Thank you!

Thank you to everyone who took the time to comment on my last post, and my condolences to those who have also lost their mom. When I read the first comment posted it immediately reminded me that my mom is the one who started me on my stitching journey--she had come down to Champaign, Illinois for Mom's Day weekend and we were shopping on Green Street when we came cross a needlework shop. We went in, even though neither of us was a stitcher, and I fell in love with a Chief Illiniwek design they had stitched on an afghan. My mom bought the supplies for me, as well as a small kit to practice on first, and my love of stitching was born!

Those were some pretty amazing weekends, and I'm glad I have the memories of them.

Just in the past week or so I have actually had a couple of days during which I didn't cry at all, for the first time since about last October. My guys went to Iowa this past weekend and I spent about 15 hours over the course of three days doing some deep cleaning to make up for some of the neglect my house has suffered over the past year. I still have more to do (windows and screens--ugh!), but just getting things back in order has been a huge mood booster for me. I didn't have a lot of stitching time, but when I did I spent it on Merry Merry, who now has her hands/gloves:

I love that on a fabric with scattered snowflakes that both of her hands ended up right next to flakes--kind of like she's creating them and sending them out into the atmosphere. I think in the next few days I might start adding the bling to her headpiece and upper body, as I always love to bring the sparkle to life.

While I was gone a Nora Corbett model dropped that I had stitched, NC359 The Dining Room:

It looks like Wichelt changed the drop on the chandelier after I sent it back, and I'm not sure which version I prefer yet:

I have all six rooms of The Doll House kitted up, and I plan to stitch them all together, but no idea when I'll actually start them. I'm going to two Queen City Stitch Retreats this year; the first is their Chatelaine Weekend in July, and I'm planning to start Rose Lights sometime before then:

The second is their second Mirabilia retreat in October. At the first retreat in 2023 and again this year they are having a SAL for Charlotte, but I already stitched her back in 2015:

However, this year they're also having a SAL with a Nora Corbett design, Geranium, so I'm going to take part in that one:

So between Merry Merry, Rose Lights and Geranium I should have plenty to keep me occupied. I've also let Cecilia from Heart in Hand know that I'll be ready to stitch for her at the end of this month, so I think she's going to be sending a design that she'll be releasing at Market this year. It definitely feels good to be feeling more normal now; about this time last year is when everything started getting bad, so this year I'm hoping for calmer times.

Hope everyone as a great stitchy week!