More Holiday Fun!

Last week was just brim full of fun things! First the holiday party and then on Friday I went to dinner with Averyclaire. We always have a great time, like we've been friends forever. I was really excited when she gave me one of her lovely felt ornaments. I liked this shape best of the ones she made and she read my mind!

She also brought me a pair of figures from Peru, made by local women and sent here to be sold to raise much needed funds. They're really charming and I plan to hang them at work to remind me just how lucky I am.

The gift I enjoyed most over the weekend were two French women's magazines from December and January a couple of years ago--Modes & Travaux--both full of holiday and gift ideas. They have recipes, crafts, decor and fashion (women's magazines seem much the same world round).

I can't really read French, but I have studied it a bit (if one year, thirty years ago counts!) and can grasp the gist of the embroidery instructions, patterns and the recipes. And I certainly can enjoy the pictures of the holiday decorations and clothing.

I spent much of the weekend recuperating from the week. (in addition to the party and dinner out I spent a couple of evenings shopping and running errands, not my quite, sit on my behind, usual state) I took a long nap Saturday and then we visited my sister and her husband on Sunday. I showed her how to make the Christmas tree earrings and she made some for gifts.

Holiday Prize

At our holiday party we played a game. We had to figure out the titles of holiday carols from phrases using unusual synonyms (bleached noel = White Christmas). World Embroideries got all twenty songs correct. I came in second, way behind with fifteen. I was very happy.

The prizes were wrapped grab bags. It's kind of bittersweet for me--the prizes were really nice but it's mostly because the last local needlework shop went all knitting and got rid of all of their embroidery and needlework supplies.

They donated the final leftovers to the guild, which was a very generous thing to do and we've been really enjoying this bounty. But we're also without a LNS. (I used to be quite spoiled with three in close proximity to my home.)

My prize was four hand-painted needlepoint canvases (I said the prizes were generous). Three have stitch guides and color photos of the final pieces.

Even though I think it's intended to be an ornament, I think the raggedy girl piece looks like it would make up into a nice scissors holder. And I love the gingerbread tree ornament. Ditto for the patriotic stocking. I'm less enthused by the tennis playing bear, mostly because I don't know anyone who plays tennis. But I've learned over the years I don't have to feel compelled to stitch everything that comes my way!

This last image is the ribbon from the table centerpiece. World Embroideries won and when I admired the ribbon she gave it to me. I'm quite pleased and hope to use it in my nephew-in-law's stocking, which is finally under way (barely).

Ornament Abundance

Last week my chapter of the Embroiderer's Guild of America had their holiday party. It's always great fun and this year was no exception. I ended the evening with an abundance of ornaments, other goodies and good cheer.

The first ornament is the one I drew in the ornament exchange. I really love the beautifully stitched cardinal and the jingle bell finishing. I have to apologize because the stitcher is a newer member of the group and I cannot remember her name and my member list is old so she's not listed to help trigger my memory.

This large ornament came from my friend Renee, along with a bunch of edible goodness (too much of which is already gone!) Aren't those buttons cool?

The next two came from another friend, Jamee, known for her lovely Hardanger embroidery. She likes fine, high count fabrics and miniature work (things I can no longer see to do and never had the patience for when I could!)

Here's an example, with beads. The square piece is a magnet. The ornament will soon hang on my office door handle, where I usually have something on display and the magnet will go on the office file cabinet. I'll see that a lot more often than my refrigerator door.

The last ornament came from World Stitcheries. It is a form of needlelace from Paraguay. She talks about it here. It is similar to Teneriffe and is a needle lace.

Tomorrow I'll write about the prize I won in a game. I came in second.

Thanksgiving at the Zoo

We love to visit the zoo but the cost has gotten prohibitive lately ($11 per person plus $8 to park!) and we go there rarely now. But Thursday is free-day and they're open year-round so we went on Thanksgiving day last week. It was about 40 degrees and pretty nice (no rain, snow or wind). There were workers out decorating for the holidays and the animals were doing their thing. This is me near the entrance and Steve visiting with a friend.

I'm thinking about using these photos of us for holiday cards.

The bear and meerkats and especially the gorillas were being photogenic. We were there midday so most of the animals were sleeping.










For years now I've wanted to take photographs of these tiles in the ladies' bathroom but never had the nerve to snap away in the usual summer crowd. I got my chance this trip in the nearly-empty room and clicked pictures of a few of my favorites. (it's the ladies' room just by the south entrance, in case you want to see them in person)

November Take-It-Further

Well, I didn't get it done. I tried. The four-day holiday weekend helped and I stitched on it pretty diligently. I used one whole skein of the floche. My unopened second skein is in the picture. And not much red is left to be covered.

So far I'm pleased with my progress. I should have pinned it to a stretcher frame--there is some fabric puckering that having it on a frame probably would have stopped. But I'm happier working in hand so I went with that and will accept the puckering as a consequence.

I did take time out on Friday to needlefelt this flying cardinal. The birds don't take long and my hands were getting sore from the satin stitching.

The holiday weekend was nice. We held our family gathering on Saturday. We held up the American tradition of stuffing ourselves. On the actual holiday, Thursday, my hubby and I went to the zoo. We watched the children feed the farm animals their Thanksgiving dinner and wandered around. On Friday we went to see a local theater production of A Christmas Carol. And on Sunday we went to an open garage (like an open house but with antique cars). I've got some zoo pictures to post later this week.

November TIF progress

My November TIF project is finally underway. I’m feeling my way here and I think I should have set it up differently perhaps. First, I tacked my paper form to the ground fabric, using the floche I’ll stitch with. I think perhaps I should have used something thinner. Then I basted the ground fabric to muslin. Which I probably should have done before basting the letters on. Here’s a picture of the basted piece, ready to go.

When I was at Designer's Desk in Geneva, I had walls of fibers to choose from (literally, there are moving pegboard panels four deep along two walls of a room, loaded top to bottom with fibers. A third wall is cabinets and more pegboards. And the DMC and Anchor flosses and perle cottons are in boxes elsewhere).

I like floche for satin stitch and they have a good variety to choose from. I brought my rust-dyed fabric with, thinking I'd go with a dark brown color. But the blue just jumped onto my fabric. A rich, royal blue. I also got a nicely complementary rust, in case I want to add some touches in that.

I began stitching on Monday night. It’s a bit awkward working with the paper but I think it can also help make some nice satin stitches. I’m using floche and that helps, too.

Here’s a photo of the progress I made on Monday. I began stitching in two places, to try and get the paper firmly onto the fabric. I have removed some of the basting as I’ve stitched. Mostly because the stitches holding the paper are made too far from the edges of the paper and thus stick out.

It’s tough going. The rust-dyed fabric is a bit heavier than the cotton I’ve hand quilted before and I’m finding my hands hurt after a couple of hours of stitching. But so far, so good. I hope to finish it this weekend.

Right now I'm planning to do the letters all in the one shade of blue, so the graphic effect will be similar to the maroon. (It's on maroon paper because that's the cover stock they were throwing away that I grabbed to use for projects like this--it's white on one side and shiny maroon on the other and will go through the copier and print on the white side.)

I did some searching online to see if I could find any photos of the small monogram letters of pressed paper used like I'm using my huge one, but I didn't find any. I remember seeing a box full of little glassine bags and each had several heavy card letters in an Old English or Germanic font for monograms. I've also seen them in a script type. The letters were rounded in the center of each stroke and would work like pad stitching. The largest were maybe an inch high. The instructions said to baste them onto the ground fabric and then satin stitch over them. I can't imagine they would be washable but many of the clothes in the 19th century were not washable.

finishing small projects

Last weekend, after my big day out on Friday, I got some things done at home. I’ve been sorting through some old stuff and found some things to finish. I made a eyeglasses holder using Chinese knots (and instructions and a form from the Japanese company, Clover), and made this bright red knot in order to learn how to do the knots so I could make the eyeglasses holder.

I finished taming the wild scrap felt ball I made a few weeks back. I trimmed each bit of felt into a little circle and pinned them all on like sequins. I'm much happier.

A while back I had gotten a kit for needlefelting birds from A Child's Dream Come True website, along with a book on felted animals. Backyard Birds is the kit and it was put out by Black Sheep Designs. The instructions are clear and my first two birds went well. They were also much quicker to do than I'd expected. (the nest is also from the kit.) I have two more birds to do and then hope to attempt some other animals, all for holiday gifts.

I found a bunch of Classic Stitches and Needlecraft magazines that had little kits on the front of them. Here’s one I made up with an Autumn scene. I’ve completed another with some yellow ribbon flowers and begun some green and gold gift tags from yet another. They're all from the 1990s.

I found a large baggie of felt and metal goodies from Art Girlz that I'd purchased at the quilt show in April. I made up this cone doll for a niece, complete with wild hair and cowboy boots. I also swapped out the crown that was in the kit for another that I'd gotten that says "be bold." I have some materials for another cone doll and some faces and hands I plan to use for more comfort dolls.

And last, here’s a small (the maximum size was to be 2", this is a little less) sample of oyster stitch I made on Sunday evening for my EGA chapter’s forthcoming cookbook. Many of us are stitching small samples for the divider pages. I like oyster stitch. It was supposed to be on 32 count linen but I didn't have that so I think this is 28 count. It is not counted.