Christmas and ...

well ... Christmas has been and gone for another year I am very sad to say. I just love Christmas so much and everything connected with it to pieces. Unfortunately, for me, mostly everyone here has gone religious on me - we are Jewish as most of you know but hey I LOVE CHRISTMAS and gave it up this year but am not sure I want to again. So, I have decided that I am definitely going to have to rethink this Christmas/Chanukah thing carefully before next year.

I have been in ornament exchanges before and been really disappointed with what I have received so decided to organize one this year where, hopefully, everyone would be happy with not only what they stitched but what they received as well. So this year we had a three way ornament exchange between Me, Su and Angela who, no matter how much Su and I try to talk her into having one or the other simply wont, exchanged with each other. Each of us stitched two ornaments - I stitched for Angela and Su, Angela stitched for me and Su, and Su stitched for Angela and me. Angela and I haven't exchanged yet due to lack of free time before Christmas to see each other but we will do so in the next week or two and when we do I will post what I stitched and gave to her and what she stitched and gave to me as we decided to not only do the ornaments but to include some bits and pieces with them as well. So here we go ...

This is the ornament that Su stitched for Angela and I have seen it in real life and it is absolutely gorgeous and perfect in every single way. Beautifully stitched and I just love the way Su's initials are stitched within the coloured block.


This is the ornament that Angela stitched and finished for Su. To say this is exquisite is putting it midly. I never ever would have chosen to have had this ornament stitched but having seen it done I really want it. Beautiful is what it is.

This is the one that Su stitched for me and I absolutely, positively, definitely love it and it is one of my all time favorites as is everything that Blackbird Designs designs - hope that makes sense because it does to me. I just wish that Su had taken photos of everything she sent me because then I wouldn't have to ... lazy cow that I am ... and anyway she takes much much better photos than I do and has a Christmas Tree to boot which I don't have :-( But along with the ornament Su also sent me a lovely piece of hand-dyed fabric called Christmas Wish by Carrie's Fabrics, a blue piece of fabric (can't think what it's called but I love it to pieces - in fact it's my favorite kind of fabric for backing - it's French and has pastoral scenes on it - please somebody remind me what it's called), a piece of gorgeous, and perfect for Christmas ornaments, velvet backing fabric and a gorgeous skein of hand-dyed perle by Stef Francis. All in all it was just perfect and I promise to take a photo of everything tomorrow in the daylight.

This is the ornament I stitched for Su. It is a design by Merry Cox and it came from the 2001 Just Cross Stitch Christmas Ornament issue and I loved every single stitch I put in this it was just such a delight to stitch. I stitched it on a piece of 36 Jobelan which Angela bought from the Stitching Show in October (why oh why can't you buy 36 an 40count evenweave from anywhere except for this one person). I just loved doing the Queen Stitches and the over one. The only thing I would do over again is I would move the 'to' further to the left so that the SM is more on it's own. Now Su did take a photo of everything I sent to her and here it is ...

If you click on any of the photos you can see them enlarged but in case you don't want to I will tell you what I sent to her. I sent 4 pieces of slub-silk backing fabric, My Favorite Do-Loly, a packet of Mary Arden petite size 28 needles which I love to pieces and a hand-made (by my DH) scissor fob.

I unexpectedly received an amazing packago from Yuko who lives in Japan and insists she has only been stitching for at the most a couple of years but both her stitching and finishing are totally amazing and takes my breath away so it will be my total pleasure to share photos of what she sent me with you all tomorrow. I couldn't believe it when I opened this parcel and my dd#2 (aka Stacy) and my dh (aka Larry) were standing and watching in wonderment as well.

Until next time

Lots of Love
Patti xxx

And finally the last one ....

I'm sure you are sick to death of hearing me say I've not been well but I have had a migraine since last Sunday so nothing at all has been done. But tonight I shall be finishing (late for a change I might add) some ornaments that will be mailed first thing tomorrow and in the meantime here is the Flat-Fold that I finished and must admit it is the first one I have ever done with a lot of help from my great friend Angela I might add.


The Flat-Fold Standing up - not a great photo I admit but I took it from above and it didn't turn out right.



The flat-fold from the front - you can click on it and see it in much greater deatail.


The back of the flatfold. My friend Sandra gave me this fabric for my birthday and I just loved it and it went so well with the front and I wish I could get more of this fabric and I really loved it.

So that's it for now until I post, ok take the photos first of the ornaments I have made and send but for now it's ttfn (that's ta ta for now - very very British) Patti xxx

And the NEXT

Things have been really hectic here again this week and I've had hardly any time to myself to sit and stitch never mind blogging. So here is the next one I have to share with you. I stitched this as my part of the Halloween exchange on the Legacy Board that was organised by Valeri herself and I finished it as my very first Bourse. Valeri stitched for me and I stitched for NancyMA who happens to be a designer as well. Anyway here are the photos I took - sorry I didn't take any of the goodies I sent with it as well which included a bar of Cadbury's Chocolate, a large skein of Vikki Clayton's Hand Dyed Threads in an Orangey color and a Dolly Mama kit.

This is the inside of the Bourse. The chart was by Lizzie Kate and I am not usually a big fan of her kind of charts but I really loved this one and hope that Nany likes it too.

This is one view of the outside of the bourse. I decided tha the color of the fabric was a bit too vivid for the kind of finish I wanted so instead of putting both the right sides together when I used my new sewing machine to stitch the two pieces of fabric together I put the wrong side of the fabric to the right side of the stitching so that the wrong less vivid side woud be showing on the outside.
and finially my favorite shot of the outside of this little bourse.

To finish I have been studying all the caskets that The Designing Ladies have designed for this years project with Judy Odell and have finally decided that this is the one I am going to order as I just love it to pieces.




Isn't this just outrageously GORGEOUS!!!

And for the next one

Umm two in one week I hear you say. Well there are going to be more because I have been a busy little bee that's for sure and as mostly everything has been received I can share with you some more now.

This is the birthday exchange I stitched for Vonna which was really really late because I was waiting for a chart to arrive, which eventually did and then dumb old me forgot to put it in her parcel but do not fear because it will be included in her Christmas parcel which is going out next week.

So, this is what I stitched for her which was a total delight to stitch and finished. It was my first ever biscornu but certainly won't be my last as it was so easy to finish and I really loved doing it.
This photo was taken by me :-(


The Biscornu was a design by Catherine Strickler of Indigo Rose and had been a kit and it was really lovely to stitch and finish with some over one and some speciality stitches which I really like doing.

Now these photos were taken by Vonna and you can sure see the difference. In the second one she is showing it off with her other Biscornus.



And this final photo was taken by Vonna too and shows everything I sent to her and I really hope she liked everything as you never really know do you?

Finally a Stitching Entry

It isn't that I haven't been stitching because I have but they have all been gifts and so I haven't been able to show them to you. But I have decided to do this one at a time and not all at once like I usually do because I want to give each one pride of place and when you put everything on at once .... well it just isn't on now is it?!? Nope I didn't think so either.

I have been entering into the Legacy Board's Quaker Quarterly Exchange. This time the theme was Halloween and in the U.K. Halloween isn't a big deal though at least the children now come round for candy - I had 14 come this year which was a lot and they came in two groups of 7 children and considering I live in an area that has at least 4 Primary Schools if not more that is a very low percentage but I was grateful for the littlies that came they were so sweetly dressed. Anyway I digress, I showed you a few weeks ago what I received and now you can see what I stitched. This was for Nancy Kuelbs who is the organise of the group and I loved every single stitch I put in this including the finishing.


So here is the front of it and if you double click on this you can see it much larger. Anyway it was a chart from part of With My Neeldes chart, it was one of the little book one but I can't remember which one sorry because I have all of them.


and this is the back of it where I stitched our initials - I should have put the year too but I didn't. The whole thing was stitched over one on 32count Lugana because so far I have found stitching over one easier on evenweave then on linen. But I'm about to do some on linen so I'll let you all know.

I really hope you like this and I hope more than really really hope that Nancy liked it because I sure did and I loved stitching the edges though it took ages and ages because I kept on having to turn it over to make sure I was stitching in the same holes on the back as on the front. But I will definitely make another flanged pillow in the future and maybe this time for me.

To end on a funny note - you all have heard me speak about our grandchildren. Well Sara (elder daugther) was ill last week and I had Lily (granddaughter of 4) for most of the week and last Friday Stacy (younger daughter) owed me some money and had put it on the table for me and Lily eyed the money and told me that she liked money and my replay to her was 'good'. Anyway about half an hour later I asked her for a hug and she told me 'I don't hug old people, only my Mummy and my Daddy' so I asked her if I was old and her reply was 'yes!' Anyway a couple of minutes later she said to me 'I'll hug you if you pay me for it'! Yeah RIGHT like that was gonna happen. She is so much like her mother it just isn't true. But then she sat there later saying to me 'Maaama (said in my yankee accent) I do love you'. Well that was enough for me. I just love having her and that was was great. She is such a cow though. But in her words ---- I do love her to pieces though. More later on in the week I'll show you some more.

P.S. Now you know I don't do the horrible green word but this weekend I truly am G R E E N because my friend Angela (ok she's friends with some of you too) is spending the whole entire weekend with Su and the colour GREEN I am is indescribable put it is definitely more puce (sp?) than that colour green that's for sure!