New Year's Eve and time on my hands

Happy New Year to all.  I am having a quiet New Year, as usual, which follows a quiet Christmas.  Nothing much happens around here on holidays, as it is now just me and my son, and he has a girlfriend that occupies much of his free time.   I had many years of wonderful Christmases, I think every Christmas I can ever remember was wonderful, starting when I was a small child.  There was only one really bad year, the year that I was in the hospital for two weeks with MS.  And there was the year of the colicky horse, and the year of strept throat, but on the whole they were great!  So I can't really complain that the holidays aren't any fun  any more, as I have many wonderful memories...

Have you seen the expensive vintage sleighs offered by Spring Green Country Sampler with small needlework pillow inside?  This is my version.  The vintage sleigh was purchased for a couple of dollars on marketplace.  Some at Country Sampler were as much as $100, so I think I got quite a deal.  The little sampler pillow didn't really show up, next year perhaps I'll add a little mini red wool blanket.

When my mother passed away, I saved her costume jewelry which I now hang on the tree.  It is a lovely remembrance of her at Christmas.  Except for the year I was in the hospital, I never spent a single Christmas without my parents.  I need to look around and see if there are any more that I can use.

I did do a lot of decorating for the bnb portion of the house as I have had guests solidly since mid December.  No outdoor wreaths or lights this year.  It has been so warm that I haven't been in the mood.  Here is a picture of the house several years ago when we had a nice snow.   I forced myself to put up a tree in my part, and took it down the day after Christmas.

A few weeks ago, an old design of mine popped up on Facebook, and all of a sudden there was a great deal of interest in something that I maybe sold 5 copies when I designed it back in 2015.  The original version was stitched without a pattern, I just made it up as I went along, and mounted it on a board that I painted and heavily aged.  I sold it on Primitive Handmade Mercantile before I started making reproduction patterns.  

I know, poor photo.:)  It then morphed from Mary Howe to Emmaline Cole (an ancestor of mine and I name that I love) and I created a pattern for it.  I encouraged the stitcher to chose one of their ancestor's names to chart and use.  Anyway, it sort of exploded on Facebook and I sold over 125 PDF copies!  It was just a stroke of luck that I had saved the pdf on the computer, as I didn't save the hard copy pattern.  Here it is as Emmaline Cole.  Bethel Day School is a made up name from the county that I live in, Bethel County.  

Another thing that I made is a project bag.  I spent two weeks of trying different ways to create a bag with the zipper and no seams showing.  Lots of trial and error.  After I had finished, and was so proud of my creation, I found out that I could have just watched a you tube video of how to make it.

Oh well........

The sampler is from Blackbird's Shall I Compare Thee To  A Summer's Day

That is all for now.  I'm working on a new reproduction that I will share next time.

Melinda

xxx