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!