SHARING SOME MORE SAMPLERS

It will soon be the year 2010 WOW how time flies, it
is December 31st 2009 and it is 9:42PM and posting my
last post of the year, since hopefully I will be so busy
with new designs coming up for next year and graphing
new ones also. My husband and I had a quiet dinner and
will probably go to bed early since I will be taking a
couple of days  off to relax and take a much need rest since
these holidays left me exhausted.

I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year and
may it bring you all health, peace, joy, happiness and many,
many blessings.

God bless you all, Vilma

OUR CHRISTMAS STORY

We had a blessed, happy and joyful Christmas, on Dec. 24th
my daughter Jeannette invited us to a wonderful Christmas late
dinner, and what a grand dinner she had fixed, she is a very
caring and thoughtful daughter who tends to include us on all
the special occasions of her family. When dinner was over, we
went into the family room to enjoy desert and a cup of coffee,
talk and hear Christmas music,   The boys were all excited about
these special days since they were looking forward to the next
day. They went outside to put food for the deers and a plate of
cookies and milk for Santa. We left around 11:00pm to go back
home.  I forgot to mention that it had started to rain since 6:00pm
that day, and well, it was still raining when we got home and it rained
all through the night.

The next morning (Dec.25) it was still raining and cloudy and
my daughter called and woke us up at 8:00am (we were still sleeping)
and told us to get up and come to her house since she had fixed
breakfast (a very nice breakfast) so we got out of bed, comb our
hair, brushed our teeth and just put on a coat over our pajamas and
ran out the house and it was still raining lol lol lol. Well, when
we got there we saw two excited little boys and lots of gifts under
the tree and they just wanted breakfast to be over so we could
start opening the gifts. We had a wonderful time.  My husband and
I just sat back (I was still half asleep) to see the joy and excitement
in Alex and Grant faces.  Frankly Grant who is 15 months old did not
know what it was all about, but he joined the excitement.

Then the opening of  the presents started, goodness, goodness, what
a joy it was to see them tearing those packages and seeing what they
got.   They were so happy. We started putting toys together and playing
with them (thank goodness I was on my second cup of coffee).  But
it was worth it to be blessed and share these special moments in
the children's lives, at least for grandparents.

We finally left around 5:00 pm exhausted and anxious to get back
home and take a long nap. We are so thankful to God for letting us
share family time with our family, since for me Christmas is more
about the birth of little Jesus.

I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas with your parents, children
and grandchildren since that is what Christmas is all about, family, love,
joy and peace.

Gold bless all of you with health and happiness.  Vilma

DECORATING WITH SANTA'S

I would not feel happy if I did not put some of my santa claus collections through the house, I have been collecting them for 22 years now, and still do when I still find those antique ones or the ones that are sculpted by hand or carved from diferent kind of woods.

 I have also put out my lighted churches that I love so much,  some I have bought and some have been a gift, they are collector pieces and I have had them for years, sometimes I leave them all year round since I love looking at them, especially all lighted up at night.

Last but not least a picture of my husband and me, that was taken
at a friends house that had a little Christmas gathering.


















So with this post my friends, I want to wish you all a most blessed
Christmas, God bless all of you and give you good health.

Merry Christmas, Vilma

A SMALL FAMILY GATHERING

It is kind of a tradition that during every Friday of December,
I fix a nice dinner for the kids and then we sit around and
and let the grandchildren open one gift. This year it is Grant's
first Christmas that he will be enjoying and is enjoying it
tremendeously, since last year he was 3 months old and at
that small age they do not know what is going on. This year
he has been so excited about looking at all the houses that
are decorated outside with all kind of lights, santas, deers,
snowmen, that his little head just goes back and forth, he is
having a wonderful time.

I think he is thinking what is going on? what are all these lights?
what are these packages that I am opening with goodies inside?
well I kind of say to myself, Christmas is about children having
a good time, about family getting together, about love and hormony
and mostly about all the blessings God gives us.

We are going through hard times with the economy being so bad,
so we give thanks to God for allowing the gathering of families
and good friends.

God bless you all, Vilma

Sharing more of my samplers.

I thought I would share some more of my finished samplers that
I have stitched through the years and are hanging on my family
room wall. I love to put some of my finished pieces on certain
areas around the house, especially where I can see them.

I starting stitching 28 years ago and fell in love with mainly samplers,
we were living in Tennessee and my children were small and going to
school, we lived in a small town and frankly there was not much to
do. One day we went to a Town in Alabama and there were a couple
of cross stitch shops, so I went in and the walls were full of cross
stitched pictures of everything you can inmagine, but my eyes were
drawn to samplers, and from there on I got hooked on samplers and
I still love stitching them. Below are some that I stitched years ago
and are from Sheepish designs.

Christmas is right around the corner, and I will be posting lots and
lots of pictures of family that I have not been able to post, since I have
been getting new designs ready for February 2010, two of them have
been stitched for some months. I have framed and photograph them and
will be sharing pictures of them later.

I always like to take the month of December off, since I love sharing
that time with family and friends. We have been so busy decorating
the front of the house and also inside. During this month we love to have
a special dinner every Friday and thank God for all the blessings he
gives us, especially health. We always say a special prayer for our
soldiers who are fighting. God bless them all and keep them safe and
bring them all home soon.

Well I finished all my Christmas shopping, all the gifts are pack and under
the tree, cards have been mailed, so maybe I can do a little stitching for
myself.

A finish and a wip from Sylvia

Sylvia was kind enough to share a finished piece of her
sampler Dames Boarding School, which turned out so
beautiful, thank you Sylvia.

Sylvia also sent me a picture of her wip of ATS, which
she stitched on while recuperating after surgery, since she
had problems and it took a while for her incision to heal.
But thank God she is doing well now. Everyday she would
set a goal to stitch a little motif and it gave her something
to look forward to, she found joy and sometimes humor in
all the little aspects of the design. She is stitching it on 40
count linen, using silk since she wanted some solids as well
as some variagated threads. She also expressed how much
this piece helped in her recuperation.

Thank you so much Sylvia for your kindness in sharing these
pictures with me and hope you are feeling well, looking forward
to seeing more of your progress or finished piece.

Melissa's Windmill Sampler

Melissa was kind enough to share with me a picture
of her finished piece of "The Windmill Sampler, she
stitched her piece on 32 count Nightingale linen by Birds
Of A Feather, floss mostly what was recommended and
added a few of her own. She added GA Old Hickory
for the windmill, Chamomile for the lower branches and
Pumpkin Patch to replace Old Brick. She also swapped
out colours as she felt like it and what worked against the
linen she used, she modified and added some motifs of
her own.

Thank you Melissa for your kindness in sharing a picture
of your finished sampler, it turned out beautiful and loved
the idea of adding other motifs to it.

My WIP of AND ALL WAS FOR AN APPIL

Here is where I am with my my wip of AAWFAA, not a very
good picture since we have been having so many cloudy days,
but I wanted to share a wip picture of it since I was able to finish
Eve, so Adam would not be alone for the holidays. Also some
more of my personal samplers that I have stitched thru the years.

Been so busy since Thanksgiving and now, since we have been
decorating outside and putting up the christmas tree for the grandchildren,
since they would be dissapointed if we didn't. Christmas for me is
more about celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. Making list of
gifts for the family, what we are going to cook, turkey or ham, we
are kind of tired of turkey since we did that for Thanksgiving and
had a lot of left overs for the week, so I guess we will go with ham
this year. I am sending out my Christmas cards, lol lol there just
so much to do and the list never ends.

Have been busy graphing new designs, I have two new samplers already
framed and photograph, I will post pictures of them hopefully in
January, to be released in February, Mindy is working on a band sampler
and Kathy on another one and I am stitching on one also.

Many blessings to you all.