A New Year & A New Name

Good morning!  I guess the holidays aren't technically over yet since just about everyone has a day off from work today.  However, I felt motivated to put away the decorations yesterday so in that respect the holidays have gone away for a few months.  A few months, you say?  Well, I was thinking ... it seems that Christmas arrives in the stores sooner & sooner every year.  I remember my husband & I taking our daughter trick-or-treating at the local mall when she was 4 or 5 years old & getting a photo of her & her friend standing in front of some decorated Christmas trees.  This was back in the early 80s.  We couldn't believe we were seeing Christmas trees on Halloween!  Some years back Hallmark started getting their Christmas ornaments in the stores in July.  I know Christmas came to the stores this year at least in September so there you go ... it has gone away but it will be back in a few months   : )

And what's with the blog name change?  I've been thinking about this for quite some time now.  "Farmhouse Ponderings" will soon be obsolete what with our selling our house this year & moving only God knows where.  Someplace that is cold a lot & gets a lot of snow, that's for certain.  Anyway, I wanted a new name to reflect my passion for cross stitching in some way but something like "Farmhouse Stitching" would again be obsolete when we move.  I came up with "The Easily Influenced Stitcher" because that says it all really.  My cross stitching passion was reawakened by Betty over at Thru My Back Door.  Betty had posted a time or two about her love of pinkeeps ... in particular cross stitched pinkeeps made by Deb at Pilgrims & Pioneers.  I decided to have a surprise giveaway & I drew Betty's name.  I like to tailor my giveaways so that they are a bit personal for the winner.  Knowing that Betty would be thrilled with one of Deb's pinkeeps, I found Deb's site & chose one for her.  Now ... as you can probably guess by the use of the word "reawakening," I had a history with cross stitching.  You can read a bit about it here if you'd like.  I think Betty only mentioned these pinkeeps in her blog posts two, maybe three times tops but I felt myself being slowly drawn back to cross stitching.  When I ordered Betty's pinkeep from Deb I also ordered a pinkeep pattern for myself.  I stitched that little pinkeep, then another, then got another of Deb's patterns & stitched one of those, & then another, & now here I sit surrounded by more cross stitch stuff than I can shake a stick at.

During these past few months after returning to the world of cross stitching I have noticed something about myself.  I am easily influenced.  I must admit that I was not clueless to this fact but the proverbial ball rolling down the hill picking up speed surprised even me with regard to my return to the cross stitching life.  I guess you could again say that it all began with Betty.  She did not set out to influence me in connection with cross stitching at all but once I returned to the fold I was hooked "big time."  I began looking for stitching blogs & found a few.  One of these blogs was Marly's Samplers & Santas.  I had always wanted to stitch a few samplers for myself ... no influence there ... but I had never been a Santa person.  As you can probably guess by her blog name, Marly is.  She would post a few photos of her Prairie Schooler Santas from time to time & I thought they were nice & that's as far as it went.  However, the closer it got to Christmas the more PS Santa photos she posted & the more she talked about them until finally ... breathing rapidly, hands shaking ... I rushed to the 1-2-3 Stitch site & ordered every PS Santa they had.  Another case in point ... a week or so ago a new blog friend posted some photos of cardinals she had been stitching & talked about how much she loves cardinals.  I thought to myself "Hey!  I love cardinals!  These charts are fabulous!"  Once again I rushed to the 1-2-3 site to buy those charts.  And I think it was yesterday ... or maybe the day before ... when another blog friend posted a Lizzie*Kate chart she had just finished into a small pillow.  Before I knew it I was once again on the 1-2-3 site, adding that baby to my cart.

See what I mean?  Easily influenced.  And I haven't even mentioned how I just have to try punchneedle again after seeing some patterns on various sites ... not to mention rug hooking!

Easily influenced?  Ya sure, you betcha!  So welcome to The Easily Influenced Stitcher!  I hope you enjoy visiting & sharing in my weakness   : )