New Seasonal Projects

I have picked up a few seasonal projects during my latest LNS expeditions. This is "Winter Cardinal," by Something in Common. It's a small (but beautifully charted and photographed) project, and I'm happy to note that it has a correspondingly small price--$4.00 (and psst--ABCstitch.com has it on sale for $3.60). It'd be a perfect Christmas ornament.

This is "Shades of Brown" by Prairie Grove Peddler. It looks like a fairly quick stitch. It calls for 28 count Country Wheaten Linen, one skein of Crescent colors, and some DMC.

Another wintery/Christmas-y item: Ice Boating by Stoney Creek. I picked it up on ebay. I'm a nut for folk art, and this appealed to me, especially because of the dark sky and stars (or are they snowflakes?). It reminds me of my childhood home in Vermont. We lived in a big white clapboard house a block from a picture-perfect village green. Across the street was a baseball field/park which the fire department used to hose down with water so that there was a perfect skating rink which was then totally safe for even little children to skate on alone--when I was five, I had double-runner ice skates, and I'd chop around on them. When I got worn out, Mom and Dad would load me and my little sister on the sled and they'd skate along, drawing the sled. Afterwards, there would be hot drinks around the bonfire that someone built on the edge of the "rink."

Since I'm walking down Memory Lane, here's a real estate picture for a house currently for sale on the street where we lived (I don't think it was our house; I'll have to ask my parents what our street number was, but the style and size are similar). We rented the upstairs portion, and another family rented downstairs. I'll note that this particular house is listed for $399,900--an unbelievable price to me, as $500K in this area buys you a two-bedroom, 1200 square foot condominium in Arlington. Of course, that's apples to oranges, but if I could find a job in Vermont(there's the rub), I'd go back there in a minute, even if I had to roll my stuff up the interstate in a wheelbarrow, which, given the cost of maintaining one of these things, would be about all I could afford for transportation. I'm not a romantic particularly, and I'm remember the long, bleak winters and the problems of heating these old heaps, but I've grown weary of Metropolitan DC in a lot of ways.

Aaaand here's some progress on Whale Hunting. Actually, I have been stitching quite a lot, what with Whale Hunting, the Cross Eyed Cricket summer sampler, and Carol's Neighborhood RR. I'm sort of in one of those good stitching grooves these days. Edited twice: once, to add the Vermont picture, and the second time to comment--gee, the Vermont house would be right at home in the Whale Hunting scene, wouldn't it? Probably not a coincidence--I'm sure our childhood homes inform our taste and preference (and might explain my recent infatuation with 50s-era furniture).