Smalls SAL

12/31/2015

Happy end of December!  2015 has gone by so fast and I'm incredibly thankful for my friends and family and their continued health.

And a BIG thanks to Heather at Stitching Lotus and her 2015 Smalls Challenge. It ensured I posted at least once a month and it's been enjoyable looking at some of the posts and projects by the talented participants.

I was busy stitching last minute Christmas cards for various friends and family.

 

 

Sorry that some of these are sideways, but I'm a little short on time and want to get this posted.  The "Merry and Bright" was a design I made combining a couple of different alphabets and is for a co-worker that loves purple.  "Joy" was adapted from a pattern by Gazette 94, as mentioned in a previous post.  And the minions were adapted from patterns by Brooke Nolan.  She has both freebies and patterns you can purchase and I'm a big fan.  The card is for a co-worker that loooooooooooooooooooves minions.

I did a few non-Christmas finishes this month as well.

 

A card from a sale on my Etsy shop, a card for my niece from Daily Cross Stitch and dragon of fire from Dragon Dreams Needlework.

And a Christmas present for a co-worker from a Secret Santa gift exchange.

 

I still have a few months to finish, but these are from Happiness is Cross Stitching.  I love her cats and have combined patterns from 2014 and 2015.

And that's a wrap for 2015 stitching.  I look forward to continuing the smalls challenge in 2016 and want to finish some of my larger WIP's as I did not stitch much on them.

I will also participate in Debbie's Ultimate Crazy January/February Challenge 2016 (DUCJFC2016).  This is a Facebook group and the premise is to start a new project every day for 31 or 60 days ( January or January and February).  A few of us actually did 90 starts this year, Jan-March.  I'm not sure how many of those I finished, but I know I started and finished many more when I count all the Christmas cards I did.

Celebrate your hearts out tonight, for tomorrow we stitch!

Michele

Merry(Almost) Christmas

12/23/2015
Merry, Happy everyone!  Hard to believe Christmas is only 2 days away and 2016 is almost here.  The year has gone so fast and while I stitched a TON, I left many projects unfinished.

Today is my day to post as part of the Online Advent Calendar, sponsored by Jo at serendipitous Stitching.  I stitched like crazy this month trying to finish last minute Christmas cards and I wanted to share this one with you

It's a card I made for a friend that used to be my manager.  She left the company in May and I miss her a lot.  Her mother, who's name was Joy, passed away when my friend was 18 and I always make her a card with "Joy" on it.  This is adapted from a free pattern from Gazette94,   The original pattern is the second one listed on the page the link opens to. She has some great freebies on her website and I've used several of her patterns.

How I spend Christmas Eve. As a child, we always spent Christmas Eve with my dad's sister's house. She has 4 kids, all older than I and by the time I was in the 9-12 age range, my cousins had kids of their own.  As a result, there was usually over 30 people at her house and it was utter craziness, especially when it came time to open presents.  Now, most of those kids have moved away and Christmas Eve is much smaller, but it was a blast when I was a kid.  As an adult with children of my own, we spend Christmas Eve with my husband's extended family.  Everyone draws a name and we do a Secret Santa  gift exchange.  It is always a challenge to disguise handwriting and wrap presents in a unique manner to try and keep the "secret" as long as we can.

Merry Christmas,

Michele

11/30/2015-WOCS cards
Happy Monday.   I wanted to post the pictures of the cards I made for WOCS, since I seem to post the finished cross stitch items, but not the complete "finishes"

 

 

 

The cards are either 4 1/4 x 5 1/2, 5 x 5 or 5 x 7 and will go out in the  mail tomorrow to one of the groups owners. She will then distribute them to a senior citizens center.  The group also makes quilts, walker bags and a few other things.  It's a great way to share your love of stitching if you are looking for a great charity to support.



This is the finished ornament for an ornament exchange I participated in.  The recipient loves dragons and the colors pink and blue. I hope she likes this as it's not your typical ornament.

 

Happy Stitching,
Michele

 

 

 

Smalls Update
11/24/2015

It's that time of the month again, no silly, the other time of the month.  Time for my
Smalls post, sponsored by Heather at Stitching Lotus.  I feel like I didn't stitch that much, but when I look at my finishes I have quite a few.

 
A few non-Christmas finishes.  The "Thank you cards" were for my son's high school soccer coaches and the other pattern was one I had started a verrrrrrrrrrrry long time ago and I dug it out and finished it.

This dragon will be turned into an ornament as part of an ornament exchange.  The recepient loves dragons, pink and blue, hence the colors and dragon on an ornament.

 

 

 

 

The above were all made into card for WOCS.

Card for my dad, a train buff.

 I have the cards done and will try and post them  next week.  All in all, I made around 35 cards for WOCS and 9 for personal use.  I still have 5 more to make and then Christmas 2015 stitching will be done!  Yay, as I  am ready to stitch other things!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Michele

Smalls SAL

10/28/2015

Hello and Happy almost Halloween.  I'm on vacation this week and enjoying myself immensely.  My youngest son is on fall break from school and I always take the week off. We never go anywhere, it's just a great chance to sleep late and stitch up a storm...which means I should call it a  "stitch-cation", not a vacation. The month was a busy one for me as I'm working on Christmas cards for not only WOCS, but also  for myself.  Thanks as always, to Heather at Stitching Lotus for sponsoring the Smalls SAL, which encourages me to post my progress.

These two pieces are larger than my normal smalls, but still less than 7 x 5 so I'll include them.  They are Dragon of Earth and Dragon of Water from Dragon Dreams.  I discovered this website a couple of months ago and finally made some time to start stitching them.  No idea what I'll do with the finished pieces, but they were fun to stitch.  Sometimes, I get so busy stitching cards or projects for other people, that I forget to stitch something "just for fun".

   

 And on to the Christmas patterns.  The cat will be for a co-worker and the diamond will go to WOCS. I tweaked the diamond pattern to add beads.

 It's hard to tell, but this was stitched on 28 count white with metallic silver threads incorporated.  Looks great in person but a bear to stitch due to the metallic threads.

I modified the original pattern for these ornaments ( I don't remember where I got it from) into several color variations and added beads in place of confetti stitches.  I also used metallic floss in lieu of normal floss for the clasp and "thread" suspending the ornaments.  The pictures aren't great; they look much better in person.

 

 These blackwork ornaments were again adapted from someone else's pattern. Not sure who's and I tweaked them a bit to make the patterns more symmetrical.

 These are part of a kit from Bucilla.  It's a very old kit I purchased off Ebay and has 12 different Santa's.

Pattern from Daily Cross Stitch, which will be a card for a co-worker

  

And finally, a couple of projects that I finished and gave away.  The baby card on the left ( sorry it's facing the wrong direction) is for a co-worker that had a baby girl  and the music was for a co-worker that loves music and the color blue.  I have since discovered that she likes cats, so I'm set for card ideas for a few years to come.

Whew, what a busy month!  My next few days will be spent on a few more Christmas cards and then actually assembling the cards.  I've got over 40 to make and it will take me several days to plan my layouts, cut the paper and then glue everything together.

Hope ya'll have a great Halloween and happy stitching!

Michele