Blessed New Year

Where did the year go? It seems that I just turned around and the whole year is gone.

So good bye to 2017 and hello to 2018.

I'm going to try and work on me this coming year, more exercise, getting organized, blogging more, start stitching, crafting and sewing. The hubs already has quite a few camping trips and day trips planned for 2018 starting after the snow melts, so that will help with the blogging part..

To give myself a little stitchin' motivation I've joined Heather over at Stitching Lotus 

for her Smalls SAL 2018. You can click on the highlighted link or on the Smalls SAL 2018 on my sidebar. Maybe I can at least get a few Christmas ornaments stitched up for the Christmas tree. 

We got just about a foot of snow out of this last storm and with single digits for the highs and below zero for the lows we had a couple of unwilling vehicles yesterday. The cold drained the battery on our Jeep so it needed the charger and our Dodge needed the charger and a jump start helper from the Jeep to get it running. Now our Jeep has an electric battery blanket and the Dodge has a block heater and an oil pan heater. They both started like champs this morning. 

According to the news it's supposed to get back up into the 20's and 30's in the coming days, I sure hope so. 

That's it for today, so until 2018.......

Wishing all of you a Blessed New Year. May it be filled with all that you want and more.

Hugs, Sandy

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas & Happy Holiday's.

May your day be filled with wonderful memories, Love & Laughter.

Hugs, Sandy & Robert

Celebrating the Winter Solstice

Today is the Winter Solstice also known as the first day of Winter, so in celebration I'm sharing a winter themed chart.

The colors I used are:

Heart - DMC 803 also first backstitched border

1 - DMC 334 second backstitched border

0 - DMC 3756 third backstitched border

Dot - DMC 3865 and backstitched snowflakes

The gray dots can be either French or Colonial Knots or Petite Seed Beads

Stitched size is 4" x 4"

Two strands of floss used.

Hope you all enjoy the chart, and as always if you happen to stitch one of my designs I would love to see a picture.

Take Care & Happy Winter Solstice

Hugs, Sandy

Stitchin' Gift for You

I haven't been in the designing mood here lately, but last night and then this afternoon I started and finished a little Christmas ornament design for all my stitchin' followers.

It is done in: 

DMC 498 for the heart symbol and lettering

DMC B5200 or white for the dot symbol

51 x 53 or about 3-3/4" x 3-3/4" (3.68 x 3.72) on 14/28 ct.

Stitched with two strands of floss.

Do Not Stitch the black line ;}

I included the numbers in case anyone wanted to add a wedding date or birth date in place of Christmas. 

Hope you all enjoy stitchin' this little ornament and if you do stitch it up I would love to see a picture.

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays

Hugs, Sandy

A Little Bit of Christmas at the Cabin

There is snow on the ground again and it looks like it may be sticking around till Christmas.

I finally got around to adding a bit of Christmas to the Cabin. 

 A simple artificial pine wreath with pine cones from my yard and a red wire edged ribbon. The ribbon can be cross stitched on as it has a weave that is close to 14 count. I got it at Walmart about 5 years back I think, when it was on clearance. Simple rustic country.

This is Bart he sits next to our front door, I thought he could use a little Christmas cheer, so I went through my craft stash and fired up the glue gun. Small straw wreath and some green tartan ribbon from a thrift store and some pine cones from a neighbor's yard held on by some jute twine that I always have in the craft room. He needs another coat of linseed oil this summer.

These are our Rustic Santa's on the bottom mantle of our fire place and one of our Angles. On the top mantle are two Santa's from my mother-in-law.

Mountain Man Santa had an empty hand and I had three different rifle style lighters that no longer worked, I sent pictures of him holding each one to the Hubs and he choose the Double Barrel Shotgun. Very suitable for the Mountain Man Santa that he is.

This is the very first Santa that we picked out in 1998, we drove to several stores in Billings just to find a Santa, not many stores had them or they were the cheap mass produced one's.

This is our second Angel. She has feathered wings.

Santa of the Forest,

we love this piece and keep him up all year long. He won First Place at the Montana State Fair in 2006.

Santa with a sack full of toys, stitched in 2004, so many 1/4 stitches I almost gave up on more than one occasion.

And last but not least is my Nativity Set, although I'm not a church going type I do carry on this one family tradition from my childhood. 

There is one of my stitched mini pillows from a couple years ago and a rustic fabric tree I'm working on, I still have two more to make in different sizes. More rustic country for the cabin.

That's all I have out for this year, didn't have room for the tree but hope to have things sorted and moved around by next December so I can put the tree up once again.

Merry Christmas Everyone

may the day be filled with Love, Joy & Blessing for you and your families.

Hugs, Sandy

I Was So Suprised !

Who would have thought.....

Back on 19 May 2016 my blog was listed on Past Impressions ,a UK based company, in their article "6 Of the Best Cross Stitch Bloggers".

You can click the link to see the article and to check out the Needlework Kits, Charts and Accessories that they sell (not affiliated). 

I was super surprised and honored that I was listed, and only found out about it last month because I clicked on their link when checking the traffic sources that were leading other stitchers to my blog. 

Of course I sent them a thank you email right after.

Take Care Everyone

Hugs, Sandy

The Cabin is Changing

Our cabin has been needing some TLC for a bit so last weekend it got a bit of a color change, at least two sides did. Looks better in the summer when all the flowers are blooming. The swing on the porch is a back and butt buster, only good for short sits, so uncomfortable. 

This is how the cabin looked when we bought it back in 1999. It has an exterior coating that has been flaking and peeling off on the sides that get the sun and weather ever since. So not wanting to keep putting the same stuff on it we opted for an in the wood stain that repels and kills bugs such as termites, carpenter ants and borer beetles.

So next year the front will get sanded with an electric hand sander and stained.  

This is the new color that the cabin will be wearing for the foreseeable future. We also want to add stone to the two chimneys to add to it's rustic charm.

Yes it also needs a crap ton of landscaping. I've always like the light color that is on the front side of the cabin, but the stuff just doesn't hold up under the sun and weather. 

Looks more rustic with an old cabin feel from the outside now. 

That's it for today, so until next post..........

Take Care Everyone

Hugs, Sandy

Happy Thanksgiving

Wishing all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving filled love, happiness and blessings.

Hugs, Sandy & Robert

Camping in the Little Belt Mountains of Montana

(Lots of pictures)

Back in September we took our last camping trip of the year to the Little Belt Mountains in the Lewis & Clark National Forest. 

Headin' to the Little Belt Mountains

We stayed for four (4) days going home a day early because of bad weather.

This is where we ended up parking.

Beautiful mountains, a creek and a meadow to enjoy the views of while at the campsite.

We got to watch a fawn playing in the tall meadow grass under mama's watchful eye. Unfortunately the grasses were to high to get any pictures of it.

There are lot's of beautiful dispersed (free) campsites there for those who don't need to have all the modern conveniences and rules of a KOA or monitored style campground. No electrical or water hookups and definitely no WIFI. 

I do take my laptop so I can preview the photos we take to make sure we're getting the shots we want instead of getting home and finding out they were blurry.

 

Here are a few of the named campgrounds in the area.

Bill & Ruth Korell Memorial Campground

There are 3 or four free campsites here with a beautiful creek, picnic tables, a vault toilet and a water pump, there is also a large two-story cabin that can be rented through the forest service.

Fred M. Ellis Memorial Campground

There are at least 6 free campsites here but no amenities only a few picnic tables. It's still a nice campground with mountain and meadow views.

Hay Campground

This is a Forestry campground that has 3 or 4 site with picnic tables, fire pits and a vault toilet in the main area and 3 or 4 sites up the road just past it with picnic tables and fire pits. 

Saw these while driving down a dirt road....

Someone spent a lot of time on these and run almost a mile down the creek.

Relics from the past are everywhere....

as are the beautiful views.

And finally here is our campsite on the day we left for home.

Snow in September, not unusual for over 8,000 feet up. 

That's it for our camping trips of 2017. Now that we have the 5th wheel the hubs wants to start our 2018 camping season as soon as the snows melt. Speaking of snow, it's still snowing here.

So until next post........

Take Care & Have a Great Weekend

Hugs, Sandy

What a way to start off November

Fluffy white crap from above.

or

Angles having a massive feather pillow fight.

If you've read my blog for a while you know which is my choice.

It started around 9:30 am and is still going at it with BIG flakes turning my yard into a white wasteland. And because of the weather report with the temps in the 30's and 20's for the high's for the rest of the week and into next week it's sure to stick around. 

Time to fire up the wood stove and make some cocoa or hot tea.

Take Care & Stay Warm

Hugs, Sandy

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Oh, the ways I would decorate outside of our home if only we got Trick or Treater's on this Halloween Night.

Watch out for all the little ghosts and goblins tonight everyone.

Hugs, Sandy

A Win & A Sunset

I a member of The Stitchers' Village and a month or so back they had a drawing for a fabric orphan so I entered and much to my surprise I won this beautiful 18"x27" piece of hand-dyed 16 count Aida from Picture This Plus.

Pretty shades of gray.

I think this would be perfect for a Halloween piece or smalls or even a stormy weather scene.

I caught the ending of the sunset the other evening.

Such a beautiful sight to see with the sun reflecting off the huge storm cloud above.

That's it for today, I'll try to get the pictures ready from our last camping trip to share this weekend.

So until next time.......

Take Care & Have a Great Weekend

Hugs, Sandy

Upper Sunshine Reservoir

Our second camping was to the Upper Sunshine Reservoir just outside of the town of Meeteetse  (pronounced: Ma-Teet-See) Wyoming. Next time we go back I want to take pictures of the town, but this trip they were holding Labor Day festivities which made for a lot more people than the towns under 400 people population.

It's a big lake with a couple of islands at the far end.

We were parked on one of the many peninsulas that jut out around the lake.

This was the view I had while cooking or doing dishes.

The reservoir is surrounded by the mountains, so the views were beautiful no matter which way you looked.

We spent from Aug. 27th to Sept. 2nd, an overall relaxing trip with great weather and always a cooling breeze coming off the lake again the smoke from the western Montana fires made for somewhat smoky skies.

On about our third day there a family that I can only think to describe as "white trash" parked on the peninsula across from us, there were four adults and six kids. Their trailer must not have had batteries since they ran their generator all day and all night and were loud around their campfire way past midnight. They yelled obscenities at any boaters with skiers or tubers being pulled behind because they were fishing, which I kind of understand, but it just made the a-hole boater pass closer and more often.

Oh, and their small old trailer must not have had a bathroom, because when I sat down at our table with the big window to have lunch the mother/grandmother walked to the end of the truck facing our trailer, dropped trough, parked her bare butt against the tire and took a pee, none of them cared if anyone saw them, then one of them brought out a homemade porta toilet the next day which they put on the side of the trailer facing the road out in the open where everyone could see, not even a tarp to shield it.

Even though we have had a few laughs about it since, it was a sight I had never seen in my whole life and hope to never see anything like it again.

Well that's it for this post, up next will be our last camping trip of the year.

So until next time..........

Take Care & Have a Great Day

Hugs, Sandy