Happy New Year & Last TUSAL for 2011

Well, well, well, here it is 2012 and nary a post for the last month of 2011.  All I can say is that it got pretty busy over in my neck of the woods, and I got pretty lazy in the posting department.

 

I did know I needed to post my TUSAL update on Christmas Eve and I had good intentions.  However, DH conspired again to make things challenging.  Remember when I started posting TUSAL updates last January?  And I had to do a major retrieval of my ORTs after hubby threw them out?  Well, I didn’t have to do a garbage retrieval, but I did have to go on a seek-and-find mission to figure out what the heck he’d done with my ORT jar…..  My hubby kindly did a ton of holiday decorating this year – and tidied up the mantel where my ORT jar was living….and put it…..  Well, that took some figuring out.  I tried all the logical places, then went to the illogical and found it on a high shelf in a box in a closet that I almost never open since I don’t put things in that closet anyway….  It’s generally next to empty….. Yes, I could have asked him, but he’s been on conference calls all day, so it’s hard to interrupt and ask where my ORT jar is hiding!

 

Needless to say, ORT jar has been found, and picture finally taken.  The ORT jar isn’t sitting in its usual locale due to Christmas decorations, so it had to pose for its beauty shot elsewhere this month:

 

 

Not a bad amount of threads in there overall. Now I can dump it out and start again for 2012.  Some of the threads added this month are from sewing rather than stitching.  Sadly I had a major catastrophe on one thing I was sewing as a gift for a friend and now need to start over again.  And no, I’m giving no other details.  She reads this blog!

 

As to what else contributed to the jar this past month – mostly I’ve worked on this:

 

 

(yes it is both blurry and crooked – me and the camera aren’t getting along today)….  All that is left to do on this block is the backstitch on the dragon.  It looks so pretty and I’m looking forward to moving on to the next block.  It stitched up pretty quickly too.

 

And for the first time in many years, I decided to allow myself a New Year’s start.  I don’t typically do this as there are certainly enough projects around here that need attention, but I had a real urge to start something that I’ve wanted to stitch for ages and ages:

 

 

This is the start of Moon Garden by Blackbird Designs.  It’s not my usual style, but something about the dark linen and the soft colours of this piece got me hook, line and sinker.  I saw it on someone’s blog and fell in love.  Then I haunted e-bay to find the chart (it’s Loose feathers #8 and hard to find) and paid more for it than I probably should have.  It has languished in my stash fully kitted for at least a year and a half.  It’s stitching up really quickly and I’m really loving it so far.  I’m stitching it on a 28-count PTP fabric called Raisin.

 

Back to the stitching corner!