Skates!

My stocking dude now has skates, thanks to a tip (and a very kind offer) from Lee, who gave me an alternate color suggestion from what is called for in the chart and what I didn't have and was having trouble getting. So the stitching on the stocking is now complete and I am just waiting for the charm pack from the LNS. Once I get that and put on the embellishments, I'll be ready to take a deep breath and dive into putting it together. I don't have backing or lining yet; a trip to JoAnn's will be in order for that.

It's a good thing about those skates, because they'll be needed around here this week, if the weather gurus are anywhere close to correct in their forecasting. I guess there was so much whining about snow last week that Mother Nature decided to try her hand at some ice for us. I'm hoping that the forecasters are very much mistaken and that we'll just get snow.

I did a good bit of stitching this weekend. I did the afore-mentioned skates this afternoon, then I finished the Holly Reindeer (bottom picture) from Daffycat. I changed it up a bit and used beads for the holly berries instead of colonial knots. I also re-did the mistletoe on the Mistletoe Reindeer; I took out the knots and replaced those with beads also. I wasn't happy with those knots from the get-go. They just looked flat and messy. Beads are a pain to work with but these look way better than my knots did.

I put in several hours on This Is the Day yesterday afternoon and evening. I got quite a bit more of the alphabet finished along with some more fill-in behind it. I tried to upload a picture but blogger was being uncooperative. I can't figure it; the other three pictures uploaded in a jiffy.

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I also finished reading Sweater Quest, by Adrienne Martini, this weekend, and I recommend it. She wrote the book to chronicle the year she spent knitting an intricately-patterned sweater, but there's much more in the book than just knitting the sweater. She explores the reasons people knit, looks at the creative process, discusses the connection that knitters have with each other. In so many places, the word "knitting" could easily be replaced with "stitching" or "cross stitching"; I found myself nodding, thinking "yep, I understand that completely" or "exactly!" Excellent book.

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Hoping that everyone has a good week. Happy stitching!