Christmas Debrief

Hello fellow stitchers! 

I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday break.  I pretty much collapsed after my pre-Christmas crafting frenzy and have been pretty quiet for the most part, although now we are into January I am officially smack dab in the middle of the Crazy January Challenge.  But before I start sharing my January projects, I figured it would be a good idea to officially wrap up 2015 since I never got around to actually posting anything the past two weeks.  (I did think about it, just never actually DID it....)

Warning in advance, this post will probably get long and picture heavy.

The Christmas ornaments were a big hit with my mom and brother at least.  Dad and Grandma still need to get theirs, so I don't know that reaction yet.  Here's what Love Potions ended up looking like (gifted to Mom):

I told her they were "lotion and potion" bottles since my mother makes her own lotions.  It's a bit of an inside joke in our family.  My cousin thought they were old-fashioned light bulbs up until right before I finished the project (since he was privy to the crafting process). 

My Americana-obsessed brother was very happy with Stars and Stripes, despite my worry that it was a little too small. 

Cookies for Santa for my dad turned out great, and I think this is my favorite Mill Hill of the year (although love potions is a close second because it used many of my favorite colors).  There's just something about this that is so festive. 

And my last Christmas finish was Floral Watering Can for my grandma.  I was really excited to see this one come out as part of Mill Hill's spring release last year, but yikes was it a more complicated pattern than I realized!  Never again will I leave a project like this to the last minute (if I can help it). 

I mentioned in a previous post that I made made (non-stitchy) ornaments for my coworkers, here's how my flurry of snowmen turned out:

Does anyone know if there's an official term for a group of snowmen?  If not, I think a flurry of snowmen should be made official.  These are two pieces of felt blanket stitched together by my wonderful long suffering mother on her sewing machine, with hand tied ribbon scarves and acrylic painted faces by me.  Each snowman also has two buttons, taken from my great-grandmother's vintage button collection.  My mom agreed to part with a few of the buttons from her grandmother's collection, and I think it gives these an extra special touch.  My coworkers loved the ornaments, and some even more so after I told them about the buttons. 

So that is what I gave for Christmas.  Here's what I got. 

My exchange partner apparently had to replace my ornament because the original was damaged by the post office (grrrrr!) but on Christmas Eve I got the most adorable snowman ornament in the mail:

Perfect actually because we didn't decorate until Christmas Eve this year.  I'm not sure who the designer is, but maybe Bent Creek or The Trilogy?  I don't know why, but lately I just adore snowmen so much, so this was a perfect little gift for me.  I think it's my favorite of all the exchange pieces I've gotten this past year. 

I also got my first scroll frame to try out, and a little traveling Ott Light from my mom, both were a huge surprise and I'm super excited to use them.  Then from my cousin I got a large full size floor stand Ott light, which I never expected to get because they are very expensive.  I'm super excited to use it, although it's been set up, I haven't had a chance to use it yet because I haven't found the perfect spot (near an outlet) to set it yet.  Perhaps when we get around to taking down the tree. 

Another cousin gave me this Disney Classic Cross Stitch kit that (I think) is a Barnes & Noble exclusive because she knows how much I like Disney.  Honestly, some of the patterns in here look a little weird to me, probably because they are mostly based on whole stitch/pixel artwork, but I am really excited about the Sleeping Beauty Castle pattern from Disneyland. 

 
That pretty much wraps up Christmas.  So going wrap up for the rest of the year?  Well, since this post is getting quite long, I think I'll save that for another post for tomorrow.

Almost there!

We're in the final countdown to Christmas; are you ready?

I was able to get some progress done on my ornaments, although not as much as I wanted.  I need like 4 more days added to my weekend. *sigh*  In the end, I decided that my final to "maybe" projects that I was hoping to get done before Christmas will absolutely not get finished before the holiday.  So I've decided to save those two for next year and find an alternative small present to send to my aunt and uncle. 

I did finish-finish up my Holiday Stamp project, so that was ready in time to be sent off to my exchange partner:

So that left me free to focus on starting what will now be the last gift stitching project for the year.  This is Floral Watering Can by Mill Hill. 
 

I will be finishing it up as an ornament as a present for my paternal grandmother who loves gardening and flowers.  When we were younger and her garden was much bigger every trip my brother and I would tail her around the garden in the morning helping her water the plants with her beat up green plastic watering can.  I had a babysitting job Saturday night so I made some decent progress on this start after the kids went to sleep for the night. 

I was able to finishing the beading on Love Potions and attach the backing paper and bead hanger in preparation for it's "finish-finishing".  Now I just have to cut it out. 

I decided not to do the bead swags that were charted because I didn't really like them and didn't think they added much to the design, but I think they look oka without it.  Luckily the heart treasure covered up the giant green space left when I took out the "No 9" as charted, so overall I'm liking how it looks. 

I also finished the same steps on Stars and Stripes.  I'm really pleased with how this turned out.  The beading totally makes this one.  I made a few boo boos on the placement of blue and yellow in the lower left corner of the star that I had to improvise a bit to fix, but hopefully it doesn't look too bad. 

If there's one thing I'm disappointed in with this one it is that it is rather small, even for a Mill Hill kit.  It was originally intended to be a pin, so I guess that's why.  But I think the recipient will hopefully not mind the smaller size.  This was my favorite of the Americana kits I could find, and he is very patriotic.  I just need to cut this one out and it will be done as well.


All of the stitching and backstitching has been done on Cookies for Santa.  I'm a little disappointed that the photo washed out the light green "sprinkles" stitching on the white star cookie, but I'm hoping once the beads are on it will stand out more.  Next up for this one is adding previously mentioned beads and then cutting and backing and hanging. 

This weekend I also made some progress on the 11 fleece blankets I'm tying for gifts this year.  Which leaves me with a pillowcase, an apron, two batches of soap, two batches of lotion, and 13 felt snowman ornaments to finish before 7 days are up.  But this weekend I also completed 2 sewing projects that I can't show yet in the very chance case the recipient reads this blog.  I was extremely proud of myself since I have extremely rudimentary skills and my mom is such a good seamstress I always feel embarrassed asking for help because my sewing always looks childish at best. 

Anyway, I'm very proud of this project, which will be extremely useful (I hope) once the cold weather hits full force.  We haven't had more than a half dozen nights or so that have been cold here in Mississippi yet, but since this is only my second winter here I'm not sure what's typical yet. 

Funny side note about cold in Mississippi and cats:

Last winter Brownie took to "burrowing", which is what I called it when he wanted under the covers with me so he could snuggle up closer to my body warmth.  I tend to "cocoon" myself when sleeping in the winter and seal myself up so no cold air can reach my body, but when Brownie burrowed in, I would usually leave the end of the blanket by my face untucked so he could crawl out when he was done with being under the blankets. 

Well, last night I was woken up by him pawing and nipping at my hand... which was wrapped in my blankets.  Apparently he either burrowed in while I was sleeping or I let him in and didn't remember it at all during the night.  It took my sleep deprived brain about 5 minutes to realize he was trying to get my attention because he was trapped under the blankets. 

Christmas Countdown Progress Update

Most of my time these days is spent frantically trying to finish as many Christmas presents as possible before the looming deadline.  Which of course means that my Mill Hill stitching has been coming along.  So here's a quick look at my most recent updates. 

First off, I finished Holiday Stamp for my partner exchange:

I'll be finish-finishing it hopefully this weekend.  I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out; the petite seed beads are perfect for the scale of it.  I think the regular size Mill HIll beads would dwarf the design too much, but they fit perfectly here.

I also got the stitching all done on Love Potions:

I left the "No. 9" off the green bottle on the right, so I'm hoping it won't stick out because it's the one with the least amount of beading.  This will be hopefully be beaded by the end of the weekend, along with Stars and Stripes which I showed in my last update. 

I've also gotten quite far on Cookies for Santa now:

No longer just a green blob in the middle.  Just a bit more white to go, then backstitching and beading next for this one, again hopefully done by Monday.  Notice a pattern?  Then it's just 3 more kits to start and finish by the end of next week and *phew*, the Christmas stitching will be D. O. N. E., done.

Of course, then there are about 17 other projects I need to finish before the holiday that aren't stitching.  *sigh*

Mill Hill kits everywhere!

To my US readers, I hope that you all had a good Thanksgiving with lots of good food and good company.  And for everyone, happy first part of December!

I must admit, December is one of my favorite months, and Christmas is probably one of my favorite holidays.  I just love the ambiance of love that (usually) surrounds this holiday.  Around here I'm falling behind on production schedule of Christmas gifts though, so things are about to get crazy!  But here's what's been happening on the stitching front. 

Before Thanksgiving I managed up a finish on my band for the Antique Band Sampler project in my latest sampler Round Robin. 

Sorry for the black smudges, but I bled out my last name and city for security purposes, for what it's worth on the internet anyway.   I didn't really enjoy working on this one much, sampler bands just aren't my thing I guess.  But I am excited to see what project comes next. 

The day after Thanksgiving my cousin and I sat down and had a huge marathon of all 6 Star Wars movies back to back.  It took 14 hours, but was a good excuse to get a good chunk of stitching done.  The cross stitching and backstitch is all done on Holiday Stamp:

And as you can see, I'm starting to bead too.  I like that this kit came with all petite seed beads.  Not sure why, but those are my favorite.  Soon it will be ready to go to my exchange partner. 

Speaking of Friday again, since one of my gift recipients who is normally home had to work on Friday, I pulled out Love Potion, which will be for her, while she was at work.  I got a good part of the stitching on this one done, and now it looks like this:

I also pulled out Stars and Stripes just to change things up a bit.  This one is the smallest, so it had the least amount of stitching to be done.  I hadn't worked on this one since last year's January challenge, but now it's done and ready for beads. 

I didn't have Holiday Stamp with me to finish during my last stitching session, so I pulled out what will be the next kit to work on.  This one is called Cookies for Santa:

Not much to see yet, just a green blob.  I love the design of this one, but it will probably go slower than the others because it has a LOT of color changes and detail stitching.  But at least it seems to have more minimal beading than some of the other designs, so that will help. 

So other than these WIPs that leaves 1 more kit to start and finish before Christmas, 2 more I would like to start and finish (but it's okay if I don't), and 11 fleece lap blankets to fringe and tie in the next two weeks.  Plus a secret project that's a present for another family member that needs to be finished and ordered ASAP.  Whew!  I'm going to be BUSY!!!!