bodner067

And suddenly, here we are on this very last day of the year 2016! It seems as if I only blinked and twelve months have passed... Thankfully, 2016 was a wonderful year for my family and I can look back with mainly smiles. Oh, every year has its share of sadness and loss; its disappointments and its "I wish I could do that over" moments, but I can't complain...  Each of you who reads Stitching Dreams , whether you know it or not, has been a big part of my life this past year.  Through your sweet comments, your specially stitched gifts, or your emails simply thanking me for my blog, you've made me feel special and I truly appreciate each one of my stitching friends!  I haven't been stitching much since before Christmas, but I wanted to share with you today the wonderful  gifts I was blessed with from stitching buddies around the world.  I'll share them in the order I received them... From June in England came a cheery ornament with the cutest pompom trim, some...

Happy First Day of Winter, my stitching friends! As we inch ever closer to Christmas morning (is it really happening in just four days?!), I couldn't let this week go by without my annual Parade of Ornaments... This is the seventh year of doing my "Ornament a Month" stitching and I like to do one post at the end of each year devoted to the twelve little "newbies" on  my tree. If any of you are new readers and would enjoy looking at past years, simply click on the year and you'll find my finishes from 2010-2015:  2010 , 2011 , 2012 , 2013 , 2014 , 2015 . I like to display my ornaments from the current year on a garland on my front stair bannister. It's hard to get a decent picture as it is in a hallway with limited natural light, but I promise to give you close-ups at the end. So, are you ready? Cue the music and let the 2016 parade begin... Look at all of those chubby grinning snowmen marching down the stairs! How can you resist smiling back at them? ...

Does it seem to you that time speeds up in December? That each day is more like an hour, each hour more like a second? I just never have enough time to do all that I want for Christmas, no matter how early I start... I'm sure many of you are feeling this way right about now. But, somehow, it all comes together and Christmas morning arrives and the important things--your family members--are all that you really need at that moment. As you can tell, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed today--no cards are sent, few presents are bought, and even fewer are wrapped. But, it will all work out (or so I keep telling myself!). I visited my mom in New York last week (thankfully, before all the snow hit the Erie, PA area right on the roads I would have been traveling) and managed to put the finishing stitches in this Little House Needleworks piece. Isn't it sweet? My dear friend, Pam , passed the chart on to me at our retreat in October, and I thoroughly loved each stitch. I used 40 ct. raw ...