A Finishing Frenzy!

As I promised on my last post, I have pictures of my weekend finishing frenzy. I know many of you were looking forward to seeing the finishes of my recently completed ornaments but I had a drawer full waiting for me from last year! Saturday I set my mind to getting them done. My friend Pam came over to keep me company which meant that I only completed two ornaments while we chatted. However I managed to finish off the remainder during the late afternoon and evening. Here are the results.

 One of the above two smalls may end up adorning the tree. I just haven't made up my mind yet. I have hangers picked out for both just in case. I'm still not that great with stuffing the pillows. I either underfill or overfill. I can't seem to stitch them closed without that gathered look either but I've come much further in my finishing than when I first started. 

I'm so pleased with how these turned out. A portion of these will hang on the tree and the remainder are smalls which will fill my dough bowl display for the holiday. I have several more which I'd like to stitch for both tree and bowl but they will have to wait until the next year. I'm committed to finishing up my Torah stitch at this point. 

I've stitched the border going down the one side. It will be extended slightly to meet the edge of the border across the bottom of the design.I think I bit off more than I can chew with this bottom border. Not that it's difficult, it's just time consuming and I'm anxious to be finished with this so I can move on to other projects.

My finished Christmas stitch for this year is Plum Street Samplers Mary's Sampler II. This was the SAL which Paulette released weekly on Sundays for the previous nine weeks. My friend Thea has offered to finish this into another of her lovely wall hangings for me. If time is on our hands it will be hanging on my wall for Christmas.

Until that time, I have another previously stitched Christmas piece which will adorn my wall for the first time. Blackbird Designs 'Tis The Season came back from the framer this fall and I've been so anxious to hang it! It has a special spot which I've kept for it over the deacon's bench in our entry. That way everyone will see it upon entering our home. The place of honour if you will!

The framer did such a lovely job with this. It may not be apparent in the picture but the inner edging of the gold frame has been brushed with a small amount of red which really highlights the cardinal and brings out the inner mat.

As for the mat, I couldn't decide which colour would be best for this so I left it up to John to decide. John is the one who stretches all of my work and formerly worked at our local cross stitch shop prior to its closing. He asked what colour the wall was where I was planning to hang it. I told him sage green and the mat was his choice. He said they tried several colours but this one seemed to work the best and they always came back to it. I think he did a fabulous job!


That about sums up all of my recent stitching. I have pretty well finished up all of my gift buying for Christmas. I wanted to get out there early before all the crowds and snow arrived. I can't do much walking on my hip at all now and tire easily from it after a day of shopping. I'm meeting with the surgeon this week for him to examine me and then I should know exactly how much longer I have to wait.
I managed to finish up that shopping none too soon. Last Tuesday we got our first dump of the season and it was a pretty good one too! I'll leave you with a few pics from it.  Have a super week!

What the heck! It's frozen! You expect me to eat this?