HOLIDAY TIME AND ORNIE'S!

Hello everyone. Hopfully everyone has most all their holiday stitching done. I have 2 more to sew together. Made good progress this year and have enjoyed all the stitching. This month has been a whirlwind of finishes, shipping packages out to familly, friends and exchanges. Cold weather set in about 0100 this morning. Soooo I figured it would be a good time for an update. Have my feet securely planted on the heater!
Here are the holiday ornaments for this year!

I had fun with these bears this year. They are about 4 1/2 inches by 6 inches. A little large for an ornie. Made 3. One for my bbinteractive Brooke's Books exchange for Marl. One for SIL and one for my ornie wall hanger. With each one I tried to improve the bow and make it look more like a candy cane stripe. So each one is a little different.

These little birds are from a larger Valerie Pfeiffer chart called corus line. Stitched this for my friend Michelle's mother.Wanted the lace to look as though one is looking through a curtained window and evesdropping on an important bit of gossip!

A few months ago I stitched the Margaret Sherry "Let Them Eat Cake" for a stitch a long. Michelle liked them so much, I just had to stitch one for her.

This cute kitty is what I sent out for my Margaret Sherry exchange. Making use of a minor card making skill, I used metalic powder and glue pad for the little hedgehog.

This is what I recieved from Marl for our bbinteractive Brooke's Books exchange. This will be the second year participating and has been great fun!

 Marls beautiful ornament has a permenant place on my holiday wall hanger!

 And Marl personalized the back for me.

Finished works for the month are some fun things! Especially the lemonade. Want to sew into a bell pull. But, am having problems finding the hardware. Checked the local Hobby Lobby and couldn't find one. Looks like I will have to cruise online to find a few. This is a Casy Buonaugurio design. One of bb interactives members brought this designer to my attension. Cruised her website and bought 3 patterns. Plus she has lots of cute freebies at www.caseybuonaugurio.com

 
This is a French Country Papillon JBW design. Stitched with pink DMC varigated threads. Will finish into an ornie.

And for my mom, a Just Nan butterfly. I changed all the colors excpt the ones for the roses. Added many beads and stitched on 32 count opalescent fabric. Will finish this one into a ornie, too.

Here are my WIP's

Have made more progress on Bubbles. Only one page is actually finished. Hope to finish another before the next shiney chart presents itself. Haveing too much fun on the HAED wbsite and waaayyy to many good sales!

I made it to the other side of the chart. Love the colors in the little plate in the corner. I am so happy that the colors in the dragon are not "cartoonish" They are very pretty greens.

Will be happy to have the leaves filled in more. Many holiday projects have been taking up my stitchy time!

This is my Fun Guys Snowballs Stocking. Will try to get him into overdrive for a finish. Have a HAED very pretty Merry Morgan stocking I would like to stitch.

This is DH birthday dragon that will most likely be a christmas dragon.... I can't seem to get enough "alone" time to get him finished. The dragon is from a Joan Elloitt's cross stitch cards book. There is also a very nice celtic wedding knot card that I would like to stitch for our aniversary. Here lately, we have had many night repair calls. So my evening stitching has been cut down quite a bit.

Was hoping that some would be interested in seeing some years past holiday finishes! Dug them out of the linen closet for decorating. These stockings and mittens needed some ribbons for hanging. Always intended to do that! So this past weekend was spent sewing ribbons with invisable thread.  Usually displayed them in a basket of ornies. They are Lori Birmingham designs from the leaflets Jingle Pals and Jingle Pals ll. 

This is snow familly and was a cottage kit from Bucilla.

Just Nan Snow Circle

DH loves Eeyore!

And this is a Cricket Collection design. I stitched this one and decided that the Just Nan snow circle would be a nice companion.

This is from a Leisure Arts leaflet. Old 80's or early 90's design and I can't remember the name of him. Used marroon corduroy for the pillow. Figured it went well with the flannel shirt.

While in Hobby Lobby, on a fruitless search for bell pull hardware, I found a card kit on sale for about 1/2 off. I figured why not. Has instructions and I am a very good copy cat if someone gives me pictures to follow! Well, my mistake. Only display pic's were 4 on the box and no aligning of what to use for which papers and cards. I ended up with about 10 cards out of 15. Mainly due to items not matching up into something I would consider pretty. But, here is the result of some quick work and glue.

In september, my friend Michelle(who knits aborable miniature mice) knitted some miniature christmas stockings. Michelle sent me some and they were taped to our refrigerator. Found a doll house fireplace to hang them on!

I took straight pins, K&Company layered pointsettia(for scrapbooking), Glisten thread for garland and put those jewlery making nippers to work.

Used a straight pin to makes holes, in each of 3, in the centers of the pointsettia flowers. Then cut the straight pins short and poked them back through the flowers.

Took a double sided sticky dot and attached it to the backside of the fireplace. The attached the "garland" Glisten thread.

Then poke the flower pin through the top of the miniature stocking and press into the wood of the fireplace mantle. The wood is actually pretty good quality and took a bit to get the straight pin to drill into it.

Then arrange the garland and wrap it around the backside of each flower to stabilze. Usead another sticky dot to secure the garland to the back.

Cut off the gold threan hangers from some miniature ornaments and decorated!

  Now my mice, from my friend Michelle,  have a nice warm fireplace!

Michelle and I exchange grand boxes for the holidays. It is great fun, as we try to find things fromTexas and the USA and Michelle sends food and candies from France. This year Michelle sent us nearly every mouse she knitted for the entire year. And I was truly amazed at the attension to detail with all the little mice. The slippers, tennis shoe and another stocking are completely adorable! My ltttle table tree is brimming with so many knitted mice and ornaments! Michelle even sent a smal wood tree with cute wood ornaments. It is 4 sided and on a small stand.  The pretty tins have hand made soaps with satin cloths. A snowglobe with Eiffel Tower and a beautiful cup with scenes of France. Many candies and cookie biscuits. DH and I were digging things out of the box and eating soft chewy nougat candies. Great fun!

 This tiny mouse is knitted in pieces, like the others, and sewn together. I think she is maybe 2 inches tall, at most. Happen to have some pretty candy stripped ribbon for hanging!

So tiny!

 Santa and Christmas mice!

So much is in the details. Christmas mouse even has tiny knitted holly on her hat.

Santa has tiny knitted and wraped packages.

Strawberry Shortcake has tiny strawberry beads, a green strip knitted in and a hand tied bow on her hat.

Even her strawberry bag has a tiny strawbery bead for a clasp.

Thank you so much for all the "petit souris"!

Michelle always emails pictures of her mice. But, until one see's them up close and "in person". One realizes how perfect and amazing these works of art really are. (I played with them for quite a while, organizing them under our little tree) Keep waiting for them to talk to me!

My appologies for the blurry picture. I am good with inanimate objects. But, I was laughing too hard to get a good pic. My big bear, DH's birthday is this week. His sister had a birthday party at her house. We decided to plaster the cake with all of 55 candles. The result was quite an inferno!
Well, thats it for now! Until next time, happy stitching and thanks for visiting, Deb

Well, here we are again! Another month gone by. First off, I would like to extend healing prayers, good wishes and thoughts for our people on the east coast. Hurricane sandy has been devestating to so many people and the horrors keep unfolding.  My mom was lucky and sandy had lost some steam when it hit.  Mom was out of power for just under a day and wind damage to a few trees. They considered themselves very fortunate. It has been difficult to watch the news. It will take people months, if not years, to rebuild their lives. Our hearts go out to them.
I have a few updates on my regular WIP's. I have many holiday gifts stitched up and, as other stitchers, don't wish to post pic's until after our friends and loved ones have recieved them.
One thing I can show is a finish for October.  Tiny Treasures Kitten 2 from HAED. This one was a pleasure to stitch.

Progress on Autumn Cat Magic as a current WIP. I really like the colors of the autum leaves in this one.

Here is Bubble Telescope. DH has taken to calling this "Bubbles". I have a lot of confetti stitching that stretches over many pages. Have been taking one color and running with it over 3 pages. You know me... Always look like the mad stitcher has gotten ahold of some of my WIP's.

Randal Spanglers Chocolate Quick Stitch has also been in the WIP mix.

I was blog surfing and found a very cute Owl embroidery design. Haven't worked hand embroidery for a number of years. I have an embroidery machine for that! But, he is soooo cute, I decided I would dig out my old embroidery hoop and see what I could come up with. Now, I started to use my old standby colors of lavenders and soft iris colors. Then, looking through a box of DMC variations threads, the fall/autumn colors just jumped out, slapped me upside the head(didn't hurt much..) and begged to be used. Completely unexpected and here is the progress so far. The link is below, to this cute patten

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Many of my stitching friends have already seen these pic's! But, I am thrilled to have a new craft zone! The back story is that, when we first rented this  house, the carpet in the livingroom was a complete loss. We tore it up and the livingroom became a parts room for the diesel repair road service. This past january I emptied the contents of the livingroom into a poratable garage. We were to lay tile on the bare, particle board floor. The owners came by and they were trying to sell the place(tooooooo much money). We put off the tile and didn't want to sink more money in a place we were to move out of. Well...after a wole summer of bare floors I couldn't wash and searching through boxes and bins for craft supplies, I decided enough was enough. We bought tiles, repaired the floor, got the tiles adhered to the floor and brought my old work table out of the storage van. DH added more footage to the table. Secured it to the wall and added some stair railing supports for legs. I painted my new table with the same paint as the walls. 2 1/2 years ago we bought Behr brand premium paint and used it through out the whole house. Cabinets and all. I still had the original paint cans. Quite certain we were going to have to buy more paint, I opened the old cans up. Could not believe the paint was still good. Not dried up, not seperated and painted up just great.

This is the mess we started with...I went into a panic everytime someone wanted to come in the house...

The floor and table are done and I am dancing from one foot to the other because I want to start painting!

Now I can start organizing

DH still does not believe I fit all this in a 8 foot by 5 1/2 foot space.

I can roll the plastic cabinets close to the desk and roll them out for access to goodies and an extra work surface. My cross stitch is in another room. This is my sewing, machine embroidery and scrap book center. NOW if I can only find all those pictures I put away. I had a box of them, put them in a "safe": place in the house. Still looking... DH is absolutely thrilled as I have finally have room for mending all his work shirts and was one of the first things completed.

My bonne friend Michelle's petit knitting needles have been busy! And this time something different, too.
I was so pleasantly surprised to recieve a birthday card with these adorable stockings, that she so paitiently knitted.. I have then taped to my refrigerator door!

Although halloween is over, there are some spooky characters still roaming the streets!

Christmas is just around the corner! Even mice love presents.

Thisis a  lovely little mouse version of Strawberry Shortcake! She is just so cute!

And, an update for Michelle beautiful traditional spanish dressed mice. Michelle found a tiny lego guitar for the flaminco dancer!

 This flashy guy can play guitar at any wedding! We can hear the music!

This suave and sophisticated man would be welcomed any time!

T

Thanks you for visiting and happy stitching! Deb