Wrapping Up and Kicking Off

For my first post of the new year, I thought I’d wrap up 2009 by posting pictures of my final finish for the year and kick of 2010 with a couple projects that I finished the stitching on tonight.

First off, my final finish:

This came from the pattern “Mittens Once More” by The Cricket Collection.  As you can see, I stitched this for someone else.  This is the second year that my group of close stitching friends exchanged ornaments.  My friend Val is a bear collector and especially likes the Polar variety.  The mitten was a bit plain on it’s own, so I replaced the berries in the wreath with beads (instead of stitches) and added the iridescent snowflakes to the side for some added sparkle to the final piece.

My friend Maggie had my name for this exchange and stitched this beautiful ornament for me:

She said this pattern came from one of the JCS ornament issues (sorry, don’t have the year handy “Stars in the Pines” by Rosewood Manor from the 2003 issue).  She also confessed that drawing my name for the exchange was bit intimidating (she hasn’t been stitching as long as I have), but I think she did a fabulous job.  Her piece appealed to my love of stitching and quilting.  Plus the background reminds me of blackwork, which I love too.  And she did the finishing all on her own.  It had been over a year since I showed her how to finish ornaments and she remembered it all.

Tonight, I finished the stitching on a couple pieces, which is highly unusual for me.  But they both were smaller project and easy to stitch up.  The older of the two, was a piece I started last summer:

This was a kit from The Trilogy called “Pumpkin Harvest”.  I’m thinking of finishing this into a long slender pillow, but I’m still thinking it over.

The next piece I finished tonight was the first installment of the new LHN monthly ornaments:

I started this only a few days ago, so it’s a 2010 start and finish…woohoo.  So of course I made a few small tweaks to mine (personal preferences).  The candle didn’t have a flame in the original chart, so I added one yellow bead to resemble a flame.  Then I spaced the eyes on the girls a little farther apart than the pattern called for.   And I also changed the french knot that were suppose to be stitched for the mouths with backstitching so the mouths are more open to look like they’re singing an “ah” sound….”Fa La La”.  The french knots would be small little dots and would look like they singing more of an “oh” sound.  Hopefully that makes some sense to you.

I’m not sure if I’ll actually finish these into ornaments.  They are a bit larger than most ornaments, about 4″ square without margins.  I’ve only seen the first two designs so far and will have to see more of them before I decide how I’ll “finish” all twelve.  I’m wondering if they all might look nice as a quilted wall hanging.  Hmmm, we’ll see.

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