Christmas Ornaments – Page 4 – Feather Stitching

Christmas Ornaments, Cross Stitch, Finishes, Mosey 'n Me, Threads Through Time

Little finishes

11 March, 20106 April, 2014 Anne S

Katie and I have been hitting the lounge chairs almost as soon as we’ve walked in home at the end of each day, as we’re both a bit under the weather and really tired this week – it means we’re also now keeping on top of our TV viewing as well, and watching all our favourite shows within 24 hours of taping them … I’ve got Katie into my mindset of taping everything then watching it the next day and forwarding through the adverts … ah, bliss!

Of course all this sitting on my bottom early has meant a bit more stitching time this week … which would be great if I was stitching to my normal levels, but I’ve been stitching like an old snail this week, and it’s taken me 4 nights to complete one little ornie! Oh well, it’s better than nothing, and I have to admit it feels good to see one more kitted up finish off the pile.

“Reindeer Garden” by Threads Through Time
from 2000 JCS Christmas Ornament issue
stitched on 36ct cream Edinburgh linen with DMC

Once I’d finished Reindeer Garden, I also dragged out my Mosey n Me freebie “Love February” – I’ve never been happy with it ever since I stitched it back at the beginning of February … so I unpicked all the cream stitches and re-stitched in the pink colour, plus I was really unhappy with the green used for the rose’s stem, so out that went tonight as well, and I re-stitched the stem with a darker green. While the photo is really really washed out and bad, I’m a LOT happier with this version than the previous one, and really glad I opted to do some frog-stitching tonight! Now this one can officially join the “finished” list as well 😀

Before ……………………………………………. After

“Love February” by Mosey ‘n Me
stitched on 32ct Lambswool linen in DMC
with addition of small red heart button

As it was quite late by this stage, and I need to kit up some more charts/fabrics with their actual threads, I started stitching a simple JBW Designs Christmas ornie that was already kitted up tonight … I have a busy weekend planned, though, so no guarantees it’ll get finished until early next week … unless we have another DVD marathon tomorrow night 😉

With any luck my missing thread won’t be too far away now so I can get back to stitching my canvaswork Sapphire Star … I’ve also completed all the stitching of my Periwinkle Promises January Sampler Accent, but I’ve mislaid the teeny tiny bag of blue beads, and don’t seem to have the colour in my stash (Murphy’s Law!) … once I get a replacement packet, I just need to do the backstitching around the back piece of linen, make the corner tassels, and put it all together (I’ve obviously decided to use the linen backing instead of using the fabric for something else).

And on that note I’d better get my A into G and get some of those threads kitted up so I can jump into bed and get some shut-eye, so I’m a bit fresher for more stitching tomorrow night … and of course it’s a big day at work for a change, so I guess being fresh for work won’t go amiss either 😛

Christmas Ornaments, Cross Stitch, Exchanges, Home & Family TO BE FIXED, Works in Progress

Quick catch-up

8 March, 201025 February, 2012 Anne S

It was a busy weekend – started by Friday night’s shenanigans being dressed up as a nun for the Sound of Music Sing-a-long. I only managed to get one paltry photo taken without the flash, while in the office, so it’s incredibly unflattering (like most photos of me) … anyway, it gives you an idea of how I wandered around Sydney train stations and streets for the evening. We had a blast, and really enjoyed our meal at Retro Cafe next door to the theatre before the show.

Saturday I went with Katie to my hairdressers for a MUCH needed haircut!! I had to cancel a couple of weeks ago due to my vertigo/virus. I am now thrilled to be sporting a fringe once again, along with a couple of inches off the length … woohoo!!! 😀

While we were there we also decided to go the whole hog and had a beauty session while the other person was having a haircut. I got my eyebrows shaped and had my … shock, horror … first EVER pedicure!!! Oh boy, was it lovely – I enjoyed every minute of the pampering. I’ve been a tad stressed at work fairly recently, so it was really good to chill out and do nothing for the morning. Unfortunately, though, I was so exhausted afterwards (thanks to an early morning start) I ended up having a nana nap in the early evening … which didn’t help with the evening sleeping ritual … I ended up getting back up at 10pm and continued stitching my pin pillow exchange piece!

Sunday saw me getting up relatively late, but the entire day was spent in front of the gogglebox clearing up the hard-drive and watching Medium, Ghost Whisperer, Fringe and Good News Week episodes … but I DID manage to get the final stitches into my pin pillow exchange, and made it up in the little pillow … now it’s sitting in its padded envelope waiting for a visit to the Post Office during the week 😀

After finishing my exchange piece, I started a new Christmas ornament from an old JCS issue that I’d already got kitted up from a couple of years ago – I made an OK start into that one while watching TV last night … and I’ll put a few more stitches into it tonight.

Tomorrow I’m heading off to my GP to check a few things checked out – my lightheadedness continues, unfortunately, so I’m going to ask to get my blood pressure checked out. I’ve also had really bad acid reflux over the last few months, so that’s also on the list … better to be safe than sorry, I guess! And on that note, it’s time to go get some soup for dinner and settle in front of the TV for an hour or two 🙂

Christmas Ornaments, Cross Stitch, Finishing

A spot of Christmas ornie finishing

25 February, 201025 February, 2012 Anne S

At least I managed to stitch up 7 ornie sides before my sewing machine packed up … here are 6 I managed to fully complete last night – the last remaining one is for my tutorial, and I prefer to wait until the weekend when I’ll have better daylight for the photos … now I’m off to sit in front of the goggle box for an hour or two to chill out – TGIF tomorrow! 😀

PS: I should add that this isn’t all my handiwork – only the top left and top right ornaments were stitched by my own fair hand … the other four beauties were stitched by my Mum 😀

Canvaswork, Christmas Ornaments, Cross Stitch, Finishing, The Drawn Thread

Small ornie finishing session

8 November, 200925 February, 2012 Anne S

This week I’ve been a bit anti-social at home, rather being glued to the Ghost Trappers chat room and radio in my bedroom, so yesterday I made an effort to catch up with Katie while watching a bit of recorded TV, and decided to finish off a couple of old stitched ornies while sitting around. The following are the results of my wee finishing session – some were stitched by Mum (those on Aida), while the others were stitched by me.

The skiing Santa was one of the first XS pieces I ever stitched many years ago – Mum accidentally took it out of its hoop frame holder, so I made it into an ornie instead 🙂

I still have a HUGE pile of finishing yet to be done, but I figure if I just pull a few out every now and then it will eventually get whittled down. I’ve really lost my confidence with finishing over the last couple of years, so I think I need to just not think about it, and just do it – seems to be working so far! 😀

I also finished a pinkeep last night too, but I’m not happy with it this morning when seeing it in daylight, so I’m going to replace the ribbon used on it today, and hopefully will like the finished result a bit better.

Christmas Ornaments, Cross Stitch, Finishing, Tutorials

New tutorial for a Christmas Ornie

1 November, 200929 November, 2021 Anne S

Unfortunately I don’t think the Just Cross Stitch ornie magazine is very clear with their finishing instructions for ‘newbies’ so I thought I’d make one up myself to help people out that haven’t done this type of fnishing before – and show just how simple it is 🙂

CHRISTMAS ORNAMENT TUTORIAL

(the way Prairie Schooler finishes them)

Materials needed:

Stitched ornament
Felt in coordinating colour
Cardboard (I use matboard)
Batting (I prefer cotton)
Ribbon for hanger
Glue
Thread for lacing (I use crochet cotton or pearl cotton)

1. Firstly measure your stitched ornie for the size that you want the cardboard to be.

2. Next, cut out your cardboard/mattboard to the desired size. Add glue to one side of the cardboard, and place glue-side down on your batting. Even though I don’t show it in the photos, I actually smooth down the glue with a little offcut of mattboard so that the glue covers the cardboard evenly – that way you don’t feel ugly bumps on the front when it dries.

3. Once the glue has dried, cut around the cardboard shape and cut off the excess batting (my mattboard is black on one side, it just happened to be the piece that our local framers gave me).

4. Now it’s time to attach the stitched piece to the padded mattboard.

Turn the stitching over so the good side is facing down – place the padded mattboard padded-side down on top of the stitching.

5. My instructions for the next part are in relation to lacing the ornie together – I’ve found that this gives a much cleaner finish on the front of the ornie, and in particular in the corners. If you don’t want to lace, you can just use glue to stick the sides down in the same way – you’ll just have to be careful that the glue doesn’t dry before you have the stitched piece nicely centred on the front.

7. Next I start lacing – I usually start with a couple of little anchor stitches at the start, but here I used a waste-away knot first (this will be cut off later) – then you just work from one side of the ornie to the other, as you can see from the series of photos below.

8. At this point turn the stitched piece over and check that the stitching is sitting nicely centred over the mattboard. If it’s not centred perfectly, just give it a little jiggle around until it is nicely centred.

9. Turn the ornie back over again, and continue to lace the remaining two sides. Now I usually stitch up the mitred corners, as this really tidies up the corners and gives nice clean points.

10. The finished version should look something like this if you’ve laced it according to my version.

11. You now have the choice of adding your ribbon hanger now, or at the end. I always used to add my hanger at the end, but decided to try it this way for the tutorial, and have added the ribbon prior to adding the felt backing.

Cut a piece of ribbon to your preferred length – I ‘twist’ my ribbon to give it a nice loop, if you just fold it in half the ribbon doesn’t sit quite as nicely. Hopefully that makes sense, and you can see what I mean from the photos! Attach the ribbon with a couple of little stitches to attach it to the fabric – I prefer to stitch it rather than just gluing to ensure the ribbon hanger doesn’t fall off in a hurry.

12. Next, turn your ornie over and add glue to the back – I usually use Tacky Glue and once again I use a little offcut of mattboard to spread the glue out all over the backing, but this isn’t essential. I figure this will help to keep the glue stuck down for longer than just having a little bit on the edges 🙂

13. Now place your glued ornie down on the felt backing and ensure the felt is pressed down nice and evenly onto the glue. Then, using pinking shears, cut around the ornie shape – don’t forget to hold your ribbon hanger out of the way so it’s not accidentally lopped off!

14. If you prefer to add your ribbon hanger at the end, this is an example of one of my older finished ornies that I completed this way 🙂

15. And you now have a beautifully finished ornie – all you have to do is to hang it up on your (or a loved one’s) tree! 😀

I hope that’s easy enough to follow – if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to scream out and I’ll try to answer them.

Christmas Ornaments, Cross Stitch, Finishes, Friends & Family, Hunter Valley, JBW Designs, Prairie Schooler, Sydney

Great weekend & A bit of stitching for a change

3 August, 200925 February, 2012 Anne S

I’ve been offline most of the week thanks to feeling really crappy again during the week – this week, though, I’m making an appointment for a CT Scan for my sinuses and having some allergy tests done, so fingers crossed we can finally work out why this stupid sinus infection is hanging around for so many months and making me feel like death warmed up!

Last weekend, though, was a lovely treat for the month – I went to the Hunter Valley in NSW with Alison, Amanda and Sue for a stitching weekend away. Amanda kindly came and picked me up on Friday afternoon and chauffeured me – it was a lovely change for me, as I’m always the one driving. We arrived at about 7pm and walked into ‘our’ house to be greeted with a roaring log fire and dinner being prepped by Alison and Sue – the weekend was starting out on a blissful note already! The rest of the weekend didn’t disappoint either, it was a fantastic weekend away where we managed to combine some stitching (yes, we actually did do some), chatting, shopping, wining and dining, and I even made my very first scissor fob sale … to a lady vintner at one of my favourite vineyards up there (her white port is to die for in my opinion!). All-in-all it was a really awesome weekend, and hopefully we can make this an annual event, ‘cos I’m signing up for next year already!! Here’s a photo of our accommodation and home for the weekend, along with my fantastic company for the weekend 😀

The week before the retreat I managed to finish a little ornie stiching, and got the following ornie finished – it was supposed to be for the Yahoo group CYOO challenge, but I got a bit cranky during the month and couldn’t be bothered posting a photo on the board (and for once didn’t even bother doing the JCS monthly challenge one). I still hope to stitch an ornie a month, I just probably won’t be posting it on the board.

“Joy, Love, Peace” by JBW Designs
stitched on 32ct natural Belfast linen
with WDW Garnet and GAST Dried Thyme

During the weekend retreat I managed to put a reasonable amount of stitching into Prairie Schooler’s 2005 Limited Edition Santa, and during this weekend I’ve been able to put the final stitches into it after having a marathon stitching session on Saturday. The only thing I changed is to leave out the “2005” which is stitched in Black Coffee Crescent Colours below each side of the green letter blocks, and added a couple of random snowflakes instead.

“Here Comes Santa Claus 2005” by The Prairie Schooler
stitched on 28ct natural Cashel linen
with kit Crescent Colours threads

I love how the snowflakes lift off of the fabric – hard to see in the photo

Now I’m off to try to create my soon-to-be Etsy store, as I’ve also got a whole heap of scissor fobs to load up into the store. I had another beading session yesterday while Katie and I watched Supernatural Season 4 on DVD (that was after we had a few hours out at Miranda shopping centre where we saw the latest Harry Potter movie). I’ll do a separate post of the latest ones that I created yesterday, plus a couple of close-ups of my latest favourites …

Christmas Ornaments, Cross Stitch, Finishes, Imaginating Inc, Works in Progress

Missing in Action … Again

5 July, 200925 February, 2012 Anne S

Finally over the last two weeks I’ve been feeling ‘normal’ again – after two months of being as sick as a dog, it feels great to finally get some of the old energy levels back and feel like doing things again.

Two weeks ago Katie’s Mum came up to visit for the weekend, so I drove us down to Bowral and Berrima for the day. I managed to pick up some darkish fabric to complete the set of fabrics of a potential quilt top … now I just need to find the original pattern for it, or work out how to use my quilting software that I bought years ago to replicate the design – one day…

This week saw me getting up before the crack of dawn with Katie to head out to the gym before work – which then had the effect of seeing me in bed exhausted at 9pm every night … which hasn’t been particularly conducive to stitching of late! It will, however, (assuming I can keep this up) be conducive to shifting some of this weight and getting me healthier overall … which will also help to give me added years to do my stitching with any luck 😉

Unfortunately my camera battery died over a week ago, and I keep forgetting to charge it up again, so the following stitching finishes are compliments of my scanner, which means they’re truly, truly dreadful photos! These were finished over a week ago, with the Christmas ornie just finished in time for June’s monthly challenge. Once my camera battery is charged up, I’ll take proper photos of them and replace the ones below.

Chatelaine’s Stitching Leporello

“Heartfelt Harvey” by Imaginating, Inc
from 2008 JCS Christmas Ornament issue
stitched on 36ct vintage blue evenweave
with Gloriana silk in Deep Blue Sea

Last night I put the final stitches into KarenV’s Quaker RR piece, but I’ll wait and charge my camera battery up today before I show a photo.

Friday night saw farewell drinks and dinner for the member of our team who was made redundant in the recent job cuts. He’s been one of the few people in the office that has helped me to keep my sanity – he’s a bit of a geek, and very introverted, and reminds me a lot of myself … we’d both often work late and that’s when I’d get to know him more, when others weren’t around. I will miss him incredibly … and wish him all the very best for whatever direction life takes him into next. The room spun in his honour on Friday night when I got home … so I guess we gave him a good send off!! 😛

Rightio, that’s about all the news here – not very exciting at Chez Feather Stitching at the moment … I am, however, really itching to start a new stitching project, I just can’t decide which one for now. Perhaps I should put a poll up, or just draw numbers out of a hat … either way, the month will be spent on more of Chatelaine’s Stitching Leporello (I only have a couple more pieces to stitch now), the next instalment of our Quaker RR, and two Christmas ornies for this month’s challenges, and starting whatever new project screams the loudest (or is the luckiest to get drawn out of the hat!).

Christmas Ornaments, Finishes, Heart in Hand Needleart, Mill Hill, Needlerolls, scissor fobs, Shepherd's Bush

Couple of small finishes

8 June, 200925 February, 2012 Anne S

After having one whole half week of feeling fantastic and over my viral bugs, on Saturday morning I woke up with a sore throat, and have been a snot factory for the last 48 hours yet again … too much information, I know … fingers crossed this round won’t hang around for quite so long! Having a ‘cold’ for the last 6 whole weeks was just a teensy tiny bit too much, especially when two of those ended up being without pay 😦

Anyway, over the last week or two I’ve been sitting and stitching a few tiny projects, and here are the results:

First up a freebie from IHLE-Design, stitched in a DMC variegated floss:

Then a wee freebie from My Aunt’s Attic, stitched in a Carrie’s Threads floss:

Afterwards, in need to something else to stitch, I decided to finish off a Christmas ornament that I started when visiting Mum in Auckland back in April:

“Christmas Cheer” by Heart in Hand Needleart

Next up this weekend was Folk Heart Needleroll by Shepherd’s Bush:

“Folk Heart Needleroll” by Shepherd’s Bush

And lucky last, Ice Blue Snowflake ornament by Mill Hill:

“Ice Blue Snowflake” by Mill Hill

Long weekends are great, especially when you sit up in bed all day with the sniffles!! 😀

Chatelaine, Christmas Ornaments, Finishes, Full Circle Designs, Home & Family TO BE FIXED, Stitching Leporello, Sweetheart Tree

Missing in Action

16 May, 200925 February, 2012 Anne S

I’ve been giving my computer a wide berth over the last couple of weeks … I’ve had a set-back with my health, after going back to square one with a viral relapse two weeks ago and feeling like death warmed up. I’ve been struggling to get through work every day, and after a full 4 weeks of feeling like cr*p, I ended up back at the GP’s office this week after dislodging a rib from trying to cough up my lungs on Thursday morning. After finding I had a temperature (which is totally unheard of for me), and kept bursting into tears all morning I’ve ended up off work again to try to recuperate. My “immunity is knackered” (direct quote from the GP), so I’m taking it easy, and continuing to take some time away from the PC.

I think my Mum is missing my blog posts, however, so I’m making an effort to catch up quickly with my latest stitching before switching off again. I owe some people emails, and will get on top of that shortly …

While I’ve been offline I’ve managed the following stitching finishes:

“A Christmas Song” by Full Circle Designs (2008 JCS ornie magazine)
Stitched on 32ct Days Gone By Silkweaver linen
with a mix of threads substituting those of the
recommended threads I didn’t have

“Stitching Leporello” by Chatelaine

“Snowflakes in Abundance” by The Sweetheart Tree
stitched on 32ct white Lugana
with recommended threads,
but substituting the snowflake charm

Christmas Ornaments, Finishing, pinkeeps, Stitching Smalls, tin topper

Final finishes for the day

17 April, 200925 February, 2012 Anne S

It’s been a very productive day, finishing-wise – I’ve really enjoyed getting a few pieces into a finished state, and look forward to having a few more days like it in upcoming weeks. Following are the final pieces (except for one ornie which is still drying, after gluing the cording on – I’ll take a photo over the weekend when I can):

First up are a couple more Christmas ornies finished off:

Then another wee pinkeep:

And finally my first attempt at a tin topper – this is FAR from perfect, and there are many things I’d do differently next time, but it’s OK for a first attempt I guess. It was supposed to be a gift for someone, but I’m not entirely sure it’s good enough for that … I’ll have to think that over, I think … In any case, I need to find my magnetic strips to add to the inside lid, but they have so far eluded me today! I do like the little ‘bow’ on the front of the lid, made from two loops of velvet ribbon 🙂