Oh Christmas Tree

I'm sorry I haven't posted in awhile. We were in Florida visiting my mother-in-law, and I haven't had any pictures of anything worth noting. Remember I am a very slow stitcher!

While we were away I worked on Christmas Motif Sampler, figuring I could at least finish it during vacation. Well, I completed the tree but ran out of Weeks Dye Works Holly just when I was ready to work on the animals. It didn't look that variegated so I tried to get some DMC to match, but to no avail. It'll take a trip to my LNS (about 45 minutes away) to get this design finished. For anyone who is planning to stitch it, there is an error in the chart - the tail of the ribbon at the top on the right side is higher than on the left, so be careful. It must be really hard to avoid such errors, as they are more frequent than one might think. Maybe not all the designs are stitched before they are released?

I'd planned to start LHN's Moon and Stars but find I'm just not in the mood for it. While I was away I bought The World of Cross Stitching magazine, because it had a chart of an illustration from Raymond Briggs' The Snowman. I love that story and movie; I used to watch it all the time with DS when he was really small. So I'm going to do that one for my next project. The project called for some blue aida. It'll be the first time I've stitched on aida since I discovered linen. I hope I remember how to do it. I know I could do it on linen but I rather liked the look as it was in the magazine. In the article about the designer it said there was a whole book called The Snowman in Cross Stitch available, but when I looked it up on amazon.co.uk the only one I could find was 238 pounds! On Amazon's site here it's a bargain - $144.66. I guess I don't want it that badly.

I'm also working on a small design to use in a banner I want to make for my blog. I think I've finally figured out how to post a blog banner, though I'm still not sure of the dimensions to use. It will be nice when I can make the blog look a little less generic!