Butterfly Bauble

Butterfly Bauble - Jill Oxton magazine.

Diamond Drop Ornament

Gold and silver Diamond Drop ornament.

Hoop Box Finish

Well, I guess since it's now been around a month since I finished my hoop box I should post about it. This was a project through my local EGA chapter on fifth Saturdays. The dragonfly was a design by Zoe in the UK when she was teaching us how to do stumpwork.

And I finished a panel on the first rotation of a round robin that I'm doing.

Almost forgot - I did these earrings for my friend:

I also made a second beaded Holiday Bauble Pendant (but didn't take a picture - just look at the last one and correct the mistake) for our local EGA Christmas party, which thankfully found a new home. I say thankfully, because we donate the ornaments to the guild who then sells tickets (to raise money for the scholarship fund) that you can use to vote for your favourite ornament. Once the votes are counted up the ornaments are then won by one of the voters for that ornament. So by someone winning my ornament, that means that someone voted for it :)

I won an ornament this way too, but I packed it safely away from the cats before without taking a photo of it (they pretty much killed the Christmas tree this year - and it wasn't even living to start with). So we'll just pause a minute while I go find it and take a photo...

I also received this beautiful ornament in our gift exchange at our local ANG Christmas party.

In going to get those ornaments out to take photos I decided that perhaps I should take photos of all the ornaments that have been given to me over the years and post them and see if I can get names attached to them all. So below are the ornaments with the names I know or think I know - if I have doubt there will be a question mark by the name. If you recognise any of them as being your work could you please let me know - thanks :)

Mum

Sally (UK)

Sally (UK)

Marion (Amsterdam)

Terry (US)

?Zoe (UK)?

?Paula (UK)?

?Fiona (UK)? - or at least I sent to Fiona in the same exchange - I remember that because I stitched TW's beginner whitework ornament as well.

??

??

??

Terry (US)

??

??

??

Just to round off the post - our two gorgeous cats :)

Ornament Exchanges

Here are a couple of pictures of the ornaments that I sent out this year. I did three total, all the same, although one had to be a bit smaller than the other two as I didn't have enough fabric to do them all the same size. So the snowflakes are slightly different, but other than that they all look the same - as you can tell from the photos, the first being of a larger one, and the second being the smaller one.

I have been wanting to try an ornament of this shape ever since my mother gave me one a few Christmasses ago. I finally managed it.

Ornament Exchanges

I've received my first two ornaments in the exchanges. I have the third as well, but I'm not allowed to open it until Christmas day (and neither is my recipient which is why I can't put the photos of the ones I sent out up yet as they are all the same).

Here are the first two:

From Sally:

From Terry - Terry also made the one on the gold perforated paper sticking out the side in a previous years exchange:

And the row of ornaments that I've collected so far. I think I'll need more nails next year or another shelf as this year a bears foot was pressed into service holding one, and others are getting cramped too.

You may have also noticed that the photos started improving again - I had thought it was the lighting giving me funny photos (lack of sunlight and all that), but then I discovered a great big finger print on the lens. Cleaned it off and hey, presto, my photos are clear again.

Christmas Exchange Ornaments

I've finished my three exchange ornaments. They took longer than I expected, but I'm pretty happy with them. Pictures will come after Christmas.

Now it's back to bookmarks and then soon I might be able to get back to the SAL's - I've managed to sign myself up for two more starting in January. One of them I've got everything I think. The other I still need to get the chart and thread.

There are also some classes I want to sign up for as well but I can't do that yet, so I've got to wait until I can.

Christmas Ornaments

For the last couple of weeks I've been working on designing a Christmas ornament. I think I've finally come up with a design and I've started stitching. I can't show pictures as they are for exchanges, but Christmas is coming, and then I'll be able to.

I don't really like the thread I choose to stitch with - it's a imitation silk and it unravels almost faster than I can stitch. It's also hard to get out of the skein as it's very bouncy and tangles easily. So I had a brilliant idea that if I cut through the skein at one end I could just pull one piece at a time out and it might be easier. It was only after I'd done this that I thought about all the extra fraying time it would give all those new ends. Oh well, we'll see how it goes.

In between the fun of the ornaments I've also been working on the Heirloom Christmas Sampler - I'm still on the tree, almost finished it though so I should soon be able to move onto the next fun bit - and the Winter Welcome, although as it's mid-term break there's been no swimming so again not so much work - and as always O' Jerusalem. I will put some more pictures of these up soon, I'm just always forgetting to take them.

I've also joined the Shining Needle Society as they do some lovely classes there and the work is stunning. So even if I never manage to stitch any of their projects I can still drool. I heard about the SNS in three different places almost the same day - I found it first when looking at information on an upcoming online class from Merry Cox, then on Gay Ann Rogers website, and finally the one that gave me the push to sign up - Laura J. Perin's blog, where she had the most beautiful piece of stitching that she'd finished from a class by Gay Ann Rogers at the SNS (Oct 24th's post).

I have ordered the challenge ornament from Gay Ann Rogers (look under small designs on her webpage) and I hope to start stitching that this year, but it will depend on the ornaments and SAL's that I'm already doing. It should be fun though as part of the challenge is choosing all your own colours and threads. There's also encouragement to add to the design or alter it to make it your own and learn as you go.

Maltese Cross Ornaments

Finished mine now:

Christmas Ornaments

And my ornaments - actually I've started sewing them up, but haven't got a photo of that - the next photo will probably be when they are finished:

Christmas Ornaments

Here is the latest progress on these. Just got the lighter colour to do and then I can stitch them up. I was hoping to finish them this year, but I've only got this evening, so I'm not sure it's going to happen.

Christmas Ornaments

I also stitched a bit more on my set of Maltese Cross Ornaments last night:

Britty Kitty Ornament

I finished my Britty Kitty ornament last night:

UK Stitchers Ornament Exchange

This ornament has now been received as well so I can show a picture of it too.

I had to stitch it for myself too and I'm just finishing it now. I'm doing ribbon around my one rather than the beads I used on the other, and I even remembered to put in a hanging loop which I forgot on the first one.

And this is the one I received in return:

Christmas Ornaments for TWCOE

My ornaments have been received now so I can post the pictures.

I chose to do the Needlecrafts Unlimited ornament from the Just Cross Stitch special ornament issue 2002. I decided I could fit 9 of the ornaments on my bit of fabric so here is a picture of the 9 backstitched outlines and the first ornament with it's next colour stitched:

Here are the first six finished stitching and cut up - I decided to do them as sets of three and keep one set for myself. So I've only finished the six so far.

And in the middle of stitching up the back of the first one - I had to stop to get the big knot that's visible out of the thread:

The finished back of one:

And all six finished ornaments and a set of three:

And just for good measure here are the two I received back in exchange: