Christmas begins

Since I cannot stitch for the foreseeable future, I thought I would share with you some of my stitched Christmas decorations.

This advent calendar was probably the first Christmas design I ever stitched and is over 20 years old now.  It's had items such as crayons, little boxes of Smarties and small cars left each night by Father Christmas's elves who were checking up on the boys when they were young.  These days Cadbury Heroes are featured and it remains a firm favourite to begin the festive season.

Around 10 years ago there was a fashion for name trees. A company online would chart up your name and mirror it to create a unique design (turn your head sideways to read the words).  An American Christmas ornament magazine then shared "Joy" and "Peace" and this pair was my first attempt at both lacing and creating an ornament.

Despite my elder son having had his own place for the last few Christmases, I do still hang his stocking.  These two stockings were stitched by me but made up by my hardanger designer friend Colly (who also creates the most amazing quilts, bags and cushions).

The next quartet of designs each feature a button and are by Shepherd's Bush designs.  They're quick to stitch up, I hand stitched the edges to create a tab at the top and bottom and backed each with interfacing to protect the stitching at the back.  The brass bell pulls were purchased via my local craft store and all match to unify them but at the end of the season, I remove them and wrap in tissue paper to protect both the stitching and the bell pulls.

The 12 Days of Christmas.  I stitched this twice as the first attempt was a lesson in how to measure twice before stitching begins....guess how far I reached before realising there was insufficient fabric.

This Merry Christmas banner is one of my favourite Christmas makes.  It's very simple, stitched in a gingham design that could be adapted to any colour theme. A wooden bead is threaded between each letter.

And finally my Christmas Robin is framed and on display. 

Have a happy Christmas all! 

🎄 

Christmas exchange

This year Essie and I decided to do a Christmas Exchange.  Whilst I had taken part in a couple previously, this was Essie's first.  We had decided on themes and set to work earlier in the year.

When Essie and her family visited in the autumn, unbeknownst to her I had passed my gift to her husband Frido to squirrel away until the unveiling.

This week, timed beautifully to cheer me up after my eye surgery, and more perfectly with Sinterklaas, we opened our exchanges.

The padded scissor keep features a hidden magnet to attach to Essie's chart holder and keep her scissors safe.  The chart is by Teresa Wentzler and has been adapted to be for scissors rather than needles (although the magnet can hold these also).  I switched the colours to mainly shades of coral, the dragon was stitched with variegated threads and a shiny green silk thread to add texture. 

The biscornu picked up the colours and featured similar celtic knots in variegated coral thread. A smaller dragon was stitched at each corner on the underside, matching the colour of the big dragon.  I had filled the design with plastic beans to give it some weight. A celtic styled metal button finishes off the biscornu nicely.

The scissor fob continued the theme with a silk dragon on one side and an "E" on the reverse. 

Essie's parcel to me arrived on 5th December and we agreed to open them in the evening. 

As most folk know, I'm a little obsessed with the Wizarding World created by JK Rowling.   Essie tapped into this perfectly, creating a beautiful box with a stitched lid.  The box itself is covered with midnight blue fabric with black polkadots.  It's sumptuously padded, giving it a luxurious appeal.  The top is stitched as a perfect replica of a chocolate frog carton featured in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.  The design is extremely intricate and I can imagine a great many hours were spent stitching it.

As if this were not enough, on opening the box treasure within was revealed. 

Three chocolate frogs of course! But what else?

Ornaments featuring Harry and Ron...

...and Professor Dumbledore and Hermione 

And yet more! A detailed bookmark (or should that be darkmark) on a gorgeous blue fabric which is already in use as my younger son and hubby are kindly reading me The Philosopher's Stone while my eyes recover.

I am extremely happy with my exchange gift, and Essie tells me that she too is very happy.  It was fun to do the exchange, a little stressful at times, but on the whole very enjoyable.  I think we might be tempted to do another at some point.

Hogwarts - framed

My husband generally frames all my work but now and then a project needs a professional.  Our framer Pete has done a grand job on what is his last stitched piece as he is closing his little store and retiring. 

I wish Pete a long and happy retirement - and wish my husband good luck mastering his confidence in the technique.

Final update for now.

Since I'm going to be incapacitated for a little while due to eye surgery, this will be the last update on Wolverine for an uncertain period of time.

 Essie's

I had to unpick a section

And re-stitch it using the correct colour (usually helps!)

Update on the Stitchalong

Essie is almost at a page finish - next week for certain.

Wolverine's nose is appearing from the shadows now on mine.

Page finish

 I think the page Essie is currently working on is the toughest as there are so many colour changes.  She's almost there.

My page however contained very few so worked up quickly, allowing a page finish. 

Wolverine update

I'm a little late posting our update this week as I've been working long hours and my evenings have seen me elsewhere. 

 Essie's 

 Mine 

There are 7 weeks or so left of 2018.  Once our current page has been stitched, there remains one full page and very few rows on the final page to complete the picture.

Can we do it?

In a tangle

Some kits come with pre-cut lengths of thread to work with, tied up conveniently to card and labelled with their name or colour number.  Others do not and I very often find myself in a tangle. 

All of my DMC threads are painstakingly neatly wrapped by hand onto a card bobbin and filed in numerical order, as seen in an earlier post.

Normally my hardanger threads arrive and remain on their spools but any that aren't, end up being wound on bobbins as seen here to prevent the headache of such a tangle.

It took around 5 hours and the assistance of my husband to finally tame the tangle but it was worth it.

A new month

A new page finish.

I'm loving all the different stitches in this sampler.

If only there were more hours in a day

Or more specifically, in a stitchalong evening!

 Essie's 

 Mine