it's almost Christmas

Can you believe? It is already the end of November, which means it is almost Christmas. Have you started already with your Christmas preparations, like baking cookies, decking the halls and buying presents for your loved ones? To be honest, I haven't and I am not sure if I will this year. I am just way to busy with my day job as an upholsterer. Lots of chairs and sofas to repair and rebuild and it all has to be ready before the holidays. 

But it also has its advantage to be an upholsterer and that is all that beautiful fabric scrap. just last week I was able to lay my hands on a fabric sampler book that has been discontinued. 

The fabric comes in 27 different colours and has this roughly woven surface. I just love it. Of course with a surface like this I have to count the threads per inch and....

the count is 22 in one direction and 20 in the other. That makes it almost even and therefore suitable for cross stitching. I think it is perfect for making primitive looking ornaments and other smalls. And if not for the stitching, it is great as a background fabric. 

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Even thou I probably won't do much holiday decoration this years, I've done some Christmas stitching. My German cross stitch group started an advents-calender on November 8 and I think this is the most wonderful idea. Our groupmoms asked a few designer (including me) if they would like to design small holiday related ornaments. Now we are receiving every other day a new Christmas design. There are already 9 designs published but so far I found only time to stitch 2. The first design is by Kathy Bungard but the second one, the Holly branch is mine. I really love how it turned out. 

I've got a lot of positive response on my first published design and that encourages me to now getting all my other designs ready for publishing. This first one I will finish into an ornament and I hope I will get it ready before our next Finnish cross stitching meeting in beginning of December. 

A project revealed

Finally after many month of waiting I can reveal a long finished stitching project. This is the heart that I have stitched as a 50s birthday present for one of the group moms of my German Stitching Group. 

My stitched heart is one of many that have been assembled to a huge quilt. The quilt was presented today and as I have heard it came as a total surprise. So once again: HAPPY BIRTHDAY SUSANNE!

Another finish - Special Delivery

A few days ago I picked up Special Delivery by Black Bird Designs again and this morning I finally finished stitching it. It still needs finally finishing, but I am not sure yet what to use this sampler for. 

It was really difficult for me to decide which name to stitch under the sampler. First I thought to stitch my own, but I only have one first name and a birth year of 1978 is not as impressive. So I had to come up with a different solution. At the end I decided to use my grandmother's maiden name Maria Anna Mekers and her birthday. After all, it was her (and my Aunt Anny) who taught me how to cross stitch.

Here are some more close ups:

A new start and a finish....

it's been a while again since my last post. Since then I have finished one project. The Flowery ABCs. I really love how it turned out. It looks so elegant. My initials are stitched in a different colour. I think I will finish this one into a box, thou I don't have any nice fabric for it yet.

I have also been thinking of changing the look of my blog.  I don't really like the old look anymore. As you can see in this post, I have already started editing my pictures differently and added a watermark. Just last week I read on a friends blog, that one of her pictures has been taken and published on someone else's blog without even asking for it. This actually happened to myself ones before, but the person who took the picture was so kind to mention my full name and linked back to my own blog, thou still without asking.

I really like my background picture, thou it limits the space for pictures and side sections quite a lot. I have not yet figured out how to change this. Maybe I just have to let my pretty background go and do something totally new on my own.

And what I've always wanted to ask is: How often do you change your blog looks, layouts, backgrounds, header and so on?

I am ready!

Hi everyone! 

I finally finished my See the Star project. I placed the last few crosses last night. 

Now I am wondering if I should tea stain the finished piece a little. Just to get a little more aged look. I have stained fabric before, but never after stitching and that makes me a little nervous about it. Does anyone of you have experience in staining an already stitched design?

I think for this design I will go with a nice dark brown squared frame, thou it will take a while to get it actually done. I'd like to use an antique frame for this one and will look at local flea markets for one.