Out With The Old, In With The New

Recently, I had a really nice surprise come in the mail.  My stitching friend, Deb, asked me if I would like an adult coloring book featuring Japanese Woodblock Prints.  Yes!  Japanese artwork is so beautiful.  Most of my long time readers know that I have an Okinawan (Japan) heritage so this coloring book was right up my alley.  This isn't just any coloring book, though.  It shows a color print of the actual artwork and the history of the artist as well as a corresponding coloring page.  It's VERY cool!

 

 

Thank you so much, Deb!



STITCHY STUFF
The end of 2016 brought several finishes. 

Handmade Charlotte kit by Buscilla

Wood ornament stitched with cotton threads

Christmas Wishes

Designer: Alita Designs

Fabric: 14ct Cream Gold Lurex Aida

Fibers:  Cotton threads leftover from misc kits

Embellishments: Ricrac, Grosgrain Ribbon, Gold Seed Beads

 

Woolly & Cosy Ornament

Designer: Valentina Sardu 

Fabric: 28ct Antique White Cashel Linen 

Fibers: Cotton threads leftover from misc kits

Embellishments: Ricrac

 

I ended 2016 with a total of ten finishes. Not as many as I'd like, but a stitch is a stitch, right?  My finishes can be seen HERE.

The beginning of 2017 started off with stitching on Japanese Garden.  You heard it right... I pulled out JG.  The last time I worked on it, it looked like this:

 

 

As of today, I finished all the gold brackets and most of the purple Jessica stitches.

 

 

WORK

After having 11 PTO days off work, today was my first day back.  Talk about busy!  Tomorrow will be just as busy.  I don't know if I mentioned it... a few months ago, I took over project billings for the office I work out of.  It has consumed my days at work.  It's challenging and I seem to learn something new every day. I thought it was ironic that the first day back for the new year is Festival of Sleep Day. LOL

 

 

EXERCISE

How many of you made a New Year's resolution to lose weight, exercise more, blah, blah, blah?  I joined a gym a few months ago... a nice perk provided by my employer.  I had been going 3-4 times a week until December hit... holidays and cold weather have thrown my schedule off.  I seem to do better when I go to the gym directly after work. Zumba classes, weight training, swimming, stationary bike, and elliptical are the things I do in rotation.  Tonight was my first night back... weight training, biking, and elliptical.

 

I'm going to leave off by saying that I wish all of my readers the very best 2017. May the new year be everything you wish for.