The kids left this morning for an all day drive to Dallas and it sounded somewhat like a vacuum when they drove away.  Having a family of four, complete with an 8 and 2 year old, visit our tiny house tends to fill it to the brim.  The visit was probably the most pleasant one we have had yet, but I must admit that I really enjoyed my private time with my embroidery and Netflix today, too.  Here are a few more photos from the past week or two.

We put the Christmas tree on the screened in patio this year.  This is the second time in 6 years that we have actually put up a tree.  It was fun looking at all the ornaments and reminiscing.  Putting it on the patio was brilliant.  We have a faucet about 4 feet from the base of the tree and there were no needles in the house, etc.  The only problem with it this year was that it rained heavily on Christmas Eve and Day, so we were unable to keep the presents out there under the tree.

The tree below is about two feet tall and is covered in ornaments that were tatted by my husband’s great aunt Dodie.  I think that is the relation.  Anyway, I felt that these ornaments were special enough to have their own tree.

This ornament I made a few weeks before Christmas.  I have always wanted to try this technique for a faux quilted ornament and now that I have, I will be making more in the future for sure.  The technique was so easy and you can see how to make your own here.

This year I was able to knit a couple of hats for a local women’s charity organization.  A local restaurant had a tree with these ornaments hanging on it.  All you do is take an ornament and buy, or in my case make, the items and deliver them to the charity.  It was an enjoyable task, I only wish I had found the ornament tree earlier so I could have made a couple more.

Finally, I made two new stockings this year.  One for my daughter-in-law, Sara, and the one below for my grandson William.  I was determined to use fabrics I had on hand, so after doing the cross stitch design, I came up with the following combination for his stocking.  I think it turned out pretty nifty.