HAPPY NEW YEAR 2009

I was busy stitching and then I came upon this "party girl" and thought to myself "Hum, she is exactly what I need to celebrate the new year 2009", so I stopped everything that I was working on and stitched her.
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She is nothing like me, as I am more the quiet type, so she will have fun for me while I peacefully sleep, all warm and cozy in my big bed, dreaming about her dancing the night away. I am so glad that I won't have her hang over afterwards. Nope! On January 1st I will be feeling all refreshed after a long night sleep and roaring to go to stitch the day away :-)
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To all of you who will be reading my blog, I am wishing you the best year ever, filled with laughter, good health, love, enough money to add to your stash and everything else that your heart desires :-)
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Pierrette =^..^=

Cross Stitch Horrors

[Cross stitch project that I am working on]


I came across this some time ago and thought it was just so funny until it happens to you that is, that I wanted to share it with you all. I have no idea who the author is, so here it goes:

CROSS STITCH HORRORS

Today I joined a cross stitch class

And though it may sound dumb

Where once my fingers used to be

I now possessed a thumb

I couldn't thread the needle

And this creates a 'hitch'

For without a threaded needle

You can't create a stitch

The instructor had to thread it

And though it sounds kind hearted

She muttered lots of muffled words

And hastily departed

She showed us how to make a stitch

And where we should begin

But the first stitch ended painfully

Beneath my tender skin

Well, I've never been heroic

And I believe one lady said

The screams that issued from my mouth

Would surely wake the dead

The class was in an uproar

As they crammed to take a peek

For my face was now a deathly white

And my legs were feeling weak

My finger was in tatters

I tried hard not to cry

But the gash looked like a canyon

There was a good chance that I'd die

The teacher yelled impatiently

What she said I'll never know

For I fainted in an instant

When the blood began to flow

The teacher phoned the ambulance

For the wound was very deep

But she said the blood-drenched patterns

Could now be mine to keep

As they placed me in the ambulance

She let out such a shriek

When I tried to reassure her

That I'd be back next week!

Lovely Christmas poem by an unknown author

'Twas the night before Christmas, and, oh, I was weary.
My stitching unfinished, my eyes getting bleary.
The stockings weren't finished, the chimney was bare.
And I knew that morning soon would be there.

My children and husband were tucked in their beds,
But visions of backstitches ran through my head.
I'd stitched ornaments and presents and gifts by the ton,
And now, I was finally, almost, almost done.

As I poised my needle for one more backstitch,
I heard something outside that made my hand twitch.
I jumped up from my stitching, and flew to the door,
Pressed my eye to the peephole, tip-toed off the floor.

My stitching forgotten, I peered into the night.
When suddenly, I got a terrible fright.
On my porch appeared Santa, holding his sack.
He knocked softly, and I took a giant step back.

I unlocked the deadbolt, and let Santa in,
He entered and gave a mischievous grin.
"Hope you don't mind if I come in the door?"
"Coming down the chimney can be quite a chore."

He said, "You're up late. Still working I see."
"Do you know how tired you're going to be?"
"I know, Santa," I said, with a sigh,
"But I'm still backstitching the stars in the sky,"

"And the fields on that stocking look blobby you know,
I need to backstitch the drifts in the snow.
I've been stitching and stitching and stitching, no rest.
I just tried to finish stitching too much, I guess."

"I know what you mean," he said with a smile.
"This is my busiest time of the year, by a mile."
He stooped down by the tree, and he opened his sack,
And began to pull presents out of his pack.

"I've got some things here I think you might like,
An oak stitching frame, and a brand new Ott-Light.
A bundle of floss, and a great big mat cutter,"
I smiled and felt my heart go a-flutter.

He put down gifts for us all, then he waved his right hand.
"Go to bed," he said, glancing at my floor stand.
He gave me a wink, and stepped out the door.
I just stood there a moment, glued to the floor.

After he'd left, I turned back to my chair,
Picked up the stockings, and started to stare.
The backstitching was done! The stars lit the sky!
And on my son's stocking angels sung on high.

I ran to thank Santa for this final gift,
And watched as his sleigh started to lift.
I heard him exclaim as he pulled out of sight,
"Merry stitching to all, and to all a good night!"

Author Unknown

MERRY CHRISTMAS: Christmas Projects slideshow

Jim Wurth's Dodecagon Ornament Series completed (all 12 of them)

Fabulous Finale: Dodecagon Ornament Series

Lately, I am always surprised when I go to my blog to post a new entry and see how long ago was the last one. I have been feeling relatively tired lately and just did not feel much like stitching at all and have been spending a relatively good amount of time reading. The book I am reading now is called "The Enchanted April" written by Elizabeth Von Arnim. I have seen the movie twice and I must say it is so much fun to be actually reading the book as it gives me a much better understanding of the plot and I can picture the different charactors acting the parts. I am having a ball :-)

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To get back to Jim Wurth's Dodecagon Ornament Series I had every intention to have all the ornaments all stitched way before Christmas and brought to the framer with the hope that I would get it back for Christmas. Well that won't happen and will now wait until the beginning of next year to bring her all this work. Fit all 12 of them into one or two frames, not decided yet. Will see how she see things first.

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By the way for those of you who are reading this and thinking I would love to stitch that series, you will get another crack at it starting this coming January. These ornaments are not sold individually but as a series and you can find all the necessary information as to whom to contact by checking the files of the group indicated in my previous paragraph.

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I have many Christmas projects which were stitched but unfortunately not finished and a few more that I have started stitching but not finished. I am not going to stress myself over them as they obviously won't be ready for this Christmas.

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Pierrette =^..^=

The Night Before

It has been a while since I have done any work on Anne Stradal's design called "The Night Before", but if I want to have it for Christmas I better get moving :-)

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What I have done today is completing her dress and bonnet and make her nice and pretty by giving her a nice pearl necklace.

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I have a little more work to do on this project before I can start thinking about the finishing, but at least I am slowly getting there :-)

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By the way for those of you who have not yet seen it, Anne has just started a blog called "The Cape Stitcher".

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Will probably be back sometimes tomorrow afternoon with another progress photo, if all goes according to plans (grinning).

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Pierrette =^..^=

Shining Needle Society

Yesterday I have received a Shining Needle Society Certificate of Completion for having stitched both Mystery in a Corner and Challenge Ornament, both designed by Gay Ann Rogers. I don't normally collect Certificates as I never send my pieces for evaluation with either ANG or EGA as I am always concerned that a project of mine on which I would have put lots of hours, efforts and money might get lost in the mail and I would end up with nothing, so I thought it was a wonderful idea to have come up with the idea of giving us a Certificate of Completion.

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When I discovered Shining Needle Society a while back, I was so very happy as it opened the door to lots of new opportunities. There are multiple offerings of classes given by wonderful teachers/designers and of course there is Gay Ann's classroom who is dedicated to teach us about color and design. Before SNS, you had to be able to go to Seminars to get some of those classes, but now we can stay home and work on them in the comfort of our own home.

[Certificate of Completion]

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Pierrette =^..^=

Challenge Ornament ready for finishing

What a relief, having finished my Challenge Ornament before Gay Ann's deadline for the Certificate of Completion, which is only available for those of us who have completed both projects, this Challenge Ornament and Mystery in a Corner which I have completed a while back.
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Many times while stitching Challenge Ornament I wished I had the use of more varieties of threads to work with, but one must work with what she has, so I did. I did not quite follow the progression order that Gay Ann gave us in her written instructions as I wanted to concentrate on certain areas first and then see what color thread would fit in other areas, not an easy task to do, at least in my case, but I am slowly learning.
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I have taken two photos of the completed ornament, the first one above is how the ornament will look like when finished and the second photo below is how I was working it on my stretcher bars.

Now, I need to read Gay Ann's instructions and answer the different questions she is asking us and send to her with my photos and I will be done.

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That was a fun project and looking forward to making the other one using Chrismassy colors.

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Pierrette =^..^=

Challenge Ornament: A little bit more done

Yesterday's stitching went rather well. I had to undo two little sections because they just did not look right to me, so I redid them with different threads and it made a big difference.

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There isn't much left to do with this ornament so I think I can safely say that it should be completed today and a photo sent to Gay Ann for evaluation.

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It is not really the stitching itself that takes a lot of time, but the planning part of it. Sometimes when I am not entirely sure about which thread to use next, I just put the ornament aside for a little while and then comes back to it later and by that time everything seems a lot clearer in my mind.

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Next post will show the completed ornament, not the finishing yet as I am not sure that I have quite enough thread left to do it, but will check to make sure.

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Pierrette =^..^=

Challenge Ornament: Designed by Gay Ann Rogers

On Saturday I rushed to finish stitching a little bookmark so that early Sunday morning I could start working on Challenge Ornament, which is a little end-of-term examination ornament after having stitched Mystery in a Corner, but things did not really start as smoothly as I had expected.
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(Photo showing what I have managed to do so far)

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When Gay Ann started talking about Challenge ornament, I thought I would use the same threads that I had used for MIAC (Mystery in a Corner), then later on as the holidays were coming closer, I thought it might be nice if I used Xmassy colors instead, then thought about it some more and went back to my initial decision to use the same colors as MIAC. Some may think that I have too much time in my hands, but that would not be true :-) The main reason for using the same colors is that it would be easier for me to have some idea of how those colors would look like when deciding where to put each one in my Challenge Ornament, and as this is after all a small ornament, I can make another one after with my Xmassy colors. Seems, reasonable, right!?
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So, yesterday morning I started looking for my MIAC leftover threads as I remembered that they were all in a little baggy. I looked everywhere I could think of (inside my home of course), but just could not find them. I had no choice then, but go to Plan B with my Xmassy colors. I got all my threads out on my working table and selected lots of reds, greens, gold, grey, sparkling white, etc. My desk was literally covered with them, then my eyes looked sideways and what did I see? Yes, you are right, my MIAC leftovers threads in a little baggy and they were exactly where I had put them, imagine that, so now I am back to Plan A. I put all those reds, greens, etc. in a big bag for the second ornament which now of course I absolutely need to do later as I certainly don't want all those efforts to go to waste.
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I then put my canvas on stretcher bars and worked on it on Sunday until I got too tired to be able to think straight anymore, not a good place to be when I had so many "important" decisions to make, so put everything aside for the day and this morning took it out again with a new perspective, at least that is what I am telling myself.
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This ornament is really becoming more and more of a challenge because on top of making all those decisions with the MIAC leftover threads, which are limited in themselves, now I am starting to run out of some. When I wrote a message yesterday in the classroom saying what else could possibly slow me down and somebody wrote back saying "NEVER ask that question", well she was right as running out of threads with an approaching deadline is NOT good at all. I will have to become very creative. Will I manage to rise to the challenge? Next post might give us that answer.
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Be right back!
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Pierrette =^..^=