Dec 14/10

Sorry for the sideways picture, I keep forgetting to rotate my photos before uploading. The Dimensions series of postage ornaments that I have been working on is now complete and ready to be distributed! I bought 2 of each one to make a total of 12 which are currently hanging on my privacy screen by the patio door. Now to finish all of the other ornaments I have stitched.......

Sept 28/10

It has been a while since I have posted any pictures of the ornaments I have been working on so my apologies for such a big post!

Lizzie Kate is a big favourite of mine and I can not resist her ornaments because they are both festive and funny. All of the L*K's have been stitched on 28 count even weave from my odds and ends purchase at the LNS and stitched with what I call my mystery threads. I like playing around with the floss and fabric colours to see what *happens* in the end! These patterns are all from the Tiny Tidings series.

In other stitching news, I am also greatly enamoured with this series of kits available from Dimensions. I love birds and stamps so I bought two of each of the series and have been stitching like a mad person. There are two of each of these in my pile to be finished both for the back stitching and the actual ornament finishing:

Aug 4/10

I am very enamored with Joan Elliott these days, having recently purchased two of her books. Her designs are cute without being too cutesy and her sayings are funny and witty. This design comes from "Cross Stitch Wit and Wisdom". I stitched it on 28 count Lugana with threads from my mystery box so the colours are somewhat similar but not really as I look at the book photo once or twice to get the gist of the colour scheme before I match up colours according to what I have available.

I came back to add this photo which is also a Joan Elliott. Ornament stitching season is underway at my house!

Mar 2/10

Watching the Olympic Games for hours on end gave me lots of stitching time as well! Here are the results:

"Snow Merry" by Homespun Elegance was stitched on a mystery piece of 14 count Aida that I found in my pile of stuff and stitched with mystery threads.

 "Peace" by Blackbird Designs was stitched on 14 count Aida with mystery threads during the men's curling gold medal game which I watched with a handful of fellow curlers at the local curling club.

Both designs are from JCS 2009 Ornament edition.

Feb 27/10

The designs on the right are from Vee and Co. while the "Winter" design is from Michaels, the craft supply store. Thanks to Vonna at The Twisted Stitcher for her beautiful tutorials. I used her tutorial on flatfolds to finish the "Winter" ornament.

Some more ornies!

I loved the ornaments in this Dimensions kit, but the kit was a challenge in that I ran out of 3 of the thread colours. I am very careful and thrifty in my thread usage, but this kit was greatly under supplied as I was not even half way through the ornaments when I ran out of the colours so it was definitely a supply and not a stitching issue. Fortunately, I had enough suitable threads in my mystery thread box and made do to finish the ornaments.


This ornament is found in the recent JCS Preview Issue and is designed by Sharon Crescent. I liked it when I saw the design in the magazine and liked it even more when I saw it stitched up on another blog so I sat down this weekend and stitched it up using the suggested DMC colours on 28 count Charlescraft Irish Linen. Now I am stitching it a couple more times with different coloured balls (blue then purple) each time. It is a quick and pretty stitch!

August weekend design

This was one of the few SAL scheduled weekends where I was actually not scheduled to work so I took advantage of that and stitched "Heartfelt Harvey" designed by Imaginating, Inc.. The design is from JCS 2008 and was inspired by a style called redwork aka turkeywork. I did not have enough red in my mystery thread pile to do the whole design in one single colour so I played around with the thread and fabric colour.

It has been a while!

It has been ages since I stitched a Christmas ornament. The scheduling gods had me working this past weekend (New Brunswick Day long weekend) so instead of laying on the beach and drinking around an evening bonfire, I worked all day and stitched this ornament in the evenings. Here is my version of Elf in the Box from the JCS 2009 Christmas ornament preview issue. I changed the colours around, depending on what I found in my mystery thread box and used some decorations that I had in my stash instead of making the perforated paper designs. Perforated paper is one of my least favourite things to stitch on so I used these snowflakes instead!

Some ornies

Sorry that the lighting is so bad in these photos! The colours are way off because it is a very grey and rainy day here, but I was so excited to get this project of mine done that I could not wait to photograph them!
The ornaments are double sided.
Side 1:

Side 2:

They are stitched on 14 count Aida. I can not remember the exact name for this particular Aida, but it has silver strands woven into it which give the ornaments a snowy effect. The threads are from my miscellaneous box. Using my leftover threads was kind of fun because no two designs are stitched in exactly the same colours.

Designer: Alma Lynne
Book: Snow Folks at Home

June ornie

This month's ornie is "Winter Love" by SamSarah Design Studio from JCS 2007 Christmas Ornaments. I stitched it on black for the simple reason that it was the only piece I had that was close in count and size to stitch this one on. Because it was stitched on black, I changed the hat on the snowman on the right from DMC 3799 to a dark green so that it would not get lost on the fabric.

A second May ornie

I stitched a second ornie because I had enough left over fabric after stitching the first one this month. This one is "Snowflake Heart" from Wild Heart Designs in JCS 2006 Christmas Ornaments. Once again, mystery cloth and mystery threads as I continue to shrink my stash. To give the design more depth, I used one strand each of two different colours.

May ornie

Here is my May ornie. I think that I may have missed the month of April SAL because I was busier than all get out at the time. This one is called "Emblem of Friendship" and I found it in JCS 2006 Christmas Ornaments.

An in-between finish

I finished this one the other night when I finally received the packet of beads I needed to put on the last 10 beads! The ornament is the Victorian Lace Snowflake from the JCS 2007 Ornaments issue by Karen Kluba of Rosewood Manor. I used stuff from my stash----mystery cloth, metallic variegated DMC and Mill Hill beads 03003 instead of the materials called for in the pattern.

April ornament

A little late about posting this! I found the freebie pattern at Michaels.

March ornie (in progress)

These ornies are from a Debbie Mumm kit. There are 12 altogether in the package. This photo shows how far I got during the last week of March before I switched back to my stocking project. These ornies need the french knots, back stitching and the cutting out from the plastic canvas to be completed which will be done for the April SAL.

February Ornament!

I so fell in love with this Snow ornament from Whispered by the Wind when I saw it posted here last month that I had to stitch it up right away. I did it in 3 different versions (see my blog), but I am only going to bore you with this one which is stitched on light blue 14 ct Fiddlers cloth with DMC white. I made one alternation to the pattern to make the word "snow" go in the same direction so that the piece can be turned around.

Sorry for the sad photo. I am a bit technologically challenged and do not have the patience to play around with all of the bits to fix it.