White Christmas

Last night was my EGA chapter's holiday party. It's always a lot of fun, full of good friends, good wishes and some really amazing embroideries. We have an ornament exchange and I also exchange gifts with some friends. I whipped up a storm of white wool things to bring. I made these white felt ornaments over the last couple of weeks. They're very simple but all my own designs. They feature felt holly leaves and silver and white embroidery. It's always amazing to me how whites can vary! One was my exchange ornament and the other two gifts.I made this angel for a friend. It has holly leaves too, and buttons. (The washed out picture of the oblong ornaments and the picture of the angel and wreath were taken on the same day in the same location. The only thing that changed was the strength and angle of the sun. I think it's very hard to see the oblong ornaments--I should have waited--but as I was doing it I was mostly worried that the angel and wreath would be too dark!)More antique buttons adorn this wreath, made for another friend.This little pincushion, given last night as a gift, began its live as a napkin ring for the YMCA kids. We'll be teaching it in March. It was just sitting there, waiting for March, when I unearthed a large felt bead. I wasn't sure where I wanted to keep the bead and in the meantime it kept rolling off the shelf. Finally I popped it into the napkin ring to keep it in place and, voilá, pincushion! I stitched it in place and added a felt bottom. I'll stitch up another napkin ring model before March.

As soon as I can, I'll get photos of the lovely ornaments I received as gifts.

Celebration

After my good news at the doctor's last week, hubby and I drove up to one of our favorite places, Oak Park Conservatory. The tropical house has been newly rehabbed and we hadn't been there in a while. The bright colors, flowers, and birds all contributed to my celebration. I didn't even bring my cane inside (it's a small place and I managed fine).The warmth inside was very pleasant--we have winter weather in Chicago now. We watched them put out the annual poinsettia display (I'm saving that pic for later on).The koi seem to like the renovated room. They were active.

WIPs

I think I may stitch more dishcloths for the holidays, but in the meantime, I'm back working on my pile of WIPs. I haven't made much progress, since I didn't work on this at all over the holiday weekend.This is the scarf that matches the cable hat, here. It definitely will need to be blocked but it's coming along. Each cable twist is just about one inch.I've also made some progress on my crewel piece. The green leaf at the top is coming out, though. It's too skinny. I was so concerned about keeping an open space in the middle that I went overboard. Hopefully, I can just pull out part of the middle section and not the whole thing.

Woo-hoo!

I'm OFF the crutches! I'm free to gradually get back to my usual activiites. I'm feeling a bit fragile and things aren't 100%. My groin muscle is still twinging some and so is my hip. My "good" knee is now acting up big time, probably from overuse, so I'm still taking it easy. But being off the crutches is such a huge relief! Thanks to all of you for your supportive comments.

Holiday Stitching

Last week I had four days off of work. I didn't just sit and stitch (really), but I did have a project and goals. In the next couple of weeks I'm getting together with friends for some belated birthday lunches and needed gifts, so I made a towel for each friend featuring birthday month. My goal was one a day...I didn't quite make it. I'm still using what's upstairs and handy and most of my thread is in the basement. I had everything I needed except for black for the cat. I braved a gusty storm on Monday to get that and finished up the four towels. Phew!On Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, I started off my project with this turkey. I stitched all of the towels with DMC perle 5. Probably not my first choice, but it was handy and I really ended up liking it. The stitching, mostly outline, is very dimensional. For this design, I stitched the leaves in backstitch and the rest in outline.February came next. For this one I stitched the ruffle around the heart in split stitch. It is not the best stitch with perle in my opinion, but I wanted the line to be less firm and more, well, ruffly, and the split stitch did that. It was also easier to maneuver around the curved shapes.July gave me fits. So far, I'd gotten away with outlines, but if I just outlined the stripes, they would just be a mass of confusing thin lines. And the stars were gray, the color of the transfer. So I outlined each stripe, staying to the "inside" of the line for each red stripe. Then I filled in with chain stitch. It's pretty heavy but okay. I tried doing the stars in white and outlining them or filling in the background in blue but it was awful. So, I pulled it all out and made the stars in blue.

I used the star stitch from the Kissing Pillow chart to stitch each star. I gave it a nice shape and a bit of an open center on some (hard with a tiny shape and such thick thread). I stitched the fireworks using whipped back stitch with some French knots. Again, backstitch is not a stitch I would usually use with perle cotton--it looks very wiggly because of the sheen of the fiber. But it worked quite well, I think, for fireworks. I did some of the smaller ones in plain backstitch.October came last. I liked this one a lot and had fun with it. The turkey's eye is a French knot but I stitched the eyes of the doves in February and the cat's eyes with a granitos stitch and I like the shape it gave. Just not quite round.

You can find really good instructions and tips for these stitches at Mary Corbet's website, Needle 'n Thread. I found myself recalling a lot of her tips as I stitched this weekend.

A Nice Holiday

We had a nice crowd for our Thanksgiving dinner, on Saturday this year. I'd say it was relaxed but, then, I didn't do all the work. Dolly came and sat in the window and supervised. Things are getting under way here.My sister-in-law is showing off the baby had she had just finished. They set the baby on the floor with all of the yarn and let him choose the colors.Everyone's waiting for the feast.
I didn't get any pictures of the turkey or trimmings...... or the equally laden dessert table--my brother made a yummy caramel cheesecake with chocolate sauce. It looks like he's in a bit of post-dinner stupor below.Dolly stayed and supervised the clean up. I took the carcass of the bird home to make soup.It was wonderful to gather together. I sat in the dining room and talked with my sister as she worked and just listed to the ebb and flow of the conversations in the living room (everyone talking over everyone else most of the time). It was great.

Happy Thanksgiving!

There are so many things to be thankful for! I am very happy that we have a tradition of setting aside a day to focus on them--and friends and family (not to mention good food!--as I said, a lot to be thankful for!)

Thank you for coming by to visit and comment.

Best wishes for a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.