One Month Left of 2013 Christmas Stitch Challenge

Here we are closing in on the end of a year and I am faced with a challenge of sorts.  Granted this is a self-induced challenge and was only thought up because two of my four readers suggested it....what will I stitch for Christmas?

Honestly, I haven't stitched anything for Christmas since 1995 or 1996 and haven't really felt the urge to do so..........until now.  I'm not sure why exactly, but then I asked myself why not?

Thanksgiving morning my good friend Leah came over and brought over some very pretty Christmas/snow/winter fabric after I asked what she had on hand.  This time of year the majority of Christmas fabric is busy and garish or outright obnoxious, but I KNEW she would have something wonderful stashed away.....and I was right!  

Wonderful fabric in hand I began searching for a fun snowman piece.  I might have set my goals too high, but I'm sure out there somewhere I will eventually find a snowman that is as fun as Peter Pumpkin.

Again I reached out, this time to my good friend Nancy, and asked if she had any snowman patterns.  Of course she does!  Like me, she hoards patterns.  Which had me thinking about the magazines from Ancient Times that I have neatly arranged on my sewing table.

White gloves on, I carefully go through the cracking, yellowed pages of times gone by looking for snowmen to cross stitch.  A word of advice to you who also have documents from Ancient Times....stay FOCUSED on the job at hand or you will start creating a pile of "to do" patterns instead of reaching your goal, whatever that may be!

Nancy supplied four potential snowmen, I found two patterns, and Leah provided pretty fabric.  Now which one to stitch?  Nancy supplied one in particular that will be a fun little project for January and because snowmen can be done ANY time during winter, they are always in fashion.  I'm not worried about a time frame for that one, but am concerned about getting one of these done before Christmas.

We all know I'm not very good at making deadlines, either due to circumstances or because I bit off more than I could stitch.  Either way, help in the decision making is required as to which one to stitch for my Christmas Stitch Challenge.  Both will be done on the old blue linen napkins (also from Ancient Times).

The color of the linen matches the wonderful fabric Leah brought over, and I will be making wall hangings out of both patterns AND a tiny one from one of Nancy's patterns that was too cute to NOT do.

There is some homespun tucked in there but I have already decided to make a quilty table cloth out of that. The Batik Christmas fabric is a tough one to decide, I'm thinking a Santa at a later date, so I'll hold on to that until I find the right thing to make with that.

You are probably asking, "Why snowmen? Wouldn't Santa be more to the point seasonally speaking?"

Because I like snowmen, and yes, but I have never done any snowmen before! It was the first thing that popped into my head when the Christmas pattern was suggested, so we are going with that.  I have about 90 gabillion Santa patterns so that is too easy!  My magazines from Ancient Times have some beautiful olde timey Santas and for Christmas one year my daughter gave me a book with more Santa patterns.  I think I'm set there.

What was really fun on Thanksgiving was watching my good friend Leah look through my World of Cross Stitch magazines and hear her say things like "that is something I would stitch" and "there are about five patterns I've found that I would want to stitch". Tee hee, she says she was bored with cross stitch and stopped doing it, went so far as to give away all of her stitching stuff, and yet......I am ever hopeful she will take up the stitching again once in awhile just to stay practiced if nothing else.  

Back to the task at hand; Deciding which pattern to do for the challenge.  The Snowman or the Snowman Tree?  I'm leaning towards the Snowman Tree, but then I seriously want to stitch the shovel right out of that Snowman pattern...why is there always a shovel?  

In the meantime I am working diligently on Derpy Dice Bag.  I will have to make a decision in the next two days in order to give myself the time needed to at least attempt to finish the Christmas Stitch Challenge by Christmas.  Please share your thoughts and Happy Holidays!

Until next time.....