Hello my blogging friends, and Happy Valentine’s Day!  I hope you have a wonderful day however you celebrate this loving day.  I can’t believe it’s February!  I have been so busy and the days have just gotten away from me.  I had so many days I wanted to post, and just didn’t get to it. So, this one may be a long one.  Grab your favorite beverage and get comfy.

I suppose I should start with my birthday, that happened near the end of January.  To celebrate, Hubby took me to a winery about 1 1/2 hours from our house.  They just so happened to be having a Winter Wine and Wool festival the weekend of my birthday and I had decided that is what I wanted to do.

I was so excited to get there after the drive.  If you know me, you know I don’t like being in a car on the highway.  So nerve wracking.

This was my first time to an actual winery.  This one was a very sweet, inviting place. Once inside, I made my way to the yarn and bag vendors.  It was a very small place for an event like this.  There was almost no room to get up and down the hallways.  So I searched out the 2 main booths I wanted to shop at.

So many scrumptious yarns! See that yellow/orange and red cowl on the left?  I picked up some mini skeins to make that.  And a few other skeins to make a shawl.

Then I found the MidMitten Designs Project Bag Booth and purchased a bag and some small notions bags.

Love this new Sassy Style bag!  There is already a project in it 😉  Then is was time for some wine tasting.

This was a Raspberry wine, perfect to pair with chocolate!  Hello!!  I came home with a bottle of this one and a Meade wine.  Hubby spoiled me so much for my birthday.  It was not so bad turning 55 😉

If you remember from one of my previous posts, we found out that we have to have our basement waterproofed.  So hubby and I have been going through things, donating things, pitching things and putting things aside for our boys and hauling it all up and out to the garage.  We have done quite a bit, but we are not going to be ready for the end of February, so we have moved it to April 1 with the contractor coming to remove the drywall and carpet the last week in March.  I can’t believe how much we have accumulated in the 23  years we have been here.  So we are still working on that a little at a time and in between, I am still stitching.  So, lots to show you with that.  First, I finished the Treasures of the Deep SAL.

Sorry about the blurry photo.  Just couldn’t capture it right.  But it is finished with all the hundreds of tiny beads.  I have to admit, that looking at it from a certain angle, it looks a bit gaudy, but then from another angle it looks beautiful and sparkly.

I stayed up until 1:00 in the morning to finish it so I could take it to the cross stitch shop to put it in for framing.  Here is the frame I chose for it:

I was not going to go with a gold frame, but nothing else seemed to work.  I think this one will be perfect.  And while I was there, a framing was ready to be picked up.

I absolutely LOVE how this turned out!!  So beautiful.  The frame is so perfect, too.

The weathering on this one matches perfectly with the variegated threads.  Now I will need to find a place to hang this one, so I can see it all the time.

While in the cross stitch shop, I was inspired to start a new project; the 2019 Mystery Sampler.  I had already ordered a piece of Graceful Gray 16ct Aida by Wichelt, which was there for me to pick up.  On my last trip I had picked up a smaller piece of the fabric and a pink silk thread. I started stitching the peacock, but the pink was too light for the fabric.  So I hadn’t thought anymore about color, until I was in the shop.  And I saw the beautiful variegated thread that I thought would be perfect for a “Peacock Garden”, which is what the new sampler is called.  The thread is Gloriana, a silk and the color is called Rain Forest.  How perfect!!

I will use it for the borders. So I picked out a color that matched for my peacock.  And this is what happened:

And look at that! I am using a Q-snap frame :O I am cringing that my aida fabric will be pretty wrinkled.  I am not used to that with using a scroll frame.  But I used this for the beading the last half of my mermaid SAL so I didn’t roll over the beads, and it worked pretty good.  So I thought I would try it for this Mystery Sampler.  Here is what the January and February sections will look like for this sampler:

It is different than the last 2 samplers.  This one reminds me more of a Round Robin.  I can’t wait to see what will end up in all of those squares.  If you want to get in on this sampler (or the last 2) they are all FREE and put out by Linen and Threads.  So sweet of them to do this.  There is also a Facebook group where people from all over the world are stitching this and sharing and connecting.  It’s awesome.

Now for my last project.  On February 6, I started this project and was so excited:

By the end of the day, I was so frustrated with this project.  It is the Floral Shawl from Woolenberry.  I was just not coming up with the correct amount of stitches at the end of row 7.  I knitted back several times, ripped out several times, and then just gave up.  Then I decided to leave a comment on Ravelry for the designer to see if there was an update or to figure out what I was doing wrong.  So after several emailings back and forth with the Sweet Janina Kallio, I kept trying.  I arrived at row twenty something and thought I was doing well.  My floral pattern didn’t really look right and I was still concerned about the yo ssk knit 3.  It just wasn’t feeling right.  I was ending up with a yo after the ssk.  Anyway, a light bulb finally went off in my head yesterday and I finally figured out what I was doing wrong.  I was knitting the ssk on the front needle instead of the back needle.  What was I thinking?  I knew better. All I can say is that it was a very senior moment.  And after a week of frustration, I am happy to say that I am all straightened out and I have the correct stitch count and my floral pattern is looking lovely.  I am using AJHC Wool’s Rhea.

If you look in the bag, I am almost up to the frogged strands.

So there you have it.  I told you it would be a long post.  I think I am all caught up now.  If you are still with me, thank you 🙂  That is just about everything I have been up to.  So now I want to hear what you have been up to? Have you started a new project? If not,  what are you working on?