Ok, so I tried it...

Punchneedle that is. I spent Saturday afternoon at my LNS taking a beginner's class on punchneedle. The company was good, lots of laughs at our "expertise" and the time spent passed very quickly but I must say that I don't think it will ever replace cross stitch for me. If nothing else, after a particularily bad work week, it was very therapeutic with all that punching! Lol! With the whole group doing it, it sounded like popcorn cooking in the microwave. You can see in the picture where I first started in the upper left. The loops are pretty loose. By the time I finished I was starting to get the rhythm down pat and the loops were looking much more even and neat. I probably will try another piece at a later date. They'd run out of needles to sell and have some on order. The size of the bevel on the needles surprised me. They were as large as some of the needles we use in blood taking. And trust me, if you don't watch it you will stab yourself and draw blood! One of the positives of doing this type of needlework is that completion is much quicker. We finished this piece off in 2 hrs and we were new to this. An experienced stitcher could finish a much larger piece in an afternoon.

As for my ornament I'm working on, I'm very disappointed. The fabric isn't nearly dark enough and the snowman (being stitched with overdyed thread) is just blending in so that all you can really see is the word Joy. It might have shown up better if I'd just used plain white thread but at this point I don't know whether to finish it off or just call it quits. I'm not about to frog out all the white. I might just pick up something else.


















All this time I've been waiting for my threads to start Trick or Treat Lane and the order hasn't even shipped yet! It seems they were waiting for a chart I'd ordered which was on back order and finally they just reimbursed me for the chart and are shipping the order out today.
So I'm kind of at a standstill right now! I've been thinking very seriously about the invitation I've had to join some friends in a SAL on November 1st. Some are planning to do Paradigm Lost and a few others are doing Cirques des Cercles. I think I've decided to go ahead with the latter. It's large enough for my first attempt at something of this magnitude! Now all I have to do is get my fabric and threads ordered. I really like the looks of one of the photos in the Cirques Gallery. It's done with some Vicki Clayton hand dyed silks. I don't care whether or not I'm using silks but I love this particular colour . It's called Dragon Hoard. Hopefully I can find something along these lines.


Thank you all for your help with my button dilemma on Blood Donors. I think I'm going to go with Cindi's suggestion of glue buttons mostly because I don't trust myself with the Tacky Glue. I'm a real klutz!