Advent Wreath Ornament

This little beauty was designed by Belinda of Tor Rhuann Designs. It is a freebie on her page if you are interested. I changed out most of the supplies for what I had on hand.

The fabric is 32 ct Driftwood Zweigart Belfast. The floss is all DMC rayon - 33607 (purple) 30899 (rose) and 30501 (green). I used PB25 Treasure Braid and Swarovski Crystals for the flames. The beads are Mill Hill 00332 (green) and 00367 (red).

This is my first biscournu finish and I love that it is small and delicate. I've always found the biscouru interesting, but the larger size made me wonder what to do with it once finished. Having a small one was perfect for an ornament for the tree. I really love how it turned out - Thanks Belinda for a great design! :)

I orginally intended to give this to my sister because she was saying she couldn't find many Christmas decorations that celebrated Advent, but I think I've decided to keep it for myself! :)

Because I will not be defeated! :)

Okay, I admit that puffy paint isn't the most glamorous of solutions, but it worked. Mostly. There is still a bit of sag on the side that says "Christmas" but when it is hanging properly that is hardly noticable at all. I would much have preferred to finish it off with delicate invisible stitches - but since that proved to be impossible (at least for me) the puffy paint hides my hack job quite well and now I'm at least not embarrassed to put the thing on my tree or admit I made it. :)

Mery Christmas house ornament

This is Merry Little House by Thea Duck of The Victoria Sampler. Great pattern, lovely little house ornament. BUT, the finishing was really tough. I admit to doing it my own way, so maybe that was part of it. The directions said to mount each piece onto mat board and then attach together, but I attached them without doing that and then put cardboard inside along each side and filled with rice rather than mount each piece. That seemed to work out fine and I liked the effect of having a tighter seam along each side that way. However, I reverted back to "following directions" for attaching the roof, and well, it got ugly. There was just no way to delicately stitch the roof piece down without it showing and you can see I just got frustrated and got it done in the end and it looks like crap. I was going to give it as a gift, but I'm going to have to keep it for my own tree now, cause I'd be to embarrassed of the hack job on the roof. *sigh*

So all you stitchers out there that compiment my finishing skills - see I suck sometimes too. LOL I think I'll work on Mother's Tree next as it has been awhile since I worked on it and it won't require to drag all my stitching stuff out of the closet its packed into for all the showings we've been having!

On the house front, the showings keep coming and coming. Although our realtor warned us to expect a slow down for the holidays things have only continued to pick up - 3 showings just this weekend. The feedback we are getting is almost all positive - but we keep hearing over and over that people just started looking and want to see a few more houses before they make a decision - so no offers yet. We are hopeful it'll happen soon though.

A Christmas finish

Didn't have much time for ornies and such this year, but did manage to finish this flatfold and one other ornament that is already taped to the package for the recipiant. It is "A star" by the Sunflower Seed from the 2007 JCS Ornament issue. It was too big for an ornie once I finished stitching it, I thought, so I made it into my second ever flatfold. My technique in making these still needs a bit of work, but it is better than my last attempt, and after making a few more, I think I'll have it down. :)

Merry Christmas everyone! :)

Shhhh.... Alex is getting a Wii for Xmas!

I'm so excited! I finally scored a Wii - and just in time for Christmas. I set up my cell to receive a message from wiialerts.com when they go up on the internet anywhere and I just purchased one off Amazon.com!! Now to email customer service about upgrading the shipping so that it will get here in time. I was in such a rush to just get it ordered that I didn't pay attention to what shipping option I was choosing. Twice before I haven't been able to complete the online checkout process in time to snag one when they were available, so I was really rushing.

SQEEEE I'm so excited! We've wanted one since last year, but didn't really get serious about trying to actually get one til this year - We figured the demand would have subsided by this year and that Nintendo would have caught up. Not so...

Christmas Doily

I made this Christmas doily for my grandmother for Christmas. I'm going to give her some Christmas-y smelling votives and a votive holder with it. I think she will like it. :)

It almost didn't get finished. I was working on it during Katie's preschool ballet and gymnastics class and accidentally left the thread on the bench outside the classroom. Luckily it was still there the next morning when I realized and went back for it. If it had been gone there is no way I would have been able to finish. The thread is a Vikki Clayton thread, but I have no idea what color and I bought the threads about 5 yrs ago for a project I ended up not starting, so even if I could figure out the color who knows how close the dye lots would be 5 years later....

Anyway, the thread was still sitting on the bench right where I left it the next morning, so crisis averted! :)

More Mira RR

This one is the middle fairy from "Three for Tea". I thought the colors would compliment the fabric well and this was one of the fairies Missy Ann had on her "preferred" list. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

Between now and Christmas I'll likely be stitching on gifts and ornaments. I'll post pics as I finish things. I gave my "Donner" to my mom for her birthday and she really like it, so I'll be starting "Dasher" very soon. I decided to do a quick Hardanger doily for my grandmother first. She always likes me to stitch her something for the holidays. I also like to do ornaments for people to send out with the Christmas cards. We'll have to see how many I finish this year. :)

Donner HD!

He is on 32ct Silvery Moon linen from Zwiegart. I subbed MH 00348 for the 10071 Magnifica beads, and a generic brand white seed bead for the 10069 Magnifica beads. I also subbed Emeral Swarowski crystals for the treasures in the antlers and used a generic brand red pebble bead for the treasures in the wreath, since they looked as though they were meant to be large berries or bunches of berries anyway. I also subbed the Waterlilies 204 with Dinky Dyes 57 which is a plum color for more berries in the wreath. It didn't seem to make sense to buy a whole skein of Waterlilies for about 30 stitches. Lastly I used just plain DMC blanc for the tail instead of the Whisper.

I think it looks pretty good even with all my substitutions. I added the name to the bottom with a random alphabet I had from an insert of Just Cross Stitch Magazine. My plan is to do each reindeer as they are released and give them to my mom who collects deer. She can then display them all at Chrismas time with her collection. She is going to get this one right after Thanksgiving for her birthday and I might get ambitious and try to finish Dasher for Christmas. These actually are pretty small and work up very quickly for a Mira on a small cut of fabric. (Fit easily on a 9 x 12 piece from my stash.)