Friday 30 November 2018

November Smalls

November has been a very good month for me in terms of stitching. In addition to the larger WIPs on my previous post that I worked on, I managed to complete two small projects. Both are ornaments and with December's arrival tomorrow, the push is on to get the rest of my gift ornaments finished. 

The first is a sweet design by Blackbird Designs called Peace which was published in the 2012 Just Cross Stitch Christmas Ornaments edition. I have been trying to get this one fit in for several years now. I've loved it ever since I first saw it!



My second finish was as of this morning! I always stitch a Christmas ornament for each of my granddaughters. The past couple of years I've done a Prairie Schooler ornie for them. This year I was browsing through my collection of the Just Cross Stitch Ornament magazines and spotted a sweet little one by Full Circle Designs which I knew I had stitched but never finished. Sure enough I found it in my drawer of stitched projects. When I looked it up I discovered that I had stitched it in 2012! That's a long time to sit without the final finishing.
 I knew that there was a companion ornament in one of the other issues. I browsed through them all until I found it. It stitched up very quickly and is sooo sweet!

Here is Tweet Gift by Full Circle Designs.



I've also included a pic of the original ornament, also by Full Circle Designs, called A Christmas Song.



Finishing on all of these will come at a later date. I want to get all the stitching done first and then I'll finish them all off sort of like an assembly line.

To get me into the Christmas mood I dropped by favourite shop during the holidays. Tinseltown is just down the street from where my hubby works. The young man who owns the shop is the same age as my youngest son and has been obsessed with Christmas since he was a boy. According to his mother he used to sleep with a Christmas tree in his bedroom year round!



I wish I had taken some shots of the inside of the shop. Next time I drop by I'll ask them if they mind. They have just about everything Christmas that you could think of including all the vintage things like the bubble lights, vintage tinsel and lots of vintage ornaments. They also carry lots of ribbon candy. 
I add one new glass ornament to the tree every year. This year they had a sweet little bee. It reminds me of my time spent this summer at the home of my beekeeper friend Cathy.



I hope to be back next month with at least a couple more ornament finishes. See you then!

Sunday 25 November 2018

November WIPocalypse

November has been a great month for catching up on my WIP. I made a fair amount of progress on Annie Hyssop's Harvest Moon, more than I expected. 


All the stitching of the hill and grass was completed and I stitched the border with one exception. As you can see from the top of the piece, each border on the three sides must be filled in with the mustard coloured floss. It's time consuming and boring to boot! I got partway through the top portion and by that time Halloween had just passed and I quickly lost interest. Christmas stitches were  occupying my thoughts at that point so I have put this one aside for now. With what little remains I know that it will be complete by next Halloween.

Next I picked up a Christmas stitch from last year that I had lost patience with....Plum Street Samplers Pomegranate Santa. This is where I had left off partway through this year.


Here is this month's progress:


I probably would have been further along except for the fact that some frogging had to take place. I don't know what it is about this piece but I keep screwing up in my counting. As soon as I picked this up once more I realized why I had put it aside. Santa's stick and sack were both off. I had to completely frog them out and restart. Partway through I realized that I was repeating the same mistake! Duh!!! Frog and repeat a second time!
Finally I managed to get things done right and could move on to stitching Santa. It's moving along fairly well now but I have some ornaments for gifts that I want to get working on so it will sit for now. However I don't think it will be too long before I pick it up once more.



Winter has arrived here a little sooner than usual as you can see from my pics. Shortly after the snow fell there was an arctic front which brought in some record breaking frigid temperatures. Consequently the snow remains for now. It's starting to warm up and rain is forecast over the next few days so I'm hoping this white stuff disappears for a spell. Below is Clarisse's reaction to the whole thing.



To all my US family and friends I wish a very Happy Thanksgiving. I hope you all had your fill of the gobble, gobble and without too many added pounds. 

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