A weekend of finishes!

This is what happens when you stay home on a rainy weekend. Last weekend I finished the following Christmas ornaments from various issues of the JCS Christmas Ornaments. The first one is Three Wisemen. Note to Suz: I had to make one or two substitutes for thread on this design. The symbol color was missing on the chart and all attempts to obtain the correct information gained nothing, so I had to just pick something to make it work.
The second one is Ho Ho Santa. I decided that I didn't want to backstitch all the Ho Ho Ho's around him so this is how he turned out.

The third one is Christmas Rose. I believe this one was the quickest to stitch so far.

I'm very pleased. Christmas Rose will go to a friend this year. Ho Ho Santa will probably be the one I use for the ornament exchange. And I think I'll be giving my Mom the Three Wisemen. I have some others that have been started and a new issue of the JCS Christmas Ornaments to choose some new ones from.

But Yay! I finished 3 more toward my 50 Project Challenge - #'s 19-21.

Another mini shopping spree...

Last weekend I had planned on staying home and just stitching and doing yardwork. I was woken on Saturday by the neighbors doing their yardwork so I thought it was a good time to get it done - while it was still cool. So I got up and mowed the lawn and trimmed a couple of bushes before I got tired. I went in and took my shower then once clad in comfy clothes I started cooking some food. I got a call from a friend who wanted me to come over. Which I did and once at my friend's, ended up in Placerville.

Of course I couldn't go to Placerville without stopping in at Kelsey's! And yes I managed to make a purchase. I bought:
JCS Christmas Ornament issue
the chart for "Wine a bit"
two colors of Weeks Dye Works
and a piece of fabric

The JCS issue is part of my exceptions but the rest is not-exactly. However - my exceptions state that no charts are to be bought with the "I'll get to it eventually" mindset and stuck in my stash. The fabric and thread can be used for both the chart I just purchased and the one trip previous. Also, because I work at a winery these are work related and I will stitch both and put them up in my office. So they both are going onto my 50 project challenge and I will start them as soon as I get a Christmas ornament started for the exchange.

Another finish!

We'll call this a second finish in two weeks. This is what I call Two Horses. I was making this for a friend's birthday. The black backstitching (mostly on the tan horse) is actually horse hair from my friend's horse's mane. (As I was petting her I took the loose hair off of her, it wasn't cut for this purpose.) I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out even though horse hair is not very easy to work with. Think metallic or blending filament. If you've ever worked with either of those two I just mentioned then you know what I mean. Anyway, I have a frame and now I have a mat and it'll be completely finished tonight and I can wrap it up.

Mini shopping sprees...

I've gone on a few mini shopping sprees lately. One trip to WalMart garnered 50 skeins of DMC and the next, 100 skeins. (Just in case anyone didn't know, they were marked down to 10 cents a skein!) Apparently WalMart is no longer going to carry DMC so stock up!

Also, over the weekend I ended up at Kelsey's in Placerville. I purchased the October '07 issue of JCS, Hinzeit's Wine design with charms, and a set of Q-Snaps 17x17. The Q-snaps are a gift for my "2nd daughter" for Christmas. (I don't think she reads this, but if she does it's not a big deal. I already told her that that's what she was getting.)

That's it for now until I get my gift certificate for finishing the large model and then it'll be a trip to Needle in a Haystack!

A New Finish!

This is a reproduction of an antique sampler. (Obviously as you can see it says 1825.) This project took me 10 months to complete. I do have to admit that there was a month during the summer that I didn't work on it at all. It was the whole frustration of being in the middle of the project and bored using the same colors (green, brown, gold, and beige) over and over again. Also, my life got awfully busy and I was having some physical problems, mostly lack of energy. But that seems to have abated. Anyway, I'm very pleased that this project is done and on it's way back to the designer. For one, it's a finish and we all know how important that is. (Beside the fact that I get to check another project off on my 50 project challenge!) For two, I get paid! I'm looking forward to spending the gift certificate that I will receive. I think I need to update my wishlist!

I'm working on the next model and it's going quite well. This one has only 3 colors to work with, but I have other projects to rotate in when the colors bother me. Now I need to choose a Christmas ornament to start stitching for the ornament exchange. I just bought the October issue of Just Cross Stitch that has a really cool Celtic knotwork tree in it and a preview of the ornaments in the ornament issue. I think I'll choose one out of there.