My First 2024 Winter Display

Hello friends!

Hope everyone is warm and cozy.

I drove home from work last night

in freezing rain and it was not fun.

Am working from home today.

Don't want to do that again.

 

Today I wanted to share with you

my first 2024 Winter display.

When I take down my Christmas,

I always decorate for Winter.

It cheers me up on these cold nights.

Who says you cannot keep up a few trees.

Candlelight also helps.

I kept out the antique sleigh and just added

in a few reds and blues to warm my heart.

This pillow surely warms my heart,

as my mom made it.

I bring it out every Winter.

Do you decorate for Winter?

In other news,

The other day Bob and I went up to grab

some ink for the store and get more totes.

On our way back the white car in front of us

went through a yellow light.

A black car came barreling through

from the right and struck

the white car in front of us.

I had already stopped 

as I knew the light was turning red.

It was a horrible sight to see as the white car

hit four more cars that were stopping for the light

on the other side.

The black car flew into the parking lot 

of a store and hit more cars parked.

We know the person in the white car was alright

as she got out.

Not so sure about the lady in the black car. 

There was a fire truck coming back from a run,

and stopped right away to assist. 

Lots of folks were also running to assist,

which was nice.

I froze and so did Bob.

It happened in an instant.

We do not even know who was at fault

With that being said,

I do not like how Michigan has been 

moving the traffic lights past the intersections now,

instead of being right in the middle.

If you are behind a truck you cannot see

the traffic lights.

I wont run a yellow light as I use to in the past.

Whomever decided to change the placement 

of these now was a horrible engineer.

I just pray that the lady in the black car was alright.

Last week my daughter and grands all caught covid.

Was just glad Bob and I did not visit with them.

We do not need it again...knock on wood.

Looks like more ice and snow on the way today.

Glad I am working rom home.

Well better get to work.

Hope everyone stays safe and warm.

Winter Blessings To All!

Janice

Friday Finishes

Hello friends.

Today I have a couple of finishes

that I want to show you.

First is this Quaker House Sampler.

I started this on New Year's Day.

In the stitching world,

they say if you start a new sampler on 

the first day of the year, you will be blessed

throughout the year.

I am not a superstitious person, 

however I thought it would be nice to do one...

and maybe see if it is true. :-)

 

I stitched this on 32 ct Milk & Honey linen

using all of the called for DMC floss.

I was not really happy with the gold

as I purchased this pattern because I liked the

colors in the photo.

There is a bonus pattern to this,

so if I do the other one,

I will try to find the color in the pic.

I did a few other changes to this pattern.

The bird was supposed to be the lighter blue color.

I chose the darker blue. 

The motif on the left was to be in both blues.

I went for blue and gold.

Then the initials were also suppose to be stitched

 in the lighter blue.

I did those in the last color to be used for the

second pattern...I should have used this color

for all of the gold. Oh well.

I also changed the initials to represent Bob and I.

JU for the month we were married in July.

09 for the year we were married.

AU for Bob's birthday month of August.

DE for my birthday month of December.

MI for Michigan,

which ironically was already in the pattern.

Finally JH for my maiden name initials,

and RA for Bob's initials.

One more change was the initials were 

to be completed one over one.

I chose one over two to make them bigger. 

I finished this on January 17th.

Will send this off to be framed for my wall.

My next finish is this heart.

Well actually I made four total.

The other three are in the store for sale.

Once again I used what was left 

of my vintage quilt.

Hand stitched using both

a quilt batting and Warm & Natural.

The finished heart.

This one I am keeping for myself.

Also each one is different.

I loved how they turned out.

In other news,

mantle year 2020 won your votes.

2021 came in second.

2023 came in third whilst 2022 came in last.

Thank you to all who were able to vote.

I know it was hard.

We are finally finished setting up the new

space for our gift shop.

Thank god.

We spent 6 days moving things.

We also rented a storage unit so

Bob does not have to continue going up and down

our stairs at the store.

They are steep and I worry about him going up there.

Today I am going to clean house,

do laundry, go grocery shopping

and make some beef stew for dinner.

I also plan on creating this weekend.

What's on tap for your weekend?

Friday Blessings To All!

Janice

The End Is Near

 Hello friends.

Well the end is near

for our gift shop.

At least in our current building.

Bob and I decided to keep the shop,

but move it to our antique store.

This way it will be under one roof.

I decided to do one last post

for all four years 

of my Christmas mantle displays.  

Let me know which was your favorite.

2020

2021

2022

2023

In other news,

Bob had a much bigger fireplace mantle

stored away...where I have no idea. LOL

Any hoot, he placed that one in our new space.

Painted it an off white with a black insert

like our keeping room,

so I will still have a fireplace to create

Christmas displays once again.

It stopped raining and we had a bit of snow

the other day, but we have now hit

the deep freeze.

The high yesterday was only 13 degrees. Brrr

The only one in our family who enjoys it

is Tundra.

He keeps wanting to go outside now.

It's his time of the year being a Samoyed.

I spent 7 hours yesterday moving things

from one store to the other while Bob

worked our antique store.

I also added in some new goodies.

Both handmades I created and purchased items.

It is starting to look like a gift shop over there now.

I am very pleased how Bob placed the cabinets.

Sold quite a bit of things already.

I was quite surprised folks came out to shop.

I would have stayed home if I could.

Well back to the stores we go.

More things to pack away and to place 

at the new location.

We decided to rent a storage unit,

so Bob does not have to go up and down

the stairs carrying totes.

It will be much easier for him.

He plans on putting totes there whilst

I continue decorating.

So much still to do.

The Next Chapter Begins Blessings To All!

Janice

A Victorian Christmas

Hello friends.

Hope all is well in your neck of the woods.

Looks like we finally got some snow overnight.

Its been a weird Winter start for us,

with very little snow and lots of rain.

In fact so much that our ground is getting

really mushy to walk on.

December 2nd was my 65th birthday.

At that time I decided to book tickets

 for the annual Victorian Christmas dinner

 at the museum in the town my mom lives in.

 

It was an evening event.

This was the centerpiece at our table.

There were 4 tables of 10,

however ours had 12, so a total of 42 folks came

to the event this year.

The mansion was once owned by Dr. Loop originally,

who was the towns doctor in the late 1800's.

Back then the town was called Bark Shanty,

but now it is the still the small community

of Port Sanilac, Michigan.

The home was styled in the Victorian era.

Our table was actually the doctor's office.

All of the pieces in here were original  to the house.

My mom looking at the song book.

Bob next to her.

We sang Christmas carols before and after dinner.

This tree was in the main room.

This was in the parlor.

I loved how they tucked in 

the poinsettias behind the picture.

This wall hat rack was by the front door.

Looking back at the front door.

It was massive and hard to open.

We were not allowed to go up into the second

or third floor, but I did take a pic looking up

the first set of stairs.

There was a tree at the top,

but I forgot to take a pic of that one.

This tree was in the parlor.

A buffet in the dining room.

The tree in the room we were in.

The dining room tree.

Each table setting had a gold charger 

with a green napkin folded like a tree and 

a star with our name on it.

We all had a wonderful time.

Since it was a night event,

I asked Bob to take this picture

of the mansion as we were leaving town

the next morning.

The yellow is actually brick made from 

yellow clay which came from Detroit.

My previous  home had yellow clay for dirt.

The gray barn to the left was the actual barn

to the property.

It now is used for plays in the Summer.

We have gone to many of these over the years.

It is called the Barn Theatre.

In other news,

took the day off today.

Bob has a cardiologist appointment, and I wanted

 to go with him.

After that we are headed back to 

the gift shop to move more inventory.

I need to get organized to bring out the new goodies.

I forgot to answer a few comments from before.

Carla, the crutch we purchased.

I actually have two.

Sometimes I tie a red ribbon at the top for Christmas.

This time I left it plain. 

They remind me of Tiny Tim from the Scrooge movie.

I think Debby gave me the You Tube links

for the young couple that live the early life.

I subscribed to them and love it, so thank you.

If it was not Debbie, then please remind me

 so I can properly thank you.

Victorian Blessings To All!

Janice

 

Sunday Starts

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I'm Back.

Hope everyone is enjoying the New Year thus far.

We finally got some snow yesterday.

Only an inch or so, but it was nice seeing it falling down.

Come February I know I will hate it. LOL

Back in September

when my mom and I visited

the family cemetery plots, 

there was a reason for my madness. 

I had watched a You Tube video

where this person had started stitching samplers

and adding her family names to them.

This is when the light bulb went off.

I wanted to do this for my family,

and I would use one of my newly blank walls

in our keeping room for these.

My quest then began for my first sampler.

I chose this one from Scatter Seed Samplers.

These are the DMC floss colors.

The linen I chose for this project 

is 32 ct Belfast Shale

by Picture This Plus.

Since I knew there would be many samplers

that would need to be stitched,

I ordered floss drops to keep my flosses neat

while being somewhat organized.

These came with a matching keep charm.

Not a fan of green, but green is needed in this one.

This is where I am at now.

Gertrude Osiwala Baranowski 1911-1997

Bruno Baranowski 1908-1971

My maternal grandparents.

My mom was thrilled when she saw this

at Thanksgiving. 

Then while perusing for samplers...

I came across a Halloween stitchery I wanted to do..

This one will use 40 different DMC colors. 

EGAD what was I thinking???

I also ordered more floss drops to keep 

my floss organized for this big project.

This is also the bag I purchased to hold this one in.

A fitting Halloween one.

I also purchased this fun needle minder

as they say you should not keep sticking your

needle into the fabric.

The linen for this one is

32 ct Stormy Night Lugana.

Am loving the shades of gray in this one.

I started this Halloween stitch pattern

back in the last week of October.

There are a total of 12 blocks to finish.

I told Bob if I did one block a month,

it would take me a year to complete.

Well this is block 1,

which I finished the last week of November.

Block 2 I finished Christmas evening.

Each block is 5 3/4 square.

Am hoping I can still keep finishing

a block each month, but there is quite a bit 

of coverage in each block.

Plus I want to complete my first sampler,

and my bird and pear one,

and a second sampler I started on New Year's Day.

Also I take a different cross stitch to work,

and do that one at lunch.

That makes 5 Wip's (works in progress) going.

Plus I worked on Valentine goodies

and hooked a bit on my newest rug.

Again EGAD woman...have you gone MAD???

So every post that falls on a Sunday,

will be some sort of a start that I am working on.

In other news,

Christmas Eve Bob and I worked the stores

 until 3:30.

Driving home it had already started to get foggy.

We heard the freighters sounded their foghorns

all night and into the morning.

We went to Michele's for a spectacular

Christmas dinner

My daughter out did herself

with prime rib and every veggie you could imagine.

Her stuffed mushrooms and Eclair cake were

awesome too!  

New Year's Eve we both worked each store again.

Then came home and I made a few apps,

we each had a glass of cheap champagne 

Bob had bought at the grocery store.

Surprisingly it actually did have a cork and was bubbly.

Bob went to bed at 10 and I at 11.

No watching the new year year ring in for us. LOL

Today I will work the gift shop one more time.

We will need to close to move over

 to our  antique store.

It is bittersweet, but for the best.

I have Valentine & some Spring already ordered.

Will need to get the new space ready for folks to shop.

I hope everyone enjoyed their first week of 2024.

May it be a blessed year for all.

First 2024 Post Blessings To All!

Janice