Advent Calendar Blog Hop: Day 18

Hi Everyone,
Welcome to day 18 of Jo´s annual Advent Calendar blog hop, where you can see an assorted array of pretty festive stitching each day until Christmas from different participants.  Click here to view the calendar so far and to link with others.

This year I thought I´d make a few napkin holders and started stitching an embroidery pattern  by Olga at Live, Laugh, Love.

A sprinkling of speciality stitches and lots of sparkly beads in red and green, to which no justice has been done judging by my photos.

A piece of interfacing, backing fabric, different rick rack trimmings and a length of red ribbon to fasten.

I also finished my vertical wall calendar, a fun project which nearly fell by the wayside when I could not find any narrow green cording.

I had cajoled my local needlework shop into giving me an empty wooden ribbon spool and then promptly covered it with fabric and added a couple of wooden wheels to each end for decoration.

As yet it hasn´t been hung anywhere and I´m a very behind on decorating the house this year, only my little stick men candle holders have found a place to stand.  

The other request from our hop hostess this year, is to mention a favourite Christmas song, My preferences have already been mentioned in previous posts by others, but I enjoy hearing  the song Last Christmas by Wham.  Hope you enjoy it too.

Wishing everyone a Very Merry Christmas.

Sheryl

Bells

Hi Everyone,
This weekend is a long one for most Spanish people, as Thursday the 6th was the 40th anniversary of the Spanish Constitution and so a bank holiday and everyone takes the Friday off work and those days added to the weekend make a nice get-away for many families. Not ours this time.

I have been finishing my Christmas crochet bells and other odds and ends.

After having searched for a simple bell form to block my crochet and only having found one, I´ve come to the conclusion that bell decorations have definitely gone out of fashion.

In my last post I mentioned that I was following a pattern by Katy which I have used in the past but no, these bells are from a pattern called White Lace Bells by Moms Love of Crochet.

The odyssey experienced last year while sugar stiffening some crochet snowflakes has not been repeated this year as I followed several excellent youtube videos by Bronislava about blocking and cornstarching bells.... obviously the videos were made with me in mind surely?

I used of all things oval shaped candles covered in plastic and followed another tutorial by Bronislava to make the crochet clapper which I particularly liked and is finished with a long single crochet chain, long enough to hang the bell wherever.

Not sure just where that `wherever´ is at the moment but I also robbed a few metal thingies from old baubles to add to the top of each bell incase they are not topped with a bow.

Thank you for stopping by and I hope to see you on the 18th, my day for Jo´s Advent Calendar Blog Hop.

Linking to Wen for Simply Neutrals.

Sheryl

Slow Progress

Hi Everyone,

Before this month of November, which I´m convinced is having only a handful of days this year instead of the traditional 30, draws to an end, I´m hoping to complete a few Christmas projects which at the moment seem to have practically ground to a halt.

My stick men are nearly finished, bodies completed but lacking their scarves which were last seen years ago in the dark depths of the Xmas decorations box, yet to be retrieved from the storeroom.

I searched all over town without luck for a length of narrow green cording as our local needlework shop failed me, having every colour cording under the sun except green which had sold out.  I don´t like the second option for my calendar - you can see in the photo the different sizes and the larger size covers my embroidery a bit, so I can´t finish this work yet....perhaps I will leave off the cording.

In the Dreaded Drawer I found three embroidered Christmas trees, free patterns from the Internet which I stitched along with others a few years back to enclose in greeting cards but three didn´t get sent, so I have been completing the cards.

My crochet bells need starching and I am yet to find a polystyrene form or similar to shape properly the  bells, we only have a few too tiny decorations at home and our local Chinese bazaar, stocking a thousand and one lovely decorations, has no bells at all.  I´m following a free pattern by Katy at ergahandmade.

However not all is gloom and doom as Christmas is still a month away so hopefully these projects and  others will all get finished in time as these two hearts.

Patterns by Renato Parolin, also stitched last year and now with some added beads, are ready for display.

Hope you are all making progress with your Christmas stitching, I´m a bit behind with blogging visits and hope to catch up this week and see what you are all up to.

Sheryl

The People´s Choice - November

Hello Everyone,

I thought I might join Jo´s new SAL called `The People´s Choice´ celebrated the first Saturday of each month and with this month´s theme being birthstones.

Looking through my stitched items, I don´t seem to have embroidered anything at all to do with birthstones or gemstones in general or even a peridot in particular which happens to be my August birthstone.  However I found a Hardanger piece which I had finished with a sparkly gem.

I stitched the pattern on 28ct. antique white fabric using Anchor perlé thread #8 and #12 and a dash of Anchor floss Nº 93 for the dove´s eyes.  Other stitches include button hole edging, kloster blocks, wrapped bars, maltese crosses and a blanket stitch flower in the centre.

I didn´t want to make a bookmark as such and hunted about for a suitable frame.  I hardly ever frame embroidery.

and apparently this wasn´t going to be the exception either as none of the 20 odd examples knocking about in the basement were suitable and the above example just too small.  So how about a fabric frame?

linen from stash,  a bit of lace, some beads and buttons.

Thank you for looking.

Linking to Wen for Simply Neutrals

Sheryl

Smalls SAL - October

Hello Everyone,

Time again for the Smalls SAL, a linky party hosted by Heather at the Stitching Lotus where we show any small project worked on whether finished or not and link with others on the last Friday of each month.  Click on my sidebar button if you would like more information about this group.

This design by Abi Gurden from the Stitch Specialists was a free pattern for the Yahoo group years ago and after being carefully stitched and only lacking the embroidered surround, was incomprehensibly abandoned to the Dreaded Drawer, a drawer where unfinished projects await their completion or more likely never again see the light of day.

The pattern is called The Victorian Knotwork Garden and as always I love these designs where there are different embroidery stitches, in this case Square Rhodes, Eyelets and Rice stitch, all worked on 28ct. antique white evenweave fabric.  I chose DMC colours: 3777 - 734 - 732 - 301 - 3852 and 3820.

Now I want to combine this design with some autumn coloured hexagons and enthusiastically found suitable fabric in my stash and have made quite a lot of 1.5 inch examples although as yet I am still not sure as to exactly what I am going to make with them.

Probably cover a box or such, so I hope there will be some more progress to see in my next post.

I also had a nice surprise yesterday  on receiving these two pretty embroidery threads from the magazine Labores.  A craft magazine which I always buy or read at the library and which has a section that publishes readers work copied from the magazine  and with the promise of a gift if published. 

 I especially like the E211 from the Light Effects range of pearly pastel shades which I´ve never seen in the shops here although our LNS now stocks the DMC sparkly range of Etoile thread.

Now I´m going to visit the linky party. Hope you all have a lovely weekend, here we have a forecast of  storms and rain - ideal for stitching.

Sheryl

Biscobourse

Good morning blogger friends,

With DH away last weekend visiting relatives and me left to my own devices, I had plenty of time to plan some Christmas stitching and get some embroidery photographed.

The lilac fabric is a 32ct. belfast linen from Zweigart and the variegated mauve thread DMC Nº 99 of which I had to cut out some lengths when the colour faded to a pale tone and was hardly visible against the fabric.

I took different photos of the stages of sewing this biscobourse but when editing them I noticed that they all had smudges, well that is, there was a blob on my camera lens  -  didn´t I see this when taking the photos? .. well err.. no, I didn´t ... so couldn´t repeat the photos as the sewing had been completed.  The photo below is one of the awful smudgy ones but you can get the idea of how the biscobourse is sewn.

The three embroidered parts are backed with interfacing and joined as you see in the photo with a lining fabric underneath.

Note to myself.... check for blobs before taking photos.

The pattern for this biscobourse is from Les Chroniques de Frimousse and now completed with a ribbon fastening and a smattering of silver beads, it will hopefully be handy as a small Christmas gift filled with something or other....sweets for example?

Until next week.

Sheryl