Last Weekend for 2014 Hermit Stitching!

Well! I am making a real effort to get back into my stitching routine that has been lost for nearly this entire year. Maybe too much effort! I signed up for The Hermit stitchers, YOTA SAL and Stitch From Stash. There is also the HAED 2015 Freebie SAL and Flurs du Ciel SAL I have joined. WOW! Now that I see this in print, all together, i must have been on a lot of caffeine.... Oh well! Onwards and upwards.
For this weekend Hermit stitching i worked on The Maiden. I made some progress!
before

 after

I also stitched some ornaments in the last 6 weeks
This one for my mom. This is part of a design by Brooke Nolan of Brooke's Books. Vintage Spring. This is not the whole design. I wanted ornament sized so I omitted the spring bouquet and moved the purse in closer to the dress. Then I thought a purse shape finish would be fun to work with. But... How to get the proper size?

 I decided to put my stitched piece in the copy machine scanner bed and make two copies to play with. This gave me an actual sized paper copy to draw on and cut to the purse shape I wanted. Worked out very well and will use this method in the future!

 The above ornament is what I stitched for the 2014 annual Brooke's Books group ornament exchange. I used #8 Kreinik Silver braid and crystal snowflake buttons.
And this is the beautiful ornament, and goodies sent to me by Valerie, my exchange partner. I love birds and my new ornament looks great on my holiday tree!

 This is one of the ornaments I sent to Michelle, mon soeur ami en France.

 Another exchange ornament stitched using Kreinik #4 gold braid.

This is our 11 1/2 foot tall tree. I was so happy to be able to decorate this tree this year. It has been packed up since 2008. So 2007 was the last year she saw a holiday.
 Michelle emailed me her latest tiny knitting projects!

Wishing everyone a wonderful holiday and happy new year!
Thanks for stopping by!
Deb

My stitching bug has been caught! And, made some ribbon racks.

I caught my stitching bug again! And ms bug is hogtied and hanging where I can see that little beast!
 Before I show you what I have been stitching.
We FINALLY got to decorate our big tree this year. 2007 was the last year we were able to set our tree up. It's 11 1/2 feet tall and took me 5 days to decorate. I am still moving decorations around to better places...

 In fact, I have been decorating everything in sight. DH even made the escape to his room so I couldn't hang lights, and garland, on him too. He would look sooooo cute in garland! And the cat... Well, have you ever tried to dress a cat? I don't know how these people do it. Unless they glue that santa hat on poor kitty! So the cat remains undecorated.
I made more progress on my Maiden. She was supposed to be done some time ago. But, life gets in the way and interferes with the fun stuff.

I thought I only had the bottom bouqet left. When I got to the left bottom page I found I had a little more to do. Hope to finish her before the next SAL starting in january. Will have two SAL's running. HAED decided to have an SAL for 2015. Can you believe it will be 2015 already?

Valerie emailed and said she received the ornament exchange I stitched for her. I have four more, stitched up, that I can't show you as the persons have not received them yet.

I am still unpacking my craft room boxes. Can barely walk in that room...
Here are some ceramics that I painted, with ceramic stains, a while ago.

 Baby Dragon for DH

 I clean the greenware and have it fired into bisque. Then the fun begins. I love ceramic stains. I can paint a base coat and dry brush the rest of the colors. Adjusting the color shade where needed. I don't like ceramic glazes. Due to the opaque colors and not being able to see the finished colors until after the second firing in the kiln. Then it is too late to correct mistakes.
This castle is unpainted bisque. Not sure when I will get around to painting this one. I have several boxes of bisque to paint. Problem is that I have no where to put the castle once it is done.

As I was unpacking craft boxes, I realised that I needed a better way to store ribbon. And, somewhere that was economical on saving space. I looked on ebay and found some ribbon racks. Then looked at the price. YIKES!!!!
I looked at the racks and decided they did not look that difficult to make. Actually the racks were pretty straight forward. Made my own version to fit what I needed. Made 3 of them! And they are all full of rolls of ribbon.

 They are hanging on the doors of my craft closets.
I used 1"x4"x22" on the top and bottom. 1"x1"x36" for the sides. Cut 3/8" dowels for the ribbon holders.

 Drilled holes in the 1"x1" sides, every 3 1/2", installed kitchen cup hooks for the dowels to rest in.
Then drilled holes in the top 1"x4" piece of wood and installed 2 eyelets for S hooks. The S hooks are used to hang on top edge of the door.

That project done and on to the next one!
 I needed to screw down my machine embroidery thread racks on the wall. From past experience,  the spindles are so short that the thread cones would not stay on the spindles. Due to the angle of the thread racks once they were hung on the wall. Take down one cone and have an avalanche of six more.... Looked for racks with longer spindles and that didn't work out. I am standing in my room, staring at my thread racks, sipping water through a straw. I looked down at my drink straw and wondered if they would work..... So this is what I came up with.

Works perfectly. Something so simple! I cut drink straws, took elmers glue, inserted a little glue inside the straw and stuck the straw on the short wood thread spindle. Voila!!!! The Isacord, and other brands, 1000 yard thread cones stay on the spindle, do not tip over and fall off. I installed drink straws on 7 thread racks and got them screwed to the wall. Another space saving effort complete.
I would like to wish everyone happy holidays!
Thanks for stopping by!
Deb