December WIPocalypse and final post of 2018

So we have come to the final posting for WIPocalypse 2018. I can't believe the year is over! I also can't believe that I haven't got my Pomegranate Santa completed yet! I spent so much time on small finishes this month that there was very little time left for any larger projects. I'm only just now starting to pick it up again and work at it. Here's my progress as of tonight.

As you can see, all that remains is the snow to be stitched at the bottom of the piece where the deer are. I've only got one row in and several more to go. With a busy weekend ahead of me I'm not sure this piece will be completed by year's end. I really had hoped it would be but at least there's not all that much remaining and what's left shouldn't take too much longer. 

My granddaughters received their ornaments (Full Circle Designs) I sent them and have sent me a video as well as the pic to let me know how much they liked them. They are also wearing the sweatshirts that I gifted them with so I was glad to see that they fit!

I received a surprise piece of stitching for Christmas from my hubby. When we were vacationing in Muskoka this summer, we stopped to visit a friend at his antique shop in Port Carling. I spotted several pieces of petit point that I fell in love with. Unknown to me, while I was in the basement of the shop checking out the books, my hubby purchased one, had it wrapped and hid it in the car before I could see! I was thrilled when I opened it Christmas morning!

The frame is similar to a shadow box and is quite old. The back is starting to come off of it so I will take it in to my framer and see if they can reinforce it for me. They have done that in the past with antique frames I've used for my stitching.

I also stopped at my framer the week before Christmas to pick up this beauty.

I'm so happy to finally have this one framed! This is And Heaven and Nature Sing designed by Kathy Barrick. As you can see it's been hanging around for a bit in my finished stitches drawer. This was a gift from me to me and well worth it. A pleasant surprise came when the framer called shortly before I dropped it off and told me that they were giving me a discount on the frame. They said it was priced too high and they didn't feel right with the quote they had given me. Merry Christmas indeed!!

That finishes up my stitching for this month. Now I'll have to start looking at what I want to work on in the coming year. I wish all of you a very Happy New Year and wishes for good health and many blessings! I'll leave you with a couple of pictures from my visit this past week to Alight at Night at Upper Canada Village in Morrisburg, Ontario. Follow the link and you can learn all about it.

December Smalls

December has been just a flurry of smalls stitching. As usual I waited far too late to get started on my ornaments which I was gifting and ended up doing a marathon of stitching and finishing. All in all I'm pretty happy with the results. The first two pictured were for my sons Jeff and Daniel and their names can be found in the tree branches.

The remaining three are word trees and spell Snow, Rejoice and Santa. 

I love doing these name and word trees! They stitch up quickly and make awesome gifts. All of the above designs were created by Helga Mandl. Unfortunately she is no longer designing. M Designs also did name trees many years ago. I tried contacting them as well for more charts but there was never any responses to my emails. I am fortunate enough to have ordered all the charts for my immediate family plus a chart pack of 10 designs for Christmas before they were no longer available. 

If anyone know of another source for these could they please let me know? I would love to order more name trees for close friends. The ornaments I have gifted so far have been very well received and loved.

In addition to these 5 I finished off the ornaments for my granddaughters. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of the finished pieces before they were gifted. Here's a photo of one of the girls displaying her gift.

Now I'm off to start some more word trees. I ordered some lovely new overdyed floss from ColourComplements and from Nina's Hand Dyed Floss just for stitching more of these ornaments. Maybe I'll be ahead of the game for next year!