Final Finish of 2013

This is it!  The year will be over in less than 24 hours, and I have one last finish to share with you.  The stitching on this pillow was done over a year ago, but I was kind of daunted by the idea of hand-sewing a real-sized pillow.  (I don't own a sewing machine, and frankly don't care for them.  I think my mother's warnings to me about not sticking my hands near her machine has translated into a lifetime dislike)  Anyway, I finally set to the task a few days ago.  It's a 14 inch square pillow:

And here's the fabric I chose for the back:

Please disregard any tails or paws in the corners of my photos.  They are always somewhere nearby.

I have finished all the stitching for my new designs, and have moved on to helping Mom with some of her model stitching.  There's still a lot for me to do in the next month and a half, including building a website, eek!  But the thing I'm most looking forward to (and most scared of), is sharing my work with you as we get closer to Nashville Market.  And of course, I couldn't do a launch without a giveaway.  So keep an eye out for that!

I hope all of you have a wonderful, safe New Year's celebration.  I'll be joining a friend or two to watch my college team play in a bowl game, then ringing the new year in with my darling husband.  Cheers!

Merry Christmas

I hope that everyone had a wonderful day yesterday, whether, like me, you were celebrating the birth of Jesus, or just enjoying a day off and maybe some time with your loved ones.  I have taken a break from model stitching this week to work on finishing some Christmas ornaments.  These poor items have been sitting around all year.  They were stitched, but never got any further than that.  I have finished two so far, and hope to have another 2 (okay, at least one) finished by the time Saturday rolls around.

Here's one designed by Homespun Elegance:

And the second one isn't actually an ornament.  Technically it's a pincushion, from a kit by Shepherd's Bush.  So it has no business sitting in the tree.  Not that that stopped me:

It's early.  The house is quiet.  I am about to head into the living room to enjoy some undisturbed stitching time.  Merry Christmas to me!  Til next time, stay safe, and stay crafty.

Final Ort Report of 2012 and a quick jaunt to NYC

What happens when you put off going upstairs to get the camera all day long?  You end up taking not-so-great photos of your ort jar long after the sun has set.  Since it was too late to take a photo in my usual spot, I decided to get a little festive and take my last pic under the tree.  Two of the cats supervised the process:

I think I'm going to get one of those clear glass (or plastic) ornaments and fill it with all the orts.  Then I can start all over again next year!

As I mentioned in my last post, my mom, sister, and I took a road trip to New York City over the second half of last week.  Mom hadn't been to NYC since the 60's, and I hadn't been at Christmas time in several years, so just seeing the city all decked out her holiday brightness was a treat.

We caught a matinee showing of the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular.  Words cannot express how thrilled I was to see the Rockettes performing in that famous location.  And the nativity, complete with live animals, was stunningly beautiful.

After the show let out, we hoofed it across town to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  There, we joined several other women who are taking Trish's Cabinet of Curiosity online course.  They had generously allowed Mom and I to join them even though we don't live in the area.  Once inside the Ratti Textile Center (located inside the Met), we saw about 20 exquisite antique needlework and beadwork pieces from the museum's collection laid out before us.  No glass between us and those lovely ladies.  We could photograph to our heart's content.  They would turn things around for us.  In a word, heaven.  There were two caskets available for observation, although we weren't able to see either opened up and pulled apart.  I wish I could show you all the pretty, pretty photos I took.  Sadly, this craptastic photo is all I can share:

Catch me in person in a few weeks and I might have some more interesting photos to share.  ; )

We finished our day with a stroll through Times Square, and dinner at Bubba Gump's.  I know, I know, chain restaurant in NYC.  But we don't have such things here in North Carolina.  And Mom really likes the food there.  We made friends with some funny British guys while waiting for our table, much to the amusement of the restaurant employees.  They kept asking Mom if she had a Dolly Parton cd.  Made me wonder if there is some sort of joke about the lady that we're just not aware of.

The next morning, we visited the 9/11 Memorial.  Beautiful and heartbreaking all at once.  I visited NYC for the first time in 2010, and spent time in one of the towers.  The next time I came, there was nothing but a big hole in the ground, and some damage to surrounding buildings was still visible.  Now, there is still lots of construction going on.  And the memorial:

We wandered around the financial area, saw the Statue of Liberty, shopped at Macy's, and finally, ended the day at Tinsel Trading.  Wow.  What an amazing place to shop.  Here's a few photos to give you the general idea.

Although it isn't exactly the kind of cabinet our course is covering, we still got a laugh out of this window decoration.

I bought some glass glitter and vintage ephemera for scrapbooking, and some gorgeous trims for edging some of my stitched ornaments and pillows.  Mom went nuts over the giant wall of trims.  Can you tell how much fun she's having?

And there you have our whirlwind trip to New York City.  Throw in one night at Foxwoods Casino, followed by an all night drive back to North Carolina, and I've covered it all.  We had a blast, but we were completely worn out.

I hope to post again with my final WIPocalypse update over the weekend.  But just in case that doesn't happen, Merry Christmas to my fellow Christians, and Happy Holidays to everyone else.  May the final days of 2012 find you safe and warm with someone you love.

More holiday stitching

Posting two days in a row!  That hasn't happened in a very long time.  First, I wanted to say thank you for all the kind comments about my decorating efforts.  You are too kind.  I'm back today to share a few more stitching finishes from this month.

First up, an ornament which I stitched last year, but which I had yet to put into finished form.  It's another Homespun Elegance ornament... I love her ornament designs!

It's backed with a fabric from Blackbird Designs Blueberry Crumbcake line:

Next up, this ornament had about 12 stitches in the border before this year.  The design is by Ink Circles, Celtic Beasties, and I stitched it with the called for fibers on Silkweaver linen (cookie dough, I think).  I stitched it up one day last week and backed it with some pretty Weeks Dye Works green felt.

I also stitched up "Christmastide" by Pineberry Lane.  I'd had my eye on this pattern since it was released last year, and finally broke down and bought it in October.  It was a really quick stitch.  Of course, I probably won't get it framed til next Christmas, but that's okay, it will be waiting for me when the time rolls around.  Stitched on 40 count 'cauldron' linen by Picture This Plus, here's my wrinkled, unironed finish:

Finally, I gave the winner of my '100 Followers' giveaway her prize this past weekend.  Kim (Miss Pants) just happens to be a member of the Piedmont Sampler Guild (as am I) and we met on Saturday at Mimi's Cafe for our holiday breakfast.  Admist all the fun and sharing, I was able to pass along a small pin pillow I stitched for her, along with a couple of other small items.

I asked everyone to tell me their favorite months in the year, and one of the months Kim mentioned was September.  I just love the peacock on this pattern, so September is what I went for.  The pattern is by my mom, Cherished Stitches.  It's part of her Birds of a Feather series.

Speaking of Mom, she has shared a free Christmas ornament pattern on her blog.  She is still taking baby steps into the world of blogging, so she doesn't post very often.  But her ornament is really cute!  The photo on her post really doesn't do it any justice.  If you'd like to grab the chart, go to her blog here.

Well, that's it for today.  Tomorrow, I head to New York City for a chance to explore some of the Met's collection of antique embroidery.  Don't know if I'll be able to take any photos, but I sure hope so!  I'll share more about the trip when I return.  Til then, have a crafty day!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Yes, we finally have all the Christmas decorations and lights up, inside and out.  It took a little while because of illness, injury, and weather, but we are now ready for the season!  I thought I'd share a little of our holiday look with you today.  First up, of course, is the foyer.  I've swapped out the old metal ornament stand for a 3 ft fake tree.  I thought I would have more room for my hand stitched ornament collection.  I think I was wrong.  It's already almost completely full!

To the right of the tree, you can see my newly framed Quaker Christmas sampler.  I finished it in '09, but just got it framed this past weekend.

Here's a closer view:

During most of the year, this spot on the wall is occupied with a papyrus art piece that we picked up on our travels to Egypt, but over Thanksgiving, this Shepherd's Bush piece hung there:

I know, it doesn't go with the Christmas decor theme of this post, but I wanted to share anyway.

Moving on to the living room, we have the world's most crooked, but stable, Christmas tree:

This photo doesn't show how crooked the tree really is.  Try as I might, I could not get the darned thing to stand straight.  So I gave up and decorated away.  I love each and every ornament on this tree.  So many fun memories are attached to each one.

I had a lot of fun decorating the mantel this year.  As of 2 nights ago, the kitties have been having a lot of fun removing balls from the mantel.  This may not end well for some of my decorations.  Sigh.

And finally, here is the dining room:

One of the samplers that usually hangs here has been replaced with Celtic Christmas, which I don't think I've ever shared before:

In other news, there's been plenty of stitching and finishing going on.  I will try to get another quick post up before the end of the week to share those.  Meanwhile I leave you with three of my favorite 'decorations.'

She knows she's not supposed to be up there, but that never stops her!

I have to say, Lucky looks rather squished.  But he didn't complain when Scout jumped onto the couch and joined us, so I guess he enjoyed the snuggle.

Til next time, happy creating, everyone!

TUSAL and BAP, how about that?

Yup, it's time for my monthly TUSAL update:

That Prima jar is filling up nicely!  If you want to learn more about the TUSAL, follow this link to Daffycat's blog.  I've started thinking about what I'll do with all these orts at the end of the year.  I believe I've seen a couple of fellow TUSALers stuff theirs into clear glass Christmas ornaments.  Given my adoration of Christmas ornaments of all kinds, I'm thinking that might be the way for me to go too.

I've spent most of last week and all of this week working on my Giraffa sampler for BeckySC's BAP challenge, which you can read about here.  I'm quite pleased with my progress.  However, I'm about 4 lengths of thread shy of being completely out of the pale yellow thread, and I've got yellow all the way around the border.  Guess I'll be making an emergency stash run of some sort here in the near future!  Which is bad because emergency stash runs often involve the purchasing of non-emergency patterns.  Anyway, here's where I am on Giraffa as of this morning:

Look, there's a man leading a giraffe in this sampler!  And even though it's kind of hard to tell from this photo, there's another robe floating behind the giraffe, waiting to be filled in with a head and body.  Then it's palm trees and the borders.  Lots of palm trees and lots of border.  I will probably set this sampler aside at some point over the weekend and pick up Soleil again for at least another week.  

Lest you think that the scrapping bug has left me, let me share the two layouts I punched out yesterday afternoon and early this morning.  This first one is a layout about my many trips to Biltmore Estates for their Christmas candlelight tours.  That house is gorgeous on an average day, but in the evenings at Christmas, there's something magical about it.  I caught this picture of the guardhouse at dusk, and it's one of my favorites of the estates.

And finally, I made a multi-photo layout inspired by Lisa Andrew's layout.  Among the many CHA-related scrapbooking challenges going on at Two Peas in a Bucket, was a challenge to create a layout based on her lovely work.  And here's what I made:

Look at all the pretty little fishies!  Of course, I realized this morning that the song I'd been humming while I made this layout (and slapped that lovely little title on the page) was actually "Under the Sea" instead of DOWN by the sea.  Which makes a lot more sense given the subject of both the songs and these photos.  Sigh.  I can be such a dingdong sometimes.  Regardless, I'm excited to have made the first of many layouts documenting our honeymoon in Hawaii.

I guess that's it for today.  I'm off to put some more stitches in Giraffa.  Til next time, I hope everyone has a happy, crafty day!

Merry Christmas and exciting news to come

I have some very exciting news to share, but it has to wait til after New Year's! In the meantime, I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and holiday season.

Some holiday crafting

Over the weekend, I worked on several holiday related craft projects. First, I made a card, which I can't show you because I forgot to take a photo before I sealed it. Whoops.

I also made a snowflake wall decoration. This piece was inspired by a project Jaz did for Websters Pages two years ago. I made one then, and when I was in AC Moore the other day and saw the wooden snowflakes, I wanted to make yet another one. It's made mostly with Websters Pages products, with a few bits of bling added in.

I also made a layout, which I can't share just yet, and finally a little Melissa Frances house ornament. This little guy is going to be a gift for someone (I think it's going to be a gift, if it passes muster with my little sister). All of the paper elements are from last year's Basic Grey holiday line. I did a lot of tiny cutting to create this little thing. Here's the front:

and the back:

Please believe me when I say that the house is much smaller than it appears to be in these photos. Maybe I should have put something in the photo with the ornament for scale.

I also wanted to share some photos of the tags I made two years ago during Tim Holtz's 12 tags of Christmas that year:



I guess that's it for now. I finished two more Egypt layouts, a Websters Pages challenge layout, and did a little stitching too! I'll share all of that soon. Til then, hope the creative juices are flowing strong for everyone.

Christmas decorating

So it's that time of year again, and this go around, I persuaded my significant other to let me decorate his shiny new house. We kept things relatively low key: a few lights outside, a tree, and a few other items in the main part of the house. Neither of us had ever decorated the outside of a house before. We'll try more next year, but I don't think we did too bad for our first try:

I put my stitched ornament tree on the console in the entry hall:

Princess and Scout were both visiting his house, and they like the tree:


In other "stitchy" news, I actual have a photo to share! I've worked here and there on quite a few different pieces, but only one that I've completely finished. Well, maybe I've finished it. I stitched the Sampler Girl's freebie pattern, "C'est Noel" and turned it into a pillow. This was my first time trying to stitch a pillow showing some of the decorative fabric on the front. I hand stitch all my ornaments, and it was quite a challenge to try to line up that green fabric to make a straight-ish bottom! I used scrapbooking products to finish it off, include some red Bloomers from Webster's Pages, a long safety pin from 7 Gypsies, and a Tim Holtz holiday trinket. I want to add a simple trim around the border of the pillow, but ended up not liking what I'd originally chosen. I don't know, do you think it needs more trim to look truly finished?

And finally, in cat news, SOMEBODY has made himself right at home. I think he thinks he's found a forever home...