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