1 all DMC called for threads, accept the faces and hands of the nutcrackers - I did them in DMC 3772 to add a little color to my project.  I found this in Better Homes and Garden Christmas 1990.

I am not going to post the updates to my election challenge pictures as a blog post.  They are all WIPS from my year of WIP challenge and I will post those pictures on those pages at some point.

Did a quick inventory of my Stash - Charts and Magazines only - and I am a little embarrassed at how much I have.  Am going to be doing a whole bunch of different types of new starts next year, because I really did buy those charts once upon a time, because I wanted to stitch them.  And I still dowant to at least give them a start.

Looking forward to having next week off.  Much needed vacation - I really plan to spend so much time getting caught up on my blog reading and reconnecting with those parts of my life that bring me joy.