Ornaments and Spoon Tree



 

I've been making Christmas ornaments the last few days, these were made using Nan's free chart at  Threadwork Primitives.  I've been seeing ornaments made with this chart on a lot of blogs and they all look very nice.  I added a border to mine because I wanted to get a little more green in there.  The one with the pink lettering is going to stay on our tree and the other two will be gifts for friends.

This one is for a friend that loves dogs and has two dogs of her own.  This pattern came from a Flicker group called Hoop Love Vintage Transfers.  They have a ton of vintage embroidery patterns for anyone to download.

Isn't this the cutest thing?  It's a little tree made out of tiny wooden spoons and it has little cookie cutter ornaments on it.  It looks like the trunk of it is sitting in a bowl of sugar.  It's the perfect little Christmas tree to decorate a kitchen.  This was a gift from a friend who found it at a thrift store.  In case I don't post again before Christmas, I would like to wish you a very wonderful Christmas and hope you get to spend a lot of time with your loved ones!



Old Projects, Crappy Weather and Sweet Trixie

I haven't finished any new projects this week, so I thought I would show you a couple of older ones.  This design was a freebie from a long time ago, I can't even remember where it came from.  But I remember that I used a combination of DMC thread and Coats & Clark's Pastelles, a really nice collection of variegateds that I'm not sure are available anymore.  I'm not always good at choosing my own colors, but I did like how this one turned out.

This wreath decorates my sewing room door.  It's been up there a while so I hope you can't see the dust on it!  Hanging in the middle is a little bunny ornament that I made from a chart in one of my favorite books, Berlin Work Samplers & Embroidery of the Nineteenth Century by Raffaella Serena.  I have all three of her books because I just love Berlinwork and I keep hoping she publish another one.  If you want to check out some of her fabulous work go to her website here:  raffaellaserena.com

It's such a dreary day outside.  See the freezing rain on the window?  We are supposed to go to a Christmas party tonight, but I have a feeling we might be stuck in the house instead.  Maybe I will spend the rest of the day making cookies and working on my stitching!  I'm going to leave you now with a kitty picture.  I couldn't believe how nicely Trixie was posing on the back of the couch.  She even waited long enough for me to go and find the camera!

This and That

 

I wanted to show you some new fabrics that I added to my stash recently.  They came from Fabric.com and I have to say that they are an online store that does everything right!  I don't have an affilliation with them or any other company that I mention here, but I do love to pass on my good thoughts about any excellent buying experience and I love this place!  Did you notice the scissors fabric towards the upper right corner?  That's my favorite.  I will probably use these fabrics for various stitching finishes and maybe a few purses, too.

I spent an afternoon lately making these frosting roses.  I used some of the pink ones on a cake for Emily, one of our co-workers who is leaving us to go on to bigger and better things.

Good luck, Emily, we will miss you!

I just finished this embroidery last night, it was really fun to do.  I found the free pattern for it at doecdoe, a wonderful blog with lots of other free designs, too.  I used a mixture of Cosmos Seasons and DMC Color Variations threads and some little buttons.  I haven't given up cross stitch by any means, but it has been fun to do something different like this for a change.  Thanks again for looking at my pictures!

Thankful for....

Image courtesy VintageHolidayCrafts.com

Just a few of the many things I am so thankful for:

My husband; a dear, kind, sweet man who has been my best friend for 37 years.  Our daughter and her husband who make us so proud  and who we love having in our lives.  Our kitties who provide us with lots of love and cuddles.  Reasonably good health, especially when compared with the health traumas of the last year or so.  {Husband Tom had multiple angioplasties, quintuple bypass surgery, rip-roaring uncontrolled high blood pressure,  near kidney failure.}  He still has some problems, but is doing much better.  I'm thankful that this Queen of the Worry Warts was somehow able to get through all of this with him and hope to keep learning to deal with  the stress.  Thankful that my brother has just about completely healed from a horrific accident that occurred just 2 days after Tom's bypass.  I'm thankful for friends and family and co-workers who put up with my constant worrying.  Thankful for the fact that the above mentioned co-workers {and boss} are so much like family to me and we can all have silly fun during spare moments at work.  Thankful that my Dad is 89 years old and in excellent health and is very active.  I'm also thanful for being able to have a blog with some lovely people who actually take the time to look at my pictures and read what I have to say, it stills astounds me and seems almost unreal!  I could go on all day, but will end with saying that I thank God most of all, because without Him nothing else on this long list would be possible.  I hope every person reading this and everyone that they love is having a most wonderful Thanksgiving today!

Two Red Houses, Vintage Hearts and Harley

I'm sure you recognize this as one of Little House Needelwork's designs from a few years back.  It was a really fun stitch and when I decided to finish it off, I thought this checkered fabric would be perfect for it.

I also had some black and white checkered ribbon on hand which worked nicely for the hanger.

And now for something a little different:

I've been thinking about doing this type of embroidery for a while now, it seems to be becoming more popular lately and I see it everywhere.  I used to do it a lot many years ago until I discovered cross stitch and then that was that.  It was fun though, and the nice thing is now we have all the overdyed and multi-colored threads we can use which makes it even more fun.  I found this free pattern at NeedleCrafter.com and she has many more that are just as nice.

I found these heart pincushions at a craft show yesterday.  They are made out of vintage fabrics and I got them for the unbelieveable price of one dollar each!  I don't suppose I needed any more pincushions but I just couldn't resist!

Here's Harley taking his afternoon nap.  I've been trying to get pictures of our other kitties to put on the blog, but I can't seem to get them to cooperate.  They always look away at the last second or run off when I go to get the camera.  We have a lot of pictures of Harley because he's such a little ham he's always ready to pose.

Maybe it's because he's such a people kitty, he likes everyone! 

Thanks, everyone,  for visiting, I hope you enjoyed yourselves for a minute or two!

Camille's French Sampler

This is another sampler from my huge collection of stitched projects waiting to be finished into something.  Today I decided to get it done.  There's nothing like having a blog to get me motivated into finishing things so I will have something to post!  I'm chipping away at the stack one by one!

I used silk Hand-Dyed Fibers by Vikki Clayton and the designer is Tanya from the Sampler Girl.  I was lucky enough to get this design a few years ago when it was a freebie---thanks, Tanya!

The variegated green used on these leaves is "Moon-Called Sea".  It's my favorite of all of Vikki's threads and I love the name, too. That's it for this time,  although I would like to say thank you to the people who became recent followers of this blog and of course thanks again to all of the "older" followers, too.  I appreciate each one of you so much!

Lace, an Ornament and Purple Thursday

I've spent the last two weekends organizing all of my lace and winding it onto cardboard pieces.  I had been keeping it all in a giant plastic tub but there was so much of it, it was a tangled up mess!  Several years ago, a friend and I bought up tons of lace from our local Ben Franklin, they were getting rid of it and we wanted as much as we could get.  So we practically bought out their whole supply and I still have a fairly big amount of it left.  I'm not completely done though, there's still a pile left to do.

I seem to have an awful lot of pink lace!

This is a Midsummer Night's Dream design from an old issue of The Gift of Stitching Magazine--issue 7.  I changed the some of the colors and stitched it with Soie Crystale and Waterlilies in the color Fir.

I also wanted to share with you a picture of me and my co-workers, that's me on the far right.  We always wear purple on Thursdays, I don't know why, we just do!

I made this purse last fall using a free chart by Brenda Gervais.  You can find the chart on her blog With Thy Needle and Thread   Look for it on her post from Oct. 1, 2009.  Wasn't it nice for Sweetpea to pose for the picture?

Here's the back view, I used coordinating Debbie Mum fabrics and jumbo orange ric rac for the trim.

I used Valdani cotton floss for the design in these colors:  Honeycomb, Withered Green, Bronze, Rich Wine, Rusted Orange and Black Sea.  Thank you, Brenda, for the great chart!

A Rose is a Rose. . .

I believe this is a design from an old Just Cross Stitch magazine.  I know it's by Gail Bussi.   I love the pink lace I used around the edges, I'll tell you about it in a minute.

There were a few specialty stitches included.

I used an antique button towards the bottom and finished it off with a ribbon bow.

The lace is Wright's flexi-lace Hem Facing and I found it in these three antique looking shades the last time I went to Joann's and it is really inexpensive.  For the hanger at the top, I sewed on an old necklace that I don't wear any more.  Thanks for taking the time to visit my blog again!

Stash Report and Faucets

I got this stash in the mail yesterday from http://www.anitalittlestitches.com/.   Included are all the new Limited Edition Gentle Arts Sampler threads from the recent St. Charles market, two charts from LHN, plus the little holly buttons for All is Calm.  Then there are two mesh storage bags which you can never have enough of.  And see the four Valdani threads in the middle there?  After I had sent in my order for the other things, I saw that Anita had added these new colors, so I emailed her and asked her to add them to my order.  And being the sweet person that she is, she said that the Valdanis would be a free gift because I have ordered from her several times.  The fact that she is such a lovely person to do business with is just one of the reasons I keep going back to shop with her!

We got some new faucets for the bathroom sink the other day.  I love them.  I think they look just right for the bathroom in a 100 year old farm house.  And while we are in the bathroom, I'll show you one of my cross stitch pictures that's hanging in there--

It's a design by Helen Philipps and it was done with DMC and Waterlilies threads.

And last but not least, a picture of my Dad who is 89 when we were having lunch out today.

Have a wonderful Sunday evening!  And thank you again to my blog followers, both the "older" ones and the newer ones, and thanks so much for the kind and sweet comments that have been left.  They mean so much to me!

Kitty Pictures and Tree of Life

This is a painting that our daughter did of our oldest kitty, Sweetpea.  Jessie has a lot of artistic talent for painting, drawing and photography.  She doesn't have a blog but I keep hoping she will get one started, because she could show off a lot of her pictures.  We are very proud of you, Jessie!

Here's Miss Sweetpea herself.

Tree of Life sampler from the spring 2001 issue of Sampler and Antique Needlework Quarterly.  Phyllis Hoffman, one of my favorite designers designed this one.

I stitched this with DMC and Gentle Art Sampler threads and finished it into a fabric hanging for our bedroom wall.   Thanks for looking and I hope you are having a lovely evening!

Autumn Red

Although not a fall design, these bright colors make me feel autumn-ish.  The design is from a Cross Country Stitching magazine a few years ago.  I really love a lot of  Linda Coleman's designs.  She is so talented!

Most of the time I prefer colors such as mauve and pink, but sometimes a jolt of brilliant red is good for the soul!  I stitched this with DMC threads.

Patchwork Purse Again

I decided that I didn't like the lace that was around the top edge of the bag.  I like it better now, what do you think, does it look better, or not?

UFO Patchwork Purse

I took some old UFO's that went well together; in this case some Berlinwork projects and cut them into squares.  I knew that I wouldn't be finishing them as they were, so why not make something different out of them?   And I used a more odd shaped piece on the back.

Close ups.

I have some sampler UFO's that I'm thinking about using for a sampler themed purse next time. 

Thanks for looking at my pictures!

Treat Time, A Finish and Uncle Sam

Treat time for the kitties!  Every day 5 kitties share a can of treat food, it's the highlight of their day.  Only 5 kitties because one of them {Tigger} doesn't eat anything except his dry food.

Here's one of Carol's charts at http://istitchcharts.blogspot.com/ , it's called Sew The Sampler Guild.  I stitched it with a new to me thread called Rainbow Tweed.  I believe it is mostly used for needlepoint, but when I tried it, it was really nice to stitch with, and I like the way it looks.

This is my favorite cereal.  It has crispy wheat flakes and flaxseeds in it.  This is what happens when you plant the flaxseeds.  I now have my very own flax plants.  Today two pretty blue flowers bloomed out, can you see them?  Theoretically, I could make my own linen out of this plant if only I knew how.  But never mind, I will just keep eating the cereal instead!