First-Ever Pre-Halloween Snow

Well, the locals told us it would snow before Halloween, and lo and behold, it did! It began yesterday around 6 p.m. and snowed lightly all evening. It wasn't much, but it was so nice. There's nothing quite like the very first snow of the season. The part of the East Coast we moved from usually doesn't have much in the way of snowfall until January, and being from Texas originally, pre-Halloween snowfall is just bizarre to us. 

We're supposed to get more tonight and tomorrow, and I'm looking forward to putting on a crock pot of soup and cozying up in my sewing room to stitch and watch the snow fall. 

Our first winter on the Great Plains is underway. I'm armed with cozy blankets, a new soup cookbook (with 300+ recipes!), and enough stash to provide projects to every person in Siberia. Let's do this.

Christmas Ornament SAL October Finish

Here's my October choice for the Christmas Ornament SAL. This is from the 2003 issue of Just Cross Stitch Christmas Ornaments.

It's stitched on 30 ct. English Ivy from R&R Reproductions, with GAST Antique Rose and Oatmeal, and CC Weeping Willow. The beads are Mill Hill  #2012.

I'm two (!) ornaments away from finishing this year-long SAL and having a set of twelve ornaments for my sewing room tree!

I'm spending all my spare time working on Christmas Open House lovelies. I wanted to do more fall/Halloween stitching, but with the big move this spring and everything that's happened since, the time is just too short. I suppose I could skip my Open House this year, but it's become a tradition for me and I would miss it. So I'm working on it as much as I can, with quick little breaks for whipping up an ornament here and there. November at my house is going to be... interesting. It's going to look like the North Pole three days before Christmas!

Basket Season

Snuggle down, y'all. It's Basket Season.

And just in case you missed it, here's a new fall freebie. It's one of the prettiest I've seen in a long while. Enjoy!

Pink & Green Ornaments, Part 1

For the Christmas Ornament SAL, I have nine ornaments stitched (January through September), and I have six finished. (If you're new here, these ornaments are for the Christmas tree in my pink and green sewing room.) I hope to get the finishing on the remaining three done next week. Then I'll be caught up to October, with only three more to stitch and finish. This SAL has been great for keeping me on track with ornament stitching during this very busy year (click on the image in the right sidebar to go to the SAL page).

This crocheted banner thingy is something I picked up at Hobby Lobby during the summer a few years ago. It looked useful as... something. When I'm doing a lot of finishing at once, I quickly run out of space to display my finishes as I complete them. I want to keep them out for a while and enjoy them--who wants to put in all that effort and then immediately store them away? So I nailed this crocheted banner to a little scrap of wall in my sewing room and pinned my finishes to it as I completed them. Now I can see them all together, see how the colors are working, and just enjoy my work.

January and March

February

September and April

June

For info on any of these ornaments, click on the Christmas Ornament SAL label at the bottom of this post. All the info on sources and color conversions is posted.

Bead Trim for Ornaments

I've been wanting a bead trim option for my ornaments for some time now, and I finally found one I like. As is usual for me, it's an adaptation and is not actually bead trim at all--it's for jewelry making, but I think it works.

I referred to this tutorial, but of course left off the jewelry findings on the ends. I used SuperDuo beads and regular Mill Hill seed beads, and used tiny sequin pins to attach the trim to the ornament. I then used a Sharpie that matched the seed beads to dot the pin heads to conceal them. 

These are what the beads look like. I had these in my stash for a while, having bought them because I liked the colors and thinking I would eventually figure out how to use them for finishing. Not being a jewelry maker, I had no idea, so I asked a lady shopping in the bead aisle who looked like she knew what she was doing. She very kindly gave me an idea about stringing them, and that was enough to put me on the right track. 

I needed a 15" length of trim for this ornament and although it was a bit fiddly and slow at first, I did get the hang of the two needles and got faster toward the end. I'm happy with how it turned out and already have my eye on this bead trim for another of my ornaments. 

Crocheted Doily Ornament Finish

So. Last October's flu shot knocked me on my backside and derailed plans I had made to do a bunch of finishing and framing that week.

This year, I was smart, and came up with my Flu Shot Plot. I spent a few days getting all my housework and a bunch of cooking done, just in case I did another post-shot face plant. But the cleverest part of my plot was this: if I didn't end up sleeping for two days... all my stuff would already be done and I could spend the week playing in my sewing room! 

I am happy to report that it's play time! I got my shot yesterday, and apart from a sore arm and some heavy duty napping yesterday afternoon, I've had no side effects and I'm ready to do some finishing! Hooray! It's been way too long and I am way too behind. I'm so looking forward to being in my sewing room, making a mess, and sharing the results with y'all.

I decided not to over-do it today, though. I did some tidying up in there... because it's always important to tidy up before you make a big mess. And I whipped out a super simple ornament using my September Christmas Ornament SAL finish that I showed last week. 

This finish is as easy as falling off a log. I found the little craft doily on clearance at Jo-Ann's for 97 cents. I've seen these craft doilies at Hobby Lobby, too. You can usually find them in white or ivory, and they come in various sizes. I just gave this one a little spritz with spray starch, ironed it, and glued my finish on--that's it! Inexpensive, simple, fast. This finish can be completed in just minutes.

Just so y'all can see what a difference the starch makes, here are before and after pictures of the little doily I used for this finish.

Finishing doesn't always have to be elaborate and time-consuming. Sometimes the most satisfying finishes are the simplest.

A Very Good Day

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.

~Genesis 1.31