Literary Bliss - Just for a Night

I was a happy camper last night. I got to spend the evening with Anna and Andrew and Pat Conroy. I love Pat. I don't think there's a writer who puts two words together better than he does. He was at Neptune Beach (Jacksonville Beach) last night at The Bookmark to sign copies of My Reading Life, his newest non-fiction book. I feel a connection to him that I really can't put into words. Maybe it's that he writes about places I have known for most of my life.

I stood in line for an hour and a half waiting to speak to him and have my books signed. He is such a gentleman, very kind and gracious. He told me about getting lost trying to find the Borders in Augusta last year and getting lost again upon leaving Borders. I bought Andrew and Anna a hardback copy of The Great Santini which he personalized for them: To Andrew and Anna, for love of family, Pat Conroy. For my copy of My Reading Life, he signed: To Melinda, for love of story, Pat Conroy. He spent time with each person as he signed their book and engaged everyone in conversation. That's so unusual these days. Most book signings are very regimented - one book only, no personalizations, no photos, etc. Not much more than a chance to say hello and move on. While the book signing was very non-regimented and an "anything goes" type of event, it made for a long evening waiting for him to have a little quality time with his fans. He would sign as many books as you put in front of him.

It was fun to see the festive holiday lights at Jacksonville Beach last night. The cold (very cold) air and the lights, good food at Ragtime, the holiday decorated small shops, and the company of Andrew and Anna made for a really wonderful evening. I was sorry to have to drive back home again this morning! But my Little Girl is glad to have her momma home with her this afternoon.

Another frigid night here in South. Stay warm wherever you are!

Slow Start to the Construction But There's a Plan

I enjoyed pulling out the Haunted House from its pillowcase and seeing that I have actually made progress on this project. Not enough progress to be caught up with where we start with Kit #4, but enough to not feel too discouraged. I think my stitching plan for December will be to concentrate on the lower half of the canvas. Yesterday I started in on the balustrade with all of its accompanying partially detached needleweaving.

The needleweaving moves along at a nice pace. I stitched the left section yesterday while I watched the disaster (for South Carolina) that was the Auburn/Carolina football game. This afternoon I'll work on the right balustrade and then start in on the raised stem stitch for the top of the balustrade. Amy gives us a nice outline for working this portion of the canvas. I'm looking forward to stitching the arched pillars on the first floor but want to complete the second floor balustrade first.

The UPS man snuck up on me Thursday night and left some packages at the door that I didn't see until Friday morning as I was backing down the driveway. Glad it didn't rain that night! One of the packages was from Ruth Schmuff and it contained this:

Ada Haydon's Winter Tree Canvas along with the November/December issue of Needlepoint Now where you will find the stitch guide. What a perfect project for the dreary winter doldrums - lots of sparkly color to boost your spirits - hot pink, orange, turquoise, lime green. 

That's what the big brown truck brought me on Thursday. The Mail Man brought me this on Friday:

Kelly Clark's First Thanksgiving canvas with the stitch guide. This was my eBay purchase last week. I'll have to purchase the threads but that won't be difficult to do. There were five or six accompanying canvases to this "background" canvas. It was hard to decide which of them I was going to bid on but I eventually decided on this one.

When I walked through the floral department at the grocery store last week and saw all the Christmas cactus on display, I was reminded to go out in the backyard and bring mine inside. Every April, once the chance of a frost has passed, I take my cactus outside and put them under the Japanese Magnolia and hydrangeas where they get shade all summer. And there they stay until the first of December when Mother Nature works her miracle and I bring them out of the bushes covered in blooms. Thought you might like to see one of them in this morning's sunlight in the kitchen.

These have always been one of my favorite seasonal flowers. I would much rather have these at Christmas than a poinsettia.

While I'm sharing favorite Christmas things, I want to show you my most favorite Christmas ornament. He's Nutcracker Crunch by Christopher Radko. He has the place of honor in my dining room on a bed of ornaments.

Last but not least is my new Christmas favorite this year. My Santa Man in the Moon pin. I have always wanted a really special Christmas pin and I have finally found it.

There are all sorts of wonderful little charms that make up his beard - candy canes, Christmas trees, packages, stockings, nutcrackers. I just love him - he makes me happy. I told Andrew and Anna that they will have to watch me because the older I get, the more sparkly I like things. But, if you can't be sparkly at Christmas when can you?

Hope your holiday decorating and shopping is going well or almost finished! Save some time for stitching1

Where's My Hardhat?

It's construction time again in the Halloweenies world as the next phase of the Haunted House begins this week. My threads and stitch guide arrived from Amy's today. There is so much to be done! All of it fun and interesting, mind you, but just a lot to do. Looking through the stitch guide reminded me that I still have a lot to catch up on from Kit #3. In kit #4, we'll get to apply false eyelashes to someone's big eye on the canvas and learn to make a hangman's noose. My canvas has been safely tucked away since the end of September so it will be fun to get it out again. I remember thinking when I put it away that I had really made some nice progress on it. Hope I still think that tomorrow!

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I spent my holiday with the newlyweds in Jacksonville and we had a fun time as always. Anna and I cooked a Thanksgiving dinner for the three of us and it couldn't have turned out better. We had already had one huge Thanksgiving meal at her grandparents' house earlier in the day but we still found room for our own turkey, dressing, rice and gravy, squash casserole, spinach and cheese squares, and Sister Schubert rolls that evening. To quote Rachel Ray, "Delish!".

I got a little bit of stitching done over Thanksgiving. I took my XOXO project with me to work on. It had been a while since I worked on it but I did complete the third stripe and started on the fourth. It's a fun project as are all of the & more canvases. I particularly like the dimension that the stitch in the third stripe adds to the canvas. Here's a picture of my progress:

My Mystery Class Noel canvas arrived on Monday from Ruth Schmuff. Very cute and looks to be a fairly quick stitching project (unless you are stitching 5 other things at the same time). I love the way Ruth packages her threads in fun, festive bags.  I really felt like I was opening a gift for myself when it arrived - it was that festive. Here's a quick look:

I must thank Robin for including a photo of my Halloween mantle in the December issue of Amy's newsletter. There's lots of good information (as always) in the newsletter and a great look at our next Halloweenie character coming in January.

That's it for tonight. I've still got work to do and some deadlines to meet, so there won't be any stitching tonight. Next time I'll have some photos of the construction work. Have a good week!

Full Moon Tomorrow Night - W. Herr Wolfe is on the Prowl!!

Yes, the moon is full on Sunday night and W. Herr Wolfe is off the stretchers and ready to roam. I began Herr Wolfe right after October's full moon and finished him last night just in time for the November full moon. Here he is in all his finished, ferocious glory.

What fun he was to stitch! I miss him already! This week I took care of the small details such as the beading on his belt, his buttons and button holes, and the "X's" background. I enjoyed the "X" background. It isn't a mindless background because it does require careful counting but once you are get into the rhythm of it, it's very enjoyable.

The two friends are re-united and will be cooling their heels in Augusta until after the first of the year when they go to visit Marlene in San Francisco.

Construction begins again on the Haunted House in a few more days. In the meantime, I think I will work on the Fall Tree by Ada Haydon (see the September/October 2010 issue of Needlepoint Now). The bright, bold colors that Ruth Schmuff has pulled together for this project are really calling my name.

I went to an early, 9:00 AM class on Holiday Decorating at Cudos this morning. Got some wonderful fresh ideas for decorating around the house. It's so easy to decorate in the same way year after year. I don't know how many years in a row I have lined my mantle with my collection of Santas. It always looks nice but it's time to do something different this year. I think that for this year's Christmas mantle I'll focus on my mother's Herend green Chinese Bouquet soup tureen. I bought some beautiful red, green, and gold beaded ornaments to fill the tureen and add some sparkle to the mantle. We'll see how it develops.

My Christmas needlepoint is sorely lacking. I have some Melissa Shirley Nativity stand-ups which I will show you at some point during the holiday season. And that's it. Perhaps once the Halloweenies are finished I can turn my attention to catching up on my Christmas stitching.

I'll leave you with a link to a recipe I just tried - Nantucket Cranberry Pie.  It is so simple and so absolutely delicious! It really is a cross between pie and cake. There isn't a pie crust per se but more like a crusty sweet cake on top of the cranberries. The cake batter is flavored with almond extract which is a favorite flavoring of mine. The whole house smells like almond sweetness right now. I wouldn't ordinarily eat a dessert like this in the middle of the afternoon but there was no way I was letting a warm pie that smells this good go without eating until this evening. Thanks to the Pioneer Woman for this great recipe! And, she beat Bobby Flay in the Thanksgiving Throwdown this week on Food Network. If you don't know who the Pioneer Woman is, just take a few minutes and explore her blog/website. She's the best! I read her blog(s) everyday and never fail to find something to laugh about or a recipe I want to try. In fact, I may need to go have another piece of her Nantucket Cranberry Pie right now!

I wish a very happy Thanksgiving to all of you! Take some time this week in the midst of all the cleaning and cooking and preparations for Thanksgiving and remember to think about all that you're thankful for. I'm thankful for all of my new stitching friends who are stopping by the blog and leaving kind, supportive comments. 

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Fierce but Friendly

I had such fun this week stitching W. Herr Wolfe's face and fur. I loved seeing his face come to life with each color and stitch. I think he's probably more friendly than he is fierce, don't you think?

I'll be finishing up the green French knot ground cover this evening which will allow me to go ahead and complete the bottom straight line borders. I practiced a few of the twisted Lazy Daisy stitches to be used on the pumpkin stems and found that I need to practice a little more. I didn't have a problem with them when we used them on Stirha's logs under her cauldron but, since we are using a different thread this time,  my threads aren't stacking up like I want them to. 

My Autumn Trees canvas arrived from Ruth Schmuff this week. What fun this canvas is going to be! I love the thread kit as much as I love the canvas - hot pinks, oranges, reds, Swarovski  sequins and beads - it's so colorful!

Andrew and Anna were here for the weekend and are, sadly, on their way back to Jacksonville. Anna and I had fun yesterday attending a Christmas tree decorating workshop at a local store, Cudos. Their head buyer/store decorator gave a great hour-long demonstration of different tree decorating techniques. It was pretty amazing and so interesting to see how all of those "professionally" decorated trees in the stores get that way. Here's the top one third of a tree that we were shown how to decorate yesterday -

There are no ornaments in this upper part of the tree - just floral picks with either sparkly greenery or glittery green and red stars and balls. The bright green object on the upper left is a lighted top hat. There were some color co-ordinating lighted gift boxes scattered throughout the rest of the tree. The decorator's advice was not to "overthink" the decorating - just go for it! He told us that he lives in a small 2 bedroom bungalow and has a total of 13 Christmas trees decorating his house. Can you imagine?  He has one Christopher Radko tree that has about 300 ornaments on it! All of the decorations used on the trees in Cudos are available for purchase but it's a little overwhelming trying to decide which ones to add to the decorations you already have. I'll have to go back when the store is a little less crowded. Andrew brought all of my decorations down from the attic so I can begin the decorating process any day now or at least the planning process. When do you start your Christmas decorating? Or have you already decorated?

Hope you all have a great week and find some time for stitching!

Halloween Isn't Over, Is It?

Well, the calendar says Halloween is over, but in my little stitching world, Halloween never ends. There are still three Halloweenie characters to finish and a Haunted House as well. Then there is my "boo' canvas waiting in the wings and the autumn trees from Ruth Schmuff that will arrive any day now. Can't forget the two Halloween-themed ribbon candy canvases by Melissa Shirley, either. One of these years I will get around to a Christmas theme - my Christmas needlepoint is severely lacking!

I put away the Halloween decorations today and had the same feeling that I usually have in January when the Christmas decorations are packed away for the year. The house looks so empty! But, just for a couple of weeks and then I can decorate for Christmas. Poor Thanksgiving gets lost (decoration-wise) between Halloween and Christmas.

I may try to remedy that situation in part by signing up for Amy's 2011 home study featuring Melissa Shirley's Thanksgiving banner. You can see the Thanksgiving canvas here. Very cute!

In the Halloweenies world, W. Herr Wolfe is pleased to have the major work on his pants and jacket finished and his tombstone, too. This afternoon I'll get started on his face. The stitching on this character seems to be moving along more quickly than some of the others. Hope you're finding the same thing in your stitching as well. Here's the werewolf's latest photo:

Why is it that you take a photo of your stitching and all of your mis-stitches (for lack of a better term) immediately pop out at you? Is it the different lighting? Or is it a case of looking at something so much while you stitch it that you really don't see it anymore? Does that make sense? There are a couple of places in the stitched areas that bother me (but not enough to make me want to rip them out and start over) that I didn't notice until I took the current photo.  I suppose we are our own worst critic!

That's it from a chilly Augusta - 33 degrees and a light frost this morning! Have a wonderful week!

The Bride and Groom Return Home and Other News

Bridezilla and her Groom returned home yesterday! What a wonderful surprise! They're sorry they missed Halloween but it was a low key one around here anyway, so they didn't miss much. But, I'm thrilled that they are back! Marlene worked her magic again and they make a lovely couple.

They were anxious to see Stirha and Frank and renew their longtime friendship. Everyone posed on the mantle for a family portrait.

Seeing the four of them together made me realize that the mantle will be a crowded place once all of the Halloweenies are finished.

The UPS man has no idea how happy he made me yesterday! Not only did he bring me the wonderful package from Marlene, but he brought me a package with this in it from Amy's:

I resisted this canvas as long as I could (which wasn't very long if the truth is told). I'll finish the XOXO canvas first before starting this one, I promise. I love these striped canvases by & more. So much fun! Check out the snazzy zebra print tissue paper that my goodies were wrapped in!

The other highlight of my day was finding out that Pat Conroy has a new book - My Reading Life - and that he will be in Jacksonville (Neptune Beach, actually) on December 7th for a book signing. Guess where I will be? My Reading Life is a work of non-fiction for Conroy and is about the books and characters that have influenced him in some way or another. I downloaded My Reading Life onto my Kindle this morning and am looking forward to a nice cup of Tazo Chai Tea as I sit down to begin reading it this afternoon. Conroy says that he will never own a Kindle - he likes the way real books feel, look, and smell. I do, too, but I wish he would give it a try. Even though I have downloaded the new book, I'll be buying the hard copy as soon as I can get my hands on one.

I think I should probably go do some work. Too many needlepoint and book distractions today!

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