Santa's Workshop in Full Swing!

    It's high time to stop thinking and starting doing something about all those Christmas present ideas I have rattling around in my brain! What better time of year to have an embroidery machine with dozens of beautiful personalized gifts under the tree?

    Here's one that took me a whole day! 

If you're a blog fan, I'm sure you've heard me mention my daughter was a figure skater when she was growing up. No, she wasn't going to the Olympics-- we used to laugh because that was the first question out of any one's mouth when they learned she skated. What other sport would anyone put an impossible goal like that in front of a kid?

"I'm trying out for football!"

"Oh, are you going to the Superbowl?"

That just does not happen.

Anyway, I'm proud of her accomplishments, and it made me happy when she treated herself to a little lesson each week this year, after six years off the ice. So for her coach, we decided to make a nice bag for ice skates. Well, BUY a bag and embroider it! That is "making a bag" to machine embroiderers! 

L.L. Bean has the best bags-- a lot were sold out but we did manage to snag this red one. It was stiff as a board, and the embroidery area was a lot smaller than I imagined. I had to digitize the black outline to hold it to a hoop-- there was no way I was going to get that bag hooped-- and I had to open up the sides to even get it under my needle. Come to think of it, making a bag would have been a lot quicker.

It did come out really pretty and I just need to pick out that black outline and clean it up a bit. The design, if you wondered, I just picked up at Embroidery Library! It is super pretty, if a bit dense, and it would have taken another day for me to digitize my own.

While it stitched, I made good use of my time stitching chickens together!

This is almost at the point where I would gift it-- it still has two outer borders to go, and I have eleven days. This quilt proved to me how quickly you can whip up a decent size quilt with easy large blocks. These are 12" Lori Holt chicken blocks from the first Farm Girl Vintage book.

I picked red, white, and blue for a NO FAIL color scheme-- it's Minick and Simpson's latest Belle Isle collection. I lived in Michigan for three years growing up, so I have an affinity for their work, always named after something in that state. I tried to pick more manly prints-- this is for my son-- but who could resist making hens from the large florals-- that white one at the bottom is my favorite.

Anyway, I think it will be a nice down payment on the eggs I receive weekly from him!

The eggs are usually smaller than store ones-- but there's one hen who's an overachiever-- isn't there always ONE in life. Anyway, her egg in the dozen is huge, and you can't close the lid on the carton because of it. I'm not sure if he knows which hen it is, but I keep telling him-- 

FIND HER and BREED HER!

Then we have three weeks of our FREE St. Petersburg Christmas stitch-a-long in-- 

Now that is a street I would like to stroll along!

I am trying to get 1,000 viewers for my daughter's hiking YouTube channel-- that is what you need for monetization. She's hoping to hike the Appalachian Trail next year, and all proceeds from her channel will go towards that. It's appropriate because she's producing the San Francisco Stitch Co. channel!

We will offer the finishing kit for free this year if we can make it to 1,000-- unfortunately, less than 10% of people who downloaded Week Three for free were willing to take the time.

So THANK YOU to those who did-- I will figure out a way to individually get you a free kit whether or not we get to 1000-- we're currently at about 350, and I really don't want to keep harping on about this day after day. Everyone is just so beaten down right now, don't you find that?

Somewhere I read that Christ was born in a very turbulent time-- remember-- a paranoid King Herod was having all the infants in Bethlehem slaughtered when he heard the prophecy that a KING was born there. It lifted my spirits to think of that. So take heart everyone-- we have another new year coming-- and every day is a new one, isn't it?

So with that, Santa's gotta get more stuff to embroider today--
let's just do our best and make it count! 

Here's the link for the YouTube Channel, just in case you want a free finishing kit, LOL... it only takes a second to hit that red subscribe button, and you're making two people very happy! Thank you!

GYPSY TRAILS

xox

Carol