Let's start at the very beginning...

So here is my first post!  Even though I have been a cross stitcher for most of my life, I have been away from it for a while.   Years ago, my local shop closed down, so sad!  I loved having a place to browse all the new designs and pick out fabrics, and enjoyed the classes and stitch-ins we had.  At that time, I was able to still find my favorite things from some online sources, a couple of my favorites were Elegant Stitch and Wyndham Needleworks.  Little did I know that over the past few years, the online cross stitch community has grown in such leaps and bounds with blogs, groups, shops, and stitch-alongs.  It is wonderful to see such an international community and I have enjoyed reading all of the posts over the past few months.

I am jumping back into the swing of things with both feet this New Year.  I have been planning out my new projects for 2012 and also will be stitching in my first two SALs! 

One SAL is the Elizabeth Hancock Sampler from Little House Needleworks:

It is just so beautiful I could not resist!  I am waiting (patiently!) for the materials to arrive.  A blog dedicated to this SAL, Stitching with Elizabeth Hancock, was created by Vonna "The Twisted Stitcher", thanks so much Vonna!

My second SAL is the Mary Wigham quaker sampler from Needleprint:

Gorgeous!!  I am doing Mary with the Sampler World facebook group.  For anyone who loves samplers check out this group!! We have interesting discussions, and wait until you see all the photos of samplers, so inspiring!   Many of the participants are choosing their own color palettes, it will be fun to see the progress thru the year.  I have decided to keep with most of the colors charted for Mary, only swapping out about five colors... so I could add in some PURPLE!  :)

So I am all ready to go!!  This will be my first start of the New Year.  And I am looking forward to the long holiday weekend to pick out some more!

Thanks so much for stopping by.   Happy New Year and Happy Stitching!