Looking toward the future....

~ Greetings and Warm Welcome to my blog ~

where I share my love with all things needle and thread (and some other things too)!

I want to thank you - all of you for following along with me on my Merry Days. Next year we will do it again. In the meantime... I'm trying to rebuild the content here on my good 'ol blog. I had a lot of things on here that were really good information and sadly they are gone. But with loss comes growth. We will see some of that this coming year!

First I'd like to share a little slice of a Pfeiffer Christmas....

this year was like other years, we stayed at home - so while I know others struggled with not being able to do as they normally do - this year was completely normal for us -as we always stay home.

Christmas eve saw me making our comfort food meal that we eat on all day...

Garlic Knots and Chicken Gnocchi Soup.

dough resting:

Knots made:

Knots after baking:

Garlic Knots with Chicken Gnocchi Soup: 

Oh my word...this is one of my family's favorite meals. It really is rather simple. The garlic knots have a little work to them, but it is really manageable if you have a mixer with a dough hook it is doubly manageable. Would you like my recipes? Just look above in the TABS section of my blog - under RECIPES click on tab and the recipe will be linked there. 

Here we all are on Christmas Day:

We were interrupting Chatty's beauty rest, so he turned his back on us 😂

The kids always get Keith's holiday favorites - Chocolate Covered Cherries in all the varieties:

We usually gift to each other food (we really like food), homemade gifts are typically our favorites, but this year the kids gave each other books and music CDs and then personal items PJs, bubble bath...you get the idea.

hunting the Christmas Pretzel, Bigfoot and Pickle...in this photo the Pretzel and Bigfoot had already been found but the illusive pickle was still in play:

The Bigfoot finder gets the Bigfoot scat (Hershey Kiss), the Christmas Pretzel finder gets Chocolate covered pretzels and the pickle finder gets to open presents first. 

these are all of our own little family traditions that we've done since the kids were little and we have to continue each year. The bigfoot is because, well I like bigfoot. The pretzel was made by Keith's little hands when he was in Kindergarten and the pickle is supposedly a German tradition, but really it is a fake German tradition that we just perpetuate her in our home. 

For Christmas Dinner we had: 

Bourbon Maple Syrup glazed hame

Sweet Rolls made by Ellie:

Methodist (Baptist, Mormon...I've seen them called all of these things) Funeral Potatoes - my kids love these, just google Funeral potatoes and a recipe will pop up, they typically are always the same, frozen hash browns, 2 cups of cheddar, stick of butter, can of chicken soup, cup of sour cream, mix it all together and throw in a pan and top with a cup or two of crushed corn flakes and a melted stick of butter, bake at 350 until bubbling.

We also love roasted brussel sprouts.

It was a great, relaxing day! We hope you and your family however you celebrate or not was fun and relaxing!

Here's some stitching I got done:

Country Cottage Needleworks - January Sampler - Sampler of the Month

32 count Sugared Coffee linen from defunct dye house

Classic Colorworks threads

I love the little house that I re-stitched it adding some snow and flakes around it to make one of my snow globe ornaments. Tutorial HERE

I also did some significant work on Santa of the Forest, by Lavender and Lace on 32 ct natural linen using DMC and Kreinik

Looking ahead to the future....

I need to get Austin's Bigfoot Quilt done...here's where it stood when I stopped in September (I got really busy and I fell out of love a little with it)

I'm going to have two graduates this spring, God willing, Jacob from Technical College. He will graduate with an Associates Degree in Automation and Robotic Arm Technology. He picked out this quilt:

And Katie will be graduating with her Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering. She picked this quilt pattern:

SOOOOO....Mama's got a full plate already and it isn't even 2021 yet...😂

Keith and I will be celebrating our 25th Anniversary. I have always admired this pattern by Barbara Ana entitled "Love Never Fails"

Now I plan on tweaking it a little to suit my tastes, such as: I am going to give us skin tones so that we don't look like zombies. The 1853 is going away to: 1996  and 2021

I'm going to squish the saying up with not as much spacing so that I can put 25 years at the bottom of the heart or maybe get rid of the cats and put 25th Anniversary somewhere there...and I'd like to remove the LOVE and put PFEIFFER there. We will see how it goes once I start it: On New Years Day.

OK peeps...that's a wrap!

Thanks for being my friends!

and until next time:

Keep a smile on your face and one in your heart and you just can't go wrong!

Smiles, Hugs and Love to you all, 

Vonna xxxx