Christmas Eve & a TUSAL Update

A Merry Christmas Eve to one and all!

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Love came down at Christmas,

Love all lovely, Love Divine;

Love was born at Christmas;

Star and angels gave the sign.

- Christina Rossetti

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Thought I would share the vintage Santa box (above) I got some embroidery thread in at the thrift store.  Isn't he wonderful, the kind of thing I grew up seeing at Christmas.

Here is my December TUSAL update, this is what I did with my orts.  It's a borrowed idea and a wonderful one.  With these plastic ornaments I can change out the contents any time I choose, keep adding orts or whatever.

This is what I have been working on this week.  I picked up a huge container of yarn balls at my favorite charity shop back in the fall and I am using the whites and pastels to knit a simple garter stitch afghan.  When the ball runs out I just add another color on and go again.  The Springtime Easter colors are making me happy and it gives my hands something to do at night and uses up yarn that would most likely have gotten thrown away.

Here's another thrift shop find, a beautifully stitched project never completed.  I will need to find something to go in the middle, but that should not be an issue.  This pretty lacy border will work with many cross stitch patterns I already have.

I love all things medieval and I picked up these gorgeous glasses at one of my 2 favorite thrift stores, There are 5 tall ones and 3 short ones in this blue and green with real gold.  They are signed by some designer and I just love them. 

And speaking of blue and gold medieval items...

Check out this bedspread!  At least I think it was meant to be a bedspread, its about 8 x 10!  I was going to hang it on one of the living room walls medieval style, but its so large I don't think that will work, so I am still trying to figure out what to do with it.  It may be silk but it could be rayon, and since it has never been used it is obvious the person who owned it didn't know what to do with it either.  Now before you say use it as a bedspread, let me tell you we only have a smaller than twinsize sleeping bench for Charles and I sleep in a Lazyboy because of my bad back.  Not a real bed in sight here.

And here's my other recent find!  A wonderful, in perfect condition sofa cover in just the right color!  This poor old vintage sofa is in need of a complete overhaul as springs are sprung and the uphostelry is in shreds but this makes it look great for now.  And for $10 you can't beat it.

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Well, off to mail some Etsy items and do a little housework and then probably some more knitting.  At least we have sunshine after tornado watches and thunderstorms and deluges of rain all night.  But that's the Texas Gulf Coast for you.

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O Little Town of Bethlehem

As promised, here are photos of my nativity scene.  I usually put it on the shelves of a bookcase, but opted to set it up with the tree on top of my split level desk which separates the living and dining areas.

I just love the wise men and all their camels.  The are conferring to make sure they are on the right road to find the baby King.

The pieces are from all different places.  I started out with a ceramic set I made and added to it with pieces from Walmart, back when you could just buy the pieces you wanted.  Several years running I bought pieces at the Hallmark shop but they have gotten way too pricey now.

The goats and a ram I got at our local Farmer's Supply, they were part of the farm animal collectible figurines.

I just love the happy innkeeper on the right, his pockets are full because the inn is full and he even rented out the stables!

Watch out, there's a Roman guard reading proclamations again.  But the angels are watching over our babe.

Bethlehem may be small but it sure is busy!

The angels are making music and the shepherd boy is looking at the star in the sky.

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I grew up with the nativity scene being placed under the tree, it's a bit hard with my small tree and all the nativity pieces I have, but the desk works fairly well.

O' Christmas Tree & Good St. Nick

So many blogs I visit are showing off all their Christmas decorations around the house so I thought I would share mine.  I used to decorate every room, even the bathroom in my old apartment, but the time and energy for that is past and I have whittled my decorations down to just those I really love and freecycled the rest to a family who had lost all theirs in a move.

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I used to buy a 6 foot real tree every year but when it got so you couldn't get one for less than $40 and it was spray painted because they cut them so early and truck them down to Texas, I decided a fake tree would do just fine.  It was a very economical $20 at Big Lots about 9 years ago.  It is pre-lit and I added an extra string of red lights.  Most of my ornaments are angels and most were gifts so as I hang each one on the tree I am reminded of someone special.  The angel on top is a lovely paper mache angel but unfortunately she is not lit up, so here's a photo with a flash so you can see her.

I grew up with a fake tree each year so it doesn't really bother me, the real ones here have no scent anyway as they are pretty much dead by the time they sell them.  I also grew up with the shiny foil icicles to hang on the branches but with cats...well, sometimes they like to eat them...not a good thing.  So I have collected glass and plastic icicles to hang and I think it looks quite festive.  The red velvet tree skirt has bead and jingle bell dangles of which 1/2 are missing because of the cat, but he needs his fun too.

 

The one thing I collect at Christmas is Bishop Nicholas figurines.  Not Santas, although there are some gorgeous ones out there, but the harder to find St. Nicholas in his bishop's robe and miter.  The only one that is not is the birch bark looking Santa in white to the left.  He was my exception just because he's so darned cute with the squirrel climbing on him.  Anyway, I got these in many various places, even the Texas Renaissance Festival-that was the litle pewter one.  I have seen a couple more online, but sadly there was no budget for one this year.  I did get a cross-stitch chart of Nicholas which I am going to stitch up this next year in time for the next St. Nicholas day which is Dec. 6th.  The Orthodox children set their shoes out on the night of the 5th and he either leaves candy or coal depending on how good the child was during the year.  Very similar to the stockings we all put out every year.

 

This year is slightly different as we are attending a Russian Orthodox Church and they follow the old calendar which makes Christmas on Jan. 6th according to the calendar we all use everyday.  I guess I get 2 Christmases!   I put out the Nicholases right after Thanksgiving, the tree went up a week later, tomorrow I will probably put out the nativity figurines and post more pictures for you.

What I've Been Up To

I'm still around, just have been so busy I sometimes can't tell which day it is.  I have so many pictures to share I hope it doesn't slow down the page load too much.

2 weeks ago we went to Saturday night vespers at St. Vladimir's Russian Orthodox Church.  It was a gorgeous church and a beautiful service with a bishop in attendance.  He's there in the center in black.

 

You can see the gorgeous iconostasis in this picture, I especially loved the carvings that set off the icons.  I've lightened the photos so you can see everything better, but this night service was done mostly by candlelight.

This is the Gospel being brought out.

This church has a beautiful golden onion dome on top, something you don't see very often on the smaller orthodox churches around here.  Because it was a hierarchical (hope I spelled that right) service with a bishop, the service was 3 hours long.  And even though I knew what the different parts were, I had no idea what was being said as 99% was in Slavonic and I only speak English. 

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Here's my resident poet with my latest project.  I picked up some lovely grey wool at the charity shop for $2 and he requested a hat.  I never made one before and made it up as I went along, it didn't turn out too bad!  Good thing as I finished it the day this came...

That folks is snow on Dec 4th, 2009, late afternoon.  We are just north of Houston and in nearly 30 years I this is the 4th time I've seen snow, and it has never been this early.  So much for the global warming scam.

It won't look like much to anyone that gets a real winter, but it actually snowed enough overnight for kids to make snowmen, very small snowmen, before the sun came out the next morning and just like Frosty, it all melted away...

But the resident poet snapped quite a few pictures before that happened.

Sadly all the roses and other flowers are now shriveled and blackened.

But don't they look glorious covered in ice!

Click on the photos to see them larger for more detail.

This is the view through my bedroom window as I sat in my chair and watched the big fat flakes come down.

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If it's snowing and cold where you are, curl up with a cup of cocoa or a bowl of chili like we did and enjoy watching God's painting of Winter.

What is an Ort?

I had a couple of questions in the comments of my last post so I am addressing those here. 

What is an ORT?  I am very familiar with this old fashioned word as it is used quite frequently in crossword puzzles and I love crossword puzzles.  For those interested, an ort is a leftover of something.  In the case of my last post it is a leftover piece of thread or yarn, the end piece I cut off. 

The other question was what is TUSAL?  Usually I write out the whole thing but for some reason I did not this month.  A SAL in the internet world is a 'stitch-a-long'.  There are a lot of us who are nowhere near a sewing group or could not get to the meetings if there were one.  So we have virtual stitch a longs, knowing that others whose blogs we read are working on their embroidery or knitting projects just as we are.  The TU part stands for "totally useless".  As in collecting the orts or end pieces of your thread or yarn and saving them in a jar of some sort and once a month on the new moon taking a photo and posting it on your blog.  I have a link box in the right hand column that will take you to the blog of the lady who started it and tell you more.  And you will find a list of stitching bloggers there also. 

Some folks are planning to stuff a pin cushion with their orts, one lady puts hers in clear plastic balls and I borrowed her idea and will do that with mine when the year is over.  Some folks also collect the paper labels from the thread in a jar.

In short it is a fun thing to do, that takes no extra time or space and you get to meet some really lovely crafty bloggers.

So thanks, June, for asking!

Better Late Than Never......TUSAL

Well here I am almost a week late.  Seems like everyday there was something that did not let me get my pictures taken nor let me get to the computer to make a post.  So here is my November TUSAL photo.  My ort jar is almost full...except if I squash it down there will be more room.  Mostly there are cotton yarn pieces since the last photo and I can't show you anything as they are Christmas presents.

But I can show you the little table the ort jar sits on.  It was a recent project.  Originally it was a lovely stained wooden table that opened up to store silverware.  According to the metal label is is 'British Made'.  Along the way someone spray painted it with glossy white enamel.  Then it got beat up looking and the enamel was chipped and scratched.  I don't mind the shabby chic look, but this was a long way from chic.

So I spray painted it with a bronze paint and used left over pieces of uphostelry fabric for the sides and top insets.  Edged it all with uphostelry gimp and now I have a piece that fits right in.  I tried using a wallpaper border adhesive to attach the fabric but it would peel right off, so I ended up using hot glue for both the fabric and the gimp.  Success!!!

And since my good silver lives in a box that came with it, I use this table to store my boxes of embroidery thread.  There's a little drawer there at the bottom and I store my scissors and such in that. 

Now it matches the antique buffet that I also used the fabric on.  I'll take some pictures of that for later.

Blogspot Problems & Errors

Just a quick note to let you know that blogspot seems to have a problem in that it is not updating the posts showing in blog rolls sometimes.  I am seeing that happening with mine.  I check the Gold Exchange blog daily from work and I am seeing that in my Canterbury Cottage blog roll it still shows as the very first post of welcome.  Some of the other blogs in the my blog roll are doing the same thing.  I have tried using the fixes that other recommend but they don't seem to help.  If anyone knows how to fix it please let me know.  I'm tired of missing the great posts from my favorite blogs!