When my children were small, I spent the last few weeks and days before Christmas madly making little dresses for them right up until the last minute. In fact on the Christmas our twin girls were 2 1/2, I was still hemming their dresses in sub-zero weather, as we drove from Elgin to Souris (Manitoba) to attend the Christmas morning Church service. And the wrapping of gifts often kept me up past midnight on Christmas Eve. But these days are different, and it gave me great pleasure to make my grandson his Christmas stocking slowly and thoughtfully.
The hand-dyed wools I used for that project were from my sister Sara - a rug hooker. I so enjoyed stitching them - the ease with which a needle goes through the wool - that I've decided my 2017 weekly project will be to make one leaf square a week, using the pieces of wool pictured above. The width of the strips is as little as 4 1/2", so they will be 4 1/2" squares. I'll add in a couple of larger brownish pieces I have as well, which should give me good variety, and use embroidery floss for the stitches themselves. I think I'm going to enjoy making these.
In a departure from the traditions of other Christmas holidays, we joined our Vancouver Island family at a chalet up on Mt. Washington for a few days. Pictured here are my daughter Jessie, my son Ben, my daughter-in-law Emily, and grand-daughters Nora and Molly. The little girls had their first ever skiing lesson, and loved playing in the snow up on the mountain - only forty-five minutes from home, and it's a totally different world. (You probably can't tell from the photo, but Nora is licking an icicle about 3 feet long!!) Now we're home again, exhausted but happy, and by tomorrow I'll be back at my stitching once more. I'll be tidying up the studio, taking stock of the year that has been, and making plans for the year to come. I want to wish all of you a very Happy New Year, full of all the things you enjoy most, and lots of time for your creative endeavours whatever they are!
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