Final stitches for 2016

I’ve headed across the Tasman to spend Christmas with my parents, so not a great deal of stitching has been done, with the exception of the final three Christmas ornaments for 2016. I joined a Facebook group to stitch 12 ornaments from the JCS 2015 Christmas ornie magazine, and these are my final ones – and I think the only SAL I managed to actually start and finish in its entirety this year … with a whole 24 hours to spare in the year! 😛

“Snow” by Val’s Stuff (2015 JCS Christmas ornament issue)
stitched on 32ct Lugana (colour unknown)
with a mix of recommended threads and DMC

“Plenty” by Hands On Designs (2015 JCS Christmas ornament issue)
stitched on 32ct Steel Grey Belfast linen 
with my own choice of threads (Carrie’s Creation plus white DMC)
I changed the word ‘Plenty’ to be ‘Noel’ and added extra leaves and berries by the wording to balance it out a bit more

“Christmas in Red” by MTV Designs (2015 JCS Christmas ornament issue)
stitched on 28ct white Cashel linen
with DMC 4200 (Wild Fire – Colour Variations thread)
This will be folded up into a diamond shape when it’s finish-finished

Then while I was waiting for midnight to arrive on New Year’s Eve, I sat and unpicked a very old UFO that Mum had started for me not long after she started stitching. Unfortunately our stitching tensions are so vastly different that it would have looked terrible to combine both sets of stitching, so I’m starting it again from scratch myself. Mum has agreed she won’t stitch it, and her eyesight isn’t good enough to stitch anyway at the moment, but I’ll still think of it as ‘Mum’s stitching for me’, as she chose the kit knowing I love frangipanis.  She gave it a good attempt, but it’s time to get it out of the UFO pile and into the finishing pile 🙂  Unfortunately, though, I think some of the threads have been mixed up, so I’ll need to find somewhere that stocks Anchor threads to make sure I’ve got all the right threads (there are 4 greens in the WIP envelope, but only 3 greens in the design for example, plus there are a red and a brown thread in the WIP envelope and these aren’t used at all – Mum must’ve had a senior moment I think).

As for the year’s finishes, I don’t think I did too badly all considering – below is a visual summary of those I managed to finish before Christmas, plus the ones up above in this post) … yep, I’m relatively pleased, especially considering one of my finishes was a HAED mini and that’s a huge achievement in itself, I reckon!  I think it was 21 finishes in total 😀