Happy Holidays!

Just wanted to show you this year's ornaments. I never manage to stitch all the ornaments in my head, but atleast I got a few done. Unfortunately I have not finished them yet. If I have a few minutes of peace tonight, I may be able to finish a couple anyway.

As a cat lover, I couldn't resist the Britty Christmas Kitty. I made up 2 of these. One was stitched one over one thread. The other was one over two threads.

I was thinking of using the small one as a Christmas present tie-on. It is only about 1-1/2 inches square.

I am a little torn about this though. I cringe at the thought of someone just tossing it out with the Christmas clutter, After all, not everyone appreciates the time and effort spent on these little thingies!

I got this pattern from the Just Cross Stitch Christmas Ornaments 10th Anniversary Collection,

Boy did I have a hard time getting ahold of this one! The people who have it, don't want to let it go, and when you can manage to find it, it is very expensive!

The reason I wanted this book though was for my favorite, Holiday Sled from Ursula Michaels Designs. I love this one! Unfortunately I don't think I will be able to finish it this year. I have in mind a special backing for it that I cannot seem to find right now! I have been re-organizing my attic, and it is somewhere up there in all the clutter.

Last but not least is the cutie Christmas Cat in the Window, from The City Stitcher. I got this from Just Cross Stitch 1989 issue.

I stitched this one one over one, so it is really tiny.

Hopefully I can finish up atleast some of these.

On another note, I have had some questions about the bees.

Unfortunately one of the hives is completely dead, and we suspect that a second one is dead also. The first one has no sign of bees, and no activity. The second one had a small number of bees, but we suspect that they were robber bees from another hive trying to rob the honey.

After all the rain over the summer, the vandalism and the early cold weather, it looks like we went into the winter with one viable hive. Keith did his best to feed them sugar water all fall, and we did not harvest the honey this year, leaving it for them to get through the winter. Hopefully they will come through the winter. Nothing is certain at this point. I guess it depends on the severity of the winter and the hardiness of the bees. We are hoping for the best.

I want to wish you all the very best of the holidays. Hope you experience a maximum of warmth and good cheer, and a minimum of stress and conflict!