My Favorite Time of the Year

Isn't this just the best time of the year? Getting ready to hunker down for the winter and endless days filled with stitching!! The best birdwatching is in the winter when the birds are no longer able to find food in snow covered fields. I have to admit that I really do like winter. I get a little tired of the lack of sunshine but all in all it is a good time of the year. This week we can look forward the best meal of the year. What is better than a turkey dinner with all the trimmings? My favorite part of the meal is the stuffing and squash. that is the best!!!
I also like the Norwegian Rice with Raspberry Sauce that usually shows up, and of course my daughter-in-laws apple and pumpkin pie. Yum, I can't wait! Remembering to give thanks is also something that I take very seriously. We have so much to be thankful for.

I want to share with you a new ornament today. This is my little ginger bread boy!! There are three more ornaments in this years ornament series, that will be out some time this week, and I will share them here with you.
I have a lot to be thankful for this year and I have decided to pass along some of my good fortune andI am having a contest. Here are the details. I will give away 5 of my ornaments, your choice to these lucky people. 1. The first person to comment on this blog post.
2. The person who answers this question in the best way? What is the one thing that you are most thankful for this Thanksgiving.
3. The last person to comment on this blog post up until 12:00 noon on Thanksgiving Day.
4. The one who says the magic word. (I have chosen a word associated with Thanksgiving
dinner.)
5. What do you like best about my blog?
Get going now and post your comments!!
Happy Stitching! Carol

Designers Are Thinking Spring

Roses For Mom
Even though Christmas is right around the corner, people who design are thinking of spring. You have to be one season ahead of everything in order to design, get photographs, and have your products ready to sell right after Christmas. It is hard to think spring when you are just fiinishing all your fall outside work and getting ready for Christmas, but today I started my thought process. actually I did a while back already because I did purchase some georgous fabric for a spring quilt from Robyn Pandolph's line Somerset Cottage about a month ago. I have the quilt pattern all drawn out on graph paper and am ready to start doing a test block to see how that will look. It should be kind of fun if it works as I have designed it.
The other thing I did was go through my stash of finished embroidered pieces to see if there were some little treasures buried there that I wanted to resurrect. And lo and behold I did find an embroidery that I was working on when my Mom became very ill and passed away. I decided to call it Roses For Mom, and after she passed, I couldn't quite bring myself to do anything with it, but I am at a better place with all of that now and I think I would like to do something with it for this spring. I think Mom would like that. Hmmm, maybe a little verse around the borderwith some little pretties tucked in here and there. we will have to see what becomes of that.
I am curious, do any of you finish little things and then stash them away for awhile until a notion comes about what to do with them? Write and tell me about them if you do. I think it is fun to listen to stories about things that people find in their stash that they forgot they had.
Well, it is the magic hour when it is time to go to bed, say my prayers, and then dream about what to design next.
Happy Stitching! Carol

My Little Chickadees

By Carol L Steffensen

Chickadee Watercolor Painting

Everyday I like to spend a little time watching the birds. Today, as I watched, the chickadees were feeding in earnest. I have always liked chickadees, plus the fact that we have lots of them at our place here in the country. It is also part of the reason I named my business Chickadee Hollow Designs. Long before I started designing quiltng and stitchery patterns, I did a lot of painting and drawing, and of course one of my favorite subjects was birds and other wildlife.
I think the good Lord knew what he was doing when he created the earth and gave us all the beautiful wildlife, flowers, trees and terrain for us to look at. Have you ever thought about what this world would be like if there were none of those things I mentioned. Just think about it for a minute, and look around you and see how many things, tangible things, that would not be part of your world, if those things were gone. Pretty scary, isn't it. Then the other things I think about are like the war riden countries like Iraq, and Afghanistan. What happens to all of that wildlife and beauty? I can't imagine birds stick around when there are bombs going off. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Happy Stitching! Carol

The Needleworks Show....Retail

Reminder!!

Don't forget to check out the first on line retail needlework show at the link shown above. Show starts tomorrow, November 5th and goes through November 8th.
Lots of great items to choose from. Check it out.







Happy Stitching! Carol