My last finishes for 2008

I had a little finishing session this morning/afternoon and here are the results. First up, is the Blackbird Designs' piece from the SB retreat. We painted and waxed the box at the retreat but did no stitching. I've been working on the stitching since the beginning of December and after a bit of frogging, finished it up yesterday. The lining of the box and mounting the stitching was dead easy!

My other finished piece is the Shared Stitches piece, also from the retreat. Usually the Shared Stitches has designs by all the teachers but this one doesn't. So it's designed by SB and finishing is by Merry Cox. Quite easy to finish and I just love the way the ribbon has come out.

Look what I found!

I just wandered into my lounge room & found this.

She had obviously got the ornament off the tree and when I walked in, she stopped whatever she was doing & just sat there with her back leg in the air like that for about 5 minutes! LOL

Anyway, hope you all had a great Christmas!

Another pre-Christmas post

So much for finishing those few items today. It's been a dead loss as I forgot I had to take DD to the dentist. Anyway, instead I'll share with you a pic of our tree. I'm only showing you this because Cathy UT said my tree must be full. Well, it isn't! Don't tell anyone, but it's only decorated at the front! LOL. Such a waste to put stuff at the back where no one will see it. So as you can tell, there's plenty more room for more stitched ornaments. Without further ado......

These are my favourite newest decorations:

They're snow globes (& yes, they do have snow in them) with our names on them. I got them in a little gift shop in Bandon, OR on my last trip. This is the third set of ornaments with our names on. The first set are little snow angels that cost $1 each and came from Gardner Village in Utah. The second set are sleds which I got at Michael's on the last trip too.

Finally, here is a cross-stitch finish for you all. It's the Lizzie Kate 2007 Christmas kit that I mentioned yesterday. I was all ready to post a pic on Friday when I realised I hadn't stitched the border! What a goose!! Anyway, I finished it up this morning and just need to work out what to do with it now.

December ornament

This will be my last ornament before Christmas. Notice I don't say for 2008?? LOL. I'll probably stitch another between Christmas and New Year. I'm hoping to finish this one properly tomorrow...along with the November one and my Shared Stitches piece from the SB retreat. The stitching on that has been finished for a while but I totally forgot about it!! I'm also almost done on my Lizzie Kate 2007 holiday kit so expect to see that pretty soon.

HoE exchange

My last exchange for the year arrived on Thursday in a battered and bent box. But all was well with the contents thank goodness. It's from Clare in England and I love it all! Here's the whole exchange.

Here's a closeup of the ornament.

First Christmas ornament exchange for 2008

I'm in two Christmas ornament swaps this year. So my old mate, Jose the parcel man arrived this morning. I thought it would be my HoE ornament but no...it was the SBEBB one from Linda in Singapore. What a great exchange! She sent not one but two beautiful tiny ornaments with sparking delicas on each. I just love them.

Here's the whole shebang!

I'd just like to send a big shout-out to my good friend Ann-Maree who's been visiting regularly recently. I hope you're enjoying seeing everything I've been doing, Ann-Maree!

Framing!

This is a Christmas present for my mother. It's SB's shop exclusive Garden Gentle that mother purchased from SB way back in 2002. She stitched most of it but wasn't happy with the way the pale green showed up on the linen....it didn't! Plus she couldn't do the satin stitch. So I took it from her to fix. I changed the fabric and the green threads. Of couse, it's only taken me about 5 years to do this. Anyway....while I was at Jill Rensel's studio in September, I saw the frame for it for a major bargain price of $16 so I got it. Mother wasn't with me at the time and I never showed it to her. So yesterday, I did all the stitching and framed it myself. I pinned it into the foam core & then laced it. Now I know why framing costs so much! It's quite fiddly to get it straight. It's not perfect but it will do!

Ornament for HoE blog

As my partner has now received the ornament I sent her (although who would know cos there has been no post or pic on the HoE blog....I have a whole rant on this subject but that will keep), I can now show a pic of it. I had this Just Nan Whimzi frame & wanted to stitch something to put in it so searched my JCS ornament mags for such an animal. This is it.

Be Merry
Designer: My Mark
Fabric: 32ct Antique Mocha linen
Threads: DMC - changed 347 to 814 & used Kreinik #4 braid for snowflakes
From 2008 JCS ornament edition
Stitched as part of the HoE blog Christmas ornament exchange