I only stitched one Halloween ornament for myself this year, and I didn't even finish the last stitch until November 1. I was about to put it away with all of my other stitched, but not finished off, pieces when I realized just how many I had. Since it was a cold and snowy day outside and I had nowhere to be, I couldn't think of anything better to do than to turn all my fall and Halloween pieces into smalls. I had piles of ribbons and fabrics; buttons and stuffing everywhere! After one long night and a few evenings I am proud to show you these:
Designs from Prairie Schooler and various issues of JCS Halloween. The purple witch hat on the 'Potions' ornament is just too sweet!
The square that says 'Fraidy Cat' is the back of the cat ornament in the previous photo.
You can tell how old some of these have been sitting around: I stitched the costume bears for my kids when they were little beans and I was just starting out cross stitching. Funny how aida fabric looks so rough to me now.
This was a freebie design from somewhere. A thread company maybe? Doesn't the fabric work perfectly with it?!
My French skeleton. I hunted everywhere on the internet for this pattern! You can find it here along with some other great stitchy stuff.
A Brittercup Kitty from a past JCS Halloween issue. I wish I had stitched this over one, but that was before I ever did that. I was so happy I found the perfect spider button in my stash. I also thought the 1930's reproduction print worked really well, even though it's not Halloween themed.
I used a lot of my own over-dyed threads on this one. I tried a twisted trim for the first time using some garden twine. I think I will definitely try that again.
Here I was getting dried up for new and novel finishing ideas, so I reverted back to the small pillow for the last two. This is another design I wish I had stitched over one so it would have been smaller.
This one is a freebie from Plum Street Samplers.
And finally, the last one. This year I was determined to stitch this after printing out the design several times. I even got it all kitted up and was planning on stitching it over one with my own threads. Well what did I find in last year's stitching? This design; stitched with my own threads only over two! Freebie by Nouveau Encore Designs.
I don't think I have to tell you what a feeling of accomplishment I have now that all this stitching is completely finished and ready to display. It will be so great next year to pull these out and display them with all my other finished pieces.
Oh, but that's not all!
No siree! In addition to stitching and stuffing and embellishing, I have been cutting and nailing and painting.
I have slowly been giving my family room a makeover, and last weekend brought a gust of energy to step up the process. Over the summer I installed two Ikea bookcases, with plans to add trim to give them a built in look.
Check!
Next was to remove the gross old trim from the window and add something a bit nicer. I love how it makes the window look bigger too.
A proper window ledge! My Favourite Boy said I could display things on there: he knows what it's all about:)
(Lets just ignore that sloppy paint job: the walls are getting re-painted soon so I wasn't too careful.)
Et voila! Lots of good things finished off this week. Let's hope the momentum continues a bit longer: I have two gallons of paint waiting for me and some new power tools to try out:)
Thanks for visiting!
No comments:
Post a Comment