Long Weekend comments: 45

I organize all of my blog photos in folders by year, and then by month, and then by day. In looking through November's this morning, I don't think there is any other month that starts as much in one season and ends as much in another. I love winter. I feel like I come alive, somehow. Winter, winter: Bare branches. Pink skies. Muddy streets. Evergreen scents. Misty rain. Cold mornings. Smoke from neighborhood chimneys. Kitchen afternoons. Fogged up windowpanes. Mimi takes a bunch of miniature fake pine trees and and sets them up in her room next to her mushroom nightlight. She fluffs up her bed, all flannel sheets and gingham comforter and quilt after quilt, and climbs in. "Mom, look at me." I open the back door in the darkness of early morning and sniff the chilly air. Delicious shiver. Hot coffee. Winter. I am a daughter of the North Wind.

I hope you are well. Thanksgiving was lovely. The whole past weekend was so wonderfully long. I kept getting my days messed up, forgetting where we were in the long stretch. We made the house a bit Christmassy on Saturday and Sunday and then I spent as much time as I could hand-stitching a whole bunch of felt ornaments for Amelia's little tree that we usually put upstairs in the big bedroom. I used so many different patterns (all other peoples' patterns) and they all came out so cute and I had so much fun doing it it was ridiculous. I will take pictures of them and show you next time. We haven't gotten our trees yet.

Fabric for the rest of the kits is supposedly on the UPS truck right now, coming to our house by the end of the day. Stacey just left after having pulled all of the floss. I'll pick up the patterns on my way to get Mimi at school. We are sure we can get everything out by the end of the week, so thank you again for all of those (new) orders. Love and Joy is sold out, and we won't be doing more. We've held out fifteen kits, as we always do, for emergencies and lost packages and all that sort of thing and once we have confirmed that everyone who ordered has received their kit we will trickle them back out onto the web site but for all intents and purposes, the kits are all sold and I thank you so much for that. Thank you.

Do you remember the Alice dress? That was 2010. I know. Dear me. All of it. This girl. And that lovely creature peeking out from behind her mother's elbow up there is my beautiful niece, who just turned eighteen. whole. years. old. this month. I recently found that painting (it started here, went wrong here, recovered here, and ended up here) I did of her in 2009 and gave it to her just this weekend for her birthday. Oh, time.

Thank You Very Much!!! comments: 48

* * * T H A N K   Y O U   E V E R Y B O D Y ! ! ! ! ! * * *

Thank you, thank you for all of your orders and enthusiasm for the Love and Joy kit.
I was just not expecting that.
We sold out in a couple of days.
Then we raided all of the Winterwoods kits for their fabric and made some more Love and Joys.
And then we sold out of those. :(

BUT!

The fabric supplier is shipping more fabric to us today.
I've put another 100 kits in the shop, as we have just enough floss to make 100 more.
If you missed out the first time, here is your chance to order.

Click here for a Love and Joy kit.

We won't ship until sometime next week, after the fabric comes in.

If you already purchased the digital pattern but you would like a kit instead,
I will refund the cost of the digital pattern (because you will get a printed pattern with the kit).
Please leave  me a note on the order page (not the Paypal page) or
send me an email and let me know to refund for the pattern and I will do that.

I'm sorry for the frustration! We try to guesstimate these numbers as well as we can so that things sell quickly but not too quickly, but it is hard with some things.

I will be writing to everyone who sent me an email about this or left a comment.
I'm rushing around trying to get lots done today.

Sorry for writing in centered-speak. I thought it was kinda cute.

* * *

I wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving, and a peaceful time of cooking and gathering together.
Thank you all for paying such loving attention to all of our daily comings and goings and for being such bright lights in my life. I am very grateful for you and your kindness, and all of your kind words and support throughout these many years.
I truly appreciate the efforts you make to share yourselves here. You are the nicest people ever.
Thank you.

Love,
Alicia
and Andy and Amelia and Clover Meadow and The Beeeeeeee
XOXOXOX

Love and Joy Come to You comments: 49

Stitching is just plain good medicine. Put on your coziest clothes, turn on the twinkly lights, make some tea, find a good movie or your favorite music, get a full-spectrum spotlight (that's the one I have) for those dark nights, call your puppers or your kitters or your friend to your side, thread your needles, and stitch your heart back together. If yours feels good but you know someone who could use some love, stitch one for them. Even if cross stitching is not for you, I sincerely encourage you to find one of the needle-arts that appeals to you and make something sweet and simple by hand this season.

This one, of every cross stitch kit I've ever designed, is probably the easiest. It's fairly small (the design area is about 9" wide by 6" high), fairly simple, doesn't have too many colors, and has elements that connect just enough to make counting fairly easy.

What is also nice about this, unlike almost every other cross stitch pattern I've ever designed, is that it can fit into a standard (8" x 10") frame. Wow, is it ever cheaper to frame things this way. What you can do is go to your local frame shop and ask them to cut you a piece of white foam core just slightly smaller than fits into a standard frame. (My local shop literally charged me $3.00 to do this.) You are going to wrap the fabric around this board, so you probably need the board to be about 1/8" shy, on every side, to make room for the fabric in the frame. Get some sequin (short, about 1/2") pins and follow my directions for stretching your finished piece here. Make sure that whatever frame you choose is deep enough to hold the foam core board and still put a backing on. I think that you could also get a frame shop to cover the back with paper and put hangers on it, if you did everything else (to keep costs down). And of course, a frame shop could do this whole thing for you but you would still save money not needing a custom-sized frame, because frames can be just ridiculously expensive.

The Love and Joy Cross Stitch Sampler KIT is available HERE.

If you would like just the downloadable PDF PATTERN, it is available HERE.

Here are the details:

Finished Size of Design Area: 9.14" x 5.79" (23cm x 15cm); 128 stitches wide x 81 high on 28-count fabric

The kit contains:

One 14" x 16" (36cm x 41cm) piece of 28-count Zweigart Cashel linen in Smokey Pearl
(29) 24" (61cm) lengths of various colors of DMC 6-ply cotton embroidery floss
Stitching instructions
Illustrated stitch tutorial for special stitches
Color cross-stitch chart with symbols
One piece of chipboard for creating a floss organizer
*Frame not included.

You will need your own:

#24 tapestry needle(s) for cross stitch
Embroidery scissors
4" (10cm) embroidery hoop
Frame and framing supplies

If you are new to counted cross stitch, or need a refresher on the basics, please see my "how to do counted cross stitch" tutorial here.

Also, as you probably know, I also carry my favorite supplies in my web shop, should you need lovely, high quality tools. For this project, we have:

Gorgeous little embroidery scissors.

Hardwicke Manor 4" hoops.

Twill tape to wrap around the inner hoop. You don't need to do this, but it's nice, and provides more tension to keep the fabric from slipping out of the hoop as you stitch.

And size #24 tapestry needles for cross stitch on linen.

All supplies will be shipped along with your kit.

We also have a limited number of wintry older kits left. There are 101 Winterwoods ABC Samplers:

We have 42 Ice Skating Afternoon Ornament Kits left:

We have about 60 of each of Snow Day and Night Before Christmas, which we did reissue again a couple of years ago:

We only have  21 Phyllis Mouses:

And about 100 each of Basil Fox and the Cold Day outfit (for boys and girls, sold separately but fits all the animals)

Of everything else, we do have a pretty decent stock or none at all. Any kits that you do not see on the web site most likely will not be coming back, especially animal softies and ornament kits. I am probably going to bring back a limited supply of My Sweetiepie Sampler kits sometime in 2017, but it won't be anytime soon. I really, really want to make room in my brain and in my space for some new ideas and new kits in 2017.

We do ship overseas! To place your order, you will be required to read this information, which contains details about international shipping and customs fees you may incur when ordering outside the U.S. (If you are overseas, the shipping cost charged by Posie does not include any further charges you may incur when importing goods.) To see the shipping-only costs for your order and location, just place the items in your cart and choose your location (or enter your zip code, if you are in the U.S.) and it will tell you how much the shipping is. As usual, I have a sincere request: Please check on and update your shipping address correctly in your Paypal preferences so that there is no confusion when we go to ship. If you do need to add things to your order or change your address after you've placed the order, just email me and we'll figure it out, no worries! I just like to remind people of this ahead of time, because it's a bit easier.

There is something so poignant about holiday crafting, to me. I honestly think it's the sweetest, most optimistic kind of making we do all year. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to come from the heart. I hope this new little sampler kit provides you with many (but not that many; it's just the right size) quiet hours of peaceful stitching this season. And I wish you all the love and joy in the world.

XOXOXOX,
Alicia

Walks in the Woods comments: 78

Hello, dear friends. I hope you are very, very well at the end of this week. I've been mostly quiet in every way, trying to process the results of the election and find ways to think about it, listening to voices that I care about, and determined, as ever, to move forward into the future with an open mind and an open heart. On this day, Veteran's Day, I sincerely thank everyone who has served and given their lives to this great country and protected every extraordinary freedom that we get to so often take for granted. I thank every member of their families, as well, as their sacrifices are equally profound. I pray, as always, for peace and acceptance and understanding for all of us and for our children.

I'm extraordinarily tired today, and feeling flat. Daylight savings time, even this autumnal kind (in which we supposedly "gain" an hour), destroys our usual, mostly clockwork-like routine. I will never understand how one little hour can cause so much trouble. A couple of times this week, Amelia has woken up at 3:00 a.m., ready for her day. We've never been good at getting her back to sleep in her own bed after she wakes, so she comes in the big bed and then, and only then, she promptly falls asleep. I, on the other hand, lie curled around her warm body, limp as a towel on the floor except for my eyeballs, which are like that startled-looking, wide-eyed emoji guy's. Wide-awake. That, plus staying up talking way too late into the night for several nights, has got me fighting a cold I can feel coming on from somewhere far, far away. . . . I just know it's coming.

Out in the woods and in the meadow in the woods, all three of us, late last Friday afternoon. The air was so warm, the light was so mellow. There are too few of these golden days in Pacific Northwestern autumns, quite frankly, and we've had several just this week alone. What gracious balm they have been after the second-wettest October on record. On Sunday Andy had to work, and Mimi and I went out by ourselves, to a different forest on the other side of town. We brought a camp chair and a little quilt and walked to a secret viewpoint, across from which Mt. Hood rose glimmering-white in all its perfect, peaceful majesty. The woods were incredibly quiet. We only saw three other people, and one of them might have been the same guy twice (once on his way back). I sat in the chair, as per my dream of the woods. She sat facing me in my lap and we talked. Occasionally she'd put her head down on my chest and we'd just listen for birds. We heard hardly any, strangely, and no birds flew into the birdhouse ornament she'd brought from home (darn!). Sometimes we'd get up and walk again, leaving our base camp set up near the viewpoint. The woods had been muddy until we got into the pine forest. There the path is soft and dense and pinkish, and the smell of cedar comforts. Mushrooms sprouted and sat, so delicately, on pads of loamy leaves. Sticks cracked softly under our feet. Piles of acorn (?) shells at the base of several trees had us wondering. We practiced not shrieking in the woods (this has been hard to learn, but I sympathize there; it's so tempting). But I think quiet is best-practice. Quietly sitting in a chair, listening, looking — this I like. I plan to do more of it. The chair had a strap so I could carry it on my back. When set up it was only a foot off the ground, so I felt like part of the ground. Hiking is nice; sitting and watching her play her afternoon away with acorn shells and pine cones and pieces of fairy food (feathers, and mushroom gills) without getting soaking wet, now, those were some glorious hours. Highly recommend.

Peace be with you, friends. I hope you get to do something you truly love to do this weekend. We have finished all of the assembling and will be putting my new winter cross-stitch kits (and pattern) on sale on Tuesday, I think, so I will see you then, and wish you well until. Lots of love, XO, A

Autumn Feel comments: 114

Few words, lots of feels. I stood on the other side of the one-way-glass window and watched her dance and was filled with so much joy for her obvious joy I couldn't speak, embarrassed by my tears in front of the other moms. She tried to curtsy, crossing her feet and falling over sideways, smiling. It's so beautiful sometimes I am overcome. How incredible to have a piece of one-way glass behind which to stand, and watch, and not be observed, and, so, not distract. She waved right at me and someone said, "But how can she see you?" I said I had no idea, and instinctively almost ducked. Later she told me she could see the shadow of my glasses, and I had told her I'd be standing right there. The music was poignant. The afternoon outside glowed. The little girls were birds in their nests, birds flying, and butterflies. In the hallway, the older dancers gossiped loudly and were shushed. The paint in the clothes-changing room was such an incredible barely pink shade of pink I touched the wall. Sometimes I have these moments in parenthood where I just can't believe I am finally a mother, and the air changes color. This week it was frequently pure gold. If you're still waiting, don't give up.