Winter has arrived!

Happy New Year to one and all!

It is hard to believe that it is the start of a New Year already. December flew by it seems with so many twists and turns.

Now we are having a rather cold, blustery period of truly brisk January weather.

I hope everyone is doing well and had a lovely holiday season, but now is staying as warm as possible since lake effect snow tends to keep the air shall we say a bit chilly!

"Real life" had determined what activities got accomplished during this past Fall into the start of Winter, but now I hope to get caught up myself on some project work since the holiday happenings are fewer. "Little Christmas" is coming right up and then after that, things should slow down a tiny bit.

Likely many of you are in similar situations. January is a time when you probably work on some projects you had set aside when the hustle and bustle of the holiday season took over your lives and meant putting many things "on hold" for the duration. Now each of us can settle back into our more normal routines and get back to those unfinished projects we all have.

There is one project that is in the planning stages that I hope to get to very soon. It is a project which involves the use of Machine Embroidery (ME) and I have worked on the actual design setup using my computer and machine embroidery software. Hopefully, shortly I will sort out the details of stitching out this project since I feel I have gotten the "look" of it where I want it to be. Finalizing the color scheme is the next step and I have toyed with some options, so for the fun of it I have posted the options I am considering above. See which one is your favorite and which you think would look best.

I want to give full design credit to Eliza Wheeler and Elaine Myers. The jpgs are only of machine embroidery designs that are licensed solely for personal use.

Eliza Wheeler is a graphic artist who created a lovely greeting card that was the basis for the girl in the coat in the midst of the snow flurries with the drifting snow beneath her feet and the bird flying overhead on a Winter's day. Kindly note that she owns the copyright to the original greeting card graphics and that she has an arrangement with the firm that used revised graphics for digitizing purposes and all rights are retained by the respective parties.

Elaine Myers created the wonderfully simple Winter Tree design with the original font choice for the word WINTER and she works with a specific design mall and all rights are retained by the respective parties.

Eliza chose to allow a digitizing firm to use a graphic for machine embroidery purposes to create the design of the girl in winter, while Elaine did her own digitizing.

I simply combined the designs and then duplicated the word "WINTER" to then place it around the combined inner designs. I don't digitize myself, but I certainly appreciate the efforts of those who do a good job of it.

Here's hoping YOU get to all the projects you are wanting to do this winter and that by Winter's End, you will have fewer UFOs (unfinished objects) in your "to do" section of wherever you do your sewing, embroidery and other creative craft work.

Make the most of your precious creative time indoors this winter,

Stephanie in Fayetteville