New Year, New Start

Since I finished "Raven Bewitched" at the end of the year, I was looking for a new project to start. I have had "Kringle's Christmas Tree Farm" by Praiseworthy Stitches kitted up and ready to go for two years. "Raven" was one of the larger projects I have tackled recently, so I felt ready to start "Tree Farm." The section you see below is page 1 out of 8. I started this on Thursday, Jan. 3, so I feel like I'm already making progress and would like to have it finished and framed for Christmas 2013.

2012 Reading List

Time to post my annual reading list. I wanted to read 50 books this year and I finished #50 on Sunday, Dec. 30 - just in time! This is the most books I've read in one year since my youngest daughter was born in 2006. I discovered some new authors this year - the crime fiction of Michael Robotham, the world of Nantucket as told by Elin Hilderbrand and right now, I'm working my way through Sarah Addison Allen's magical books set in North Carolina. I also read two of the three books by Heather Gudenkauf. Her third book, which was just released in June, is about a shooting at an elementary school, so I think I'm going to skip that one; I don't think it's something I can handle right now, if ever.

1. Hardly Knew Her by Laura Lippman
2. Mommywood by Tori Spelling
3. Recalculating by Jennifer Weiner (short story)
4. The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian
5. Cut, Paste, Kill by Marshall Karp
6. A Grown Up Kind of Pretty by Joshilyn Jackson
7. Long Gone by Alafair Burke
8. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
9. Trick of the Dark by Val McDermid
10. Creep by Jennifer Hillier
11. Mrs. Kimble by Jennifer Haigh
12. Barefoot by Elin Hilderbrand
13. Yankee Doodle Dixie by Lisa Patton
14. Swim by Jennifer Weiner (short story)
15. The Sunday Wife by Cassandra King
16. The Castaways by Elin Hilderbrand
17. Whistlin’ Dixie in a Nor’easter by Lisa Patton
18. Bossypants by Tina Fey
19. The Blue Bistro by Elin Hilderbrand
20. The Summer of Skinny Dipping by Amanda Howells
21. Iron House by John Hart
22. The Shoemaker’s Wife by Adriana Trigiani
23. Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner
24. The Most Dangerous Thing by Laura Lippman
25. The Rope by Nevada Barr
26. Hold Tight by Harlan Coben
27. Ghost on Black Mountain by Ann Hite
28. The Bone House by Brian Freeman
29. Blue Heaven by C.J. Box
30. Pretty Little Things by Jillianne Hoffman
31. Ransom River by Meg Gardiner
32. Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson
33. Broken Harbor by Tana French
34. Border Crossing by Pat Barker
35. The Island by Elin Hilderbrand
36. A Summer Affair by Elin Hilderbrand
37. Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
38. Dark River Road by Virginia Brown
39. The River Witch by Kimberly Brock
40. The Cutting Season by Attica Locke
41. A Killing in the Hills by Julia Keller
42. These Hidden Things by Heather Gudenkauf
43. Falling Together by Marisa de los Santos
44. Life After Death by Damien Echols
45. Say You’re Sorry by Michael Robotham
46. Shatter by Michael Robotham
47. Bleed for Me by Michael Robotham
48. The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg
49. The Weight of Silence by Heather Gudenkauf
50. The Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen

2012 Finishes

Well, I didn't post very much in 2012, but I was stitching. I previously posted about finishing SamSarah's "Sweet, Sweet Babe," but here it is framed. The frame is a dark brown, although it looks almost black in these photos.

I worked on Blackbird Designs' "Raven Bewitched" for most of the summer (each one of those Quaker stars took me close to an hour to stitch!), then caught the Halloween bug when the JCS Halloween issue came out. Here are a few small ornaments I finished from different issues. I recently bought a variety pack of Halloween fabric so I can finish-finish them.

I only made two small ornaments as Christmas gifts this year: Imaginating's "German Nutcracker" and Mill Hill's "Tropical Santa - Tahiti."

Technically, I finished "Raven Bewitched" on New Year's Day, but I'm going to count it as a 2012 finish since I only had to stitch the "er" in October and the "2" in the date at the bottom.

Hopefully, there will be lots more to come in 2013.