Starting the new year the way I ended the year....

.....with another gnome! 

This last book mark was for the hubby who is a New York Rangers fan, so I changed the colours  to match his team.....

After stitching four of these bookmarks, I am officially done with gnomes. At least for now!!!

There was no sewing involved in making these bookmarks....everything was glued! I decided to share with you a tip that I learned years ago, for storing  tubes or bottles of glues so that they always work without you having to shake them like mad and then end up getting a big squelch of glue when it does finally decide to make an appearance from the bottle (sound familiar?).....

...leave them with the tips down (with the caps firmly on!) inside an empty jar. This way the glue is already at the tip and easy to use.  Big bottles of glue can be stored the same way....

A simple but effective way....how do you store your glues?

And finally I want to share with you some cute little egg cosies that I designed for World of Cross Stitching magazine....

Quite literally 'eggs and soldiers'! Not sure if anyone other than Brits would understand eggs and soldiers, so click here  to find out about eggs and soldiers. And in the unlikely event that you need a recipe you can find one here .  Anyhoo, they would certainly brighten up breakfast...or lunch!

Until next time.....happy stitching!

Rhona

Another gnome!

These gnomes are taking over! The third gnome bookmark is finished....

Joe loves green so it made sense to do this one in shades of green. Here it is with the one I showed you last post which is for my daughter...

I was hoping to be able to show a picture of all three bookmarks together, but I had to post the first one so that it got to my son in time for Christmas. He's serving abroad so fingers crossed it gets there in time for Christmas.

Here's gnome number four....hope you're not bored looking at gnomes! This one is for the hubby and I decided to change the colours from the chart so that it matches the hubby's favourite hockey team (New York rangers) colours ....

....my plans for having it finished by today were well and truly scuppered when I ended up having a terrible  headache yesterday and spent the best part of the day in bed! Guess who's got lots of stitching and finishing to get this done in time?!!

An early copy of the Just CrossStitch magazine arrived in the mail with my 'deer at sunset' design gracing the front cover....

The model was stitched for the magazine by Brenda Smith, who did a wonderful job bringing my design to life.

Well since I still have some gnome stitching left to do, I guess i should go and thread the needle and get back to stitching!

Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas and hoping that Santa will leave some stitching stash in your stocking :)

Until next time....happy stitching!

Rhona

Two little finishes!

Don't you just love those quick to stitch and quick to finish pieces? And when they are Christmas gifts too, it's even better!

So last week, you may remember that I was working on some cute little Tomte designs and making them as bookmarks. Here was the first one all finished.....

.....I made a matching little tassel for his hat...

He was popped inside a book and sent off in a Christmas package to my son. The second Tomte that I had started last week was also finished (I'm definitely on a roll here!).....

...a nice bright pink tassel on this one's hat.....

 If you're wondering how to make a tassel click here for a quick little tutorial about making them.

Isn't he cute.....

And then Tomte number three is well under way and should be finished in plenty time before Christmas....

This one is probably going to be done on green felt and with a red tassel. Now the burning question is....do I have time to whip up a 4th Tomte bookmark?!!! Pop back next week to see if I have :)

Until next time....happy stitching!

Rhona

Advent blog hop....Day 12.

Welcome to my little corner of blog land and to day 12 of the Advent Blog Hop organized by the wonderful Jo of Serendipitous Stitching.

Christmas is such a wonderful time of the year....busy and hectic but always full of love. I always plan to stitch a host of gifts for everyone on my list....but by December there's only three or four people actually receiving hand made gifts from me - I'm just not organized enough! 

I have made some cross stitch Christmas cards to send this year.....

Quick and easy ......except for the back stitch on some of them!

I love this ornament that I made several years ago....it always makes me smile when I bring it out at this time of year...

Now as for Jo's question of favorite Christmas movie.......I don't really have a favorite Christmas movie. I do love the old classics though....there's just something about Christmas and old movies....Miracle on 34th Street anyone? Or maybe White Christmas? Not a classic, but definitely a golden oldie....Trading Places. What's your favourite?

Think I'll go and get my stitching out and start (re)watching these Christmas movies!

Until next time.....happy blog hopping!

Rhona

Christmas gnomes

Christmas gnomes, Tomte, sprites....whatever you want to call them.... are so popular this year and are everywhere....even cross stitching! I decided follow the trend and stitch the Christmas gnomes bookmarks that I designed for World Of Cross Stitching magazine issue 286......

.....they were so much fun to stitch! (They were fun to design too!)  As you can see from the picture above, I couldn't wait to start the back stitching just to have this little gnome's face come to life! I changed the colour of his little suit because ....well you can do that sort of thing with cross stitching and because the recipient loves blue....

The kids (who are not really kids but are all grown up, but still kids to me!) always get a book as part of their Christmas and this year will have a little Christmas Tomte bookmark to go with the book. This one with a more girly colour scheme is still in the hoop, bit shouldn't take too long to complete...

Next on my to-stitch list is one of my Highland Cows (or heilan' coos as they are known as in Scotland!) designs from Cross Stitch Crazy Issue 263....

...but I'm having trouble deciding which one to stitch first!

Until next time....happy stitching!

Rhona

A sparkling, sequined finish!

These four little Christmas characters are popping in to say 'Hi!'.....

At last....after much grumbling and moaning (with a few unsavory words thrown in too!) I have a finish! 

This was certainly not the pleasure to make as the other stockings have been. I had lots of problems with this stocking and took lots of pictures to show how badly off each piece was, but have decided that I will concentrate on the good and show you just the finished piece (who wants to hear anyone moaning and complaining at this time of year!) So here are the cast of characters that make up the stocking....

.....hundreds and hundreds of sequins and beads....

 ....a little 'handmade with love'  label from my stash....

....and baby's name embroidered on the top (I wasn't going to show her name, but since her mama has it on social media there's no privacy issues)...

...... a plain white lining (no pictures as it's a bit boring!)....and we have a finished stocking....

This certainly was a labour of love but I'm glad it's done and am pleased with the finished stocking.

Here's the details of the kit...

Manufacturer - Design Works

Kit name - Winter Friends  #5260J

Finished size - 18 inches

Would I make another felt stocking? Absolutely - but not using this brand! I personally prefer the Bucilla kits and feel they are made to a much higher standard.

Anyway, now to parcel this sparkly stocking up and send it on to it's new owner, just in time for Christmas!

Until next time.....happy stitching!

Rhona

A wolf and a felt bear

Doesn't that title sound like it could be the start of a joke? A wolf an a felt bear walked in to a bar... lol!

Anyhoo, cross stitching has taken a bit of a back seat since I have a deadline for the felt stocking that I'm making. I have worked a bit on Winter's Lace though, and have some more of the wolf emerging.....

....he has some eyes now, so doesn't look like some sort of  crazy zombie wolf anymore! I have broken the cardinal rule of stitching though, and haven't been taking my stitching out of the q-snaps......I'm such a rebel (or maybe in all honesty, that should just be 'lazy stitcher'!)

I'm slowly getting there!

Since Christmas is fast approaching, my main focus has been to get on with the felt stocking for sweet baby R's first Christmas. After my first problems with the printed design not matching up, sadly things haven't gotten any better. I cut out the bear which was one of the printed pieces of felt and lined it up with the lines indicated on the blue background.....only to find that it didn't match with the lines on the snowman ......

....line it up matching the lines on the right hand side and you're left with the line showing on the left hand side...

Of course, these lines should be hidden when you stitch each piece. What to do? Re-draw the piece so that it fits and buy some felt to make a new bear, or jiggle the poorly fitting one to make it fit and try to disguise the faults with some sequins and beads?  I haven't quite decided what to do. All I can say is, so much for this being a quick and easy project! 

Fingers crossed that next week's update will be a it better with a lot more to show.

Hope you are having better luck with your stitching projects than I am!

Until next time....happy stitching!

Rhona

Felt, sequins and a new wolf!

It's a typical November day here....cold and raining, which means terrible for getting good pictures as the light is so poor. On the flip side, it's the perfect weather to stay inside and stitch :)

I managed to get a bit of the felt stocking done while I was waiting for the replacement felt from Design Works. They were true to their word and sent out the felt really quickly. I cannot fault them for their speed.......but (you knew there was going to be a 'but' there, didn't you?!!) when the replacement piece arrived, it too was the wrong size.  I decided just to get some tracing paper and make a new template for the piece so that I could get on with making this stocking in time for Christmas. This is the bottom part....I still have to make the template for the top....

The seed beads and sequins are fiddly, but oh so pretty!

I emailed Design Works and explained to them about the fabric being the wrong size again, and told them that I was able to make a template and use the new piece of felt etc, etc and that I was emailing them just so they knew about the fault with their kit. Their response didn't address this point at all. Kind of disappointing. 

I also managed to get a few stitches (and I do mean a few stitches) in Winter's Lace. .......

....now we can see the start of another wolf. I keep thinking that this design isn't stitching up very quickly.....guess it's because I keep working on other things :) Ah well.....there's no rush to get this finished, whereas there is a rush to get the stocking done as Christmas will soon be upon us!


Until next time.....happy stitching!

Rhona

Another felt stocking!

I couldn't resist buying (yet another!) felt stocking kit! I can see why some people become obsessed with them and collect the different designs available....they are addictive!

Those of you who are long time followers may remember that I have done a few of these felt stockings over the years....

...wow....even more than I remembered! So the first three pictures were ones I made for my daughter and her two room-mates at university. I bought the three kits and thought that I would have them stitched up in no time....little did I know how much work went into making each kit! Nieces, nephews and even my son-in-law were gifted these stockings over the years.  Now the owner of the very top pictured stocking has become a Mum, so it seemed fitting that I make her beautiful baby girl a stocking of her own. I wanted something that would kind of match her Mum's stocking and when I saw this in my local craft store, I just had to buy it....

Doesn't it look cute? I thought the blues in the design matched the blues in the original stocking.

It doesn't look as complicated as some of the other ones that I have made and I was really looking forward to starting this new project. The other stockings that I have made were all made by Bucilla , this one is by Design Works. But.....what a disappointment this kit is.....only some of the design is printed on the felt whereas the Bucilla kit had everything printed out. The main body of the stocking is printed  but the smaller pieces are not. I ended up tracing the design so that I could  figure out how to transfer the design onto the smaller pieces of felt (FYI freezer paper does the trick!).....

Here's the diagram of what's in the kit for each piece that you have to cut out...

So this kit is going to take much longer to make! So, the main parts of the stocking have the areas printed on the felt, so you basically just snip and stitch....luckily I didn't snip and stitch because I discovered this.....

The printed pieces don't match up! The white felt is too short.....9mm short! There's no way to disguise that big a difference. I sent an email to Design Works to let them know of this mistake in their kit and to see if they had any suggestions of what to do and they replied within the hour. So I can't complain about the speed of their customer service. They have promised to send me another piece of the white felt that, fingers crossed, will be marked correctly and I can then get back to making the stocking. 

Hoping your week is going better than mine! A big thank you to everyone who pops along and reads this blog, your comments are much appreciated.

Until next time....happy stitching!

Rhona

The wolf has a body!

It's a typical November day here...dull and dreary....and terrible light to take pictures! 

I haven't done much stitching this week....sometimes life gets in the way of stitching time, but I have made some progress on those wolves in the design 'Winters lace'. This is where I was last time I worked on it....

....and this is my progress so far...

....we have a body and some snow in the foreground!

The light is kind of poor today for taking pictures, the blues in this piece are much brighter than they are showing up.

So, to sum up a very short post today....progress is progress even if it's not very much to see!  :)

Until next time....happy stitching!

Rhona