On to Joseph

It's about time...Mary and Jesus have been waiting.  Why does Amy have to DATE her stitch guides?

2008 to 2013...you do the math.


Still plugging away,

Linda

The Christmas Train Leaves the Station

The train is complete!  Only three cars and only three years!  I learned a lot with this project.  How to make beautiful trees and wreaths and all kinds of bows.  And I learned to stick to it and finish!  I must be growing up.

Have a wonderful week...now off to find my finishing for 2013

Linda

Perspective vs Rush Rush Rush

I know that everyone is counting the days until Christmas and wondering how to get everything done in time.  But, it's always good to have some perspective in life.  I have been organizing my stuff ( a daily task) and came upon a newspaper that we must have purchased at the USS Arizona gift shop when we were in Honolulu.  The headline says so so much

It is a sobering thought that we can as a nation rise to the challenge.  Also, remember that day long ago when Christmas overload was put aside and people reached way down and realized what was (and still is) important in life.  If you have never been to the Punchbowl  in Honolulu and read the ages of the sailors (children really) on those tombstones you have not really experienced what it means to be an American, a FREE American.

Also, take a look at how long it took Congress to act!!

Here's my finishing for the week.  I'm piling it up to send after New Years! I'm going to have loads of great new Halloween stuff next year.

The bow is made with wire and beads- so much easier to shape

The bow on the Halloween apple

Here's the finished apple

And the cone is finished too

Have a wonderful weekend.  Remember all those who have served our country and are serving it still.

REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR

Linda

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Remember when we used to STITCH fobs?  That was so before the bead craze!

Have you ever seen a 3 page Amy Bunger stitch guide???  I hadn't until I got my Halloween Candy apple...here's the icing on the apple...yes I'm still loving my Halloween stitching!

Enjoy the pies!  My only day to eat pecan pie....yum

Linda

A New Needlepoint Category

Christmas Train Wheels

There are so many categories for needlepoint....Christmas, Halloween, standups, ornaments, pillows and so on.  I have a new one.

The WHY DIDN'T I FINISH THIS WHEN I KNEW WHAT I WAS DOING?????  category.  It's almost that season again and this year I would really like to work on finishing my Raymond Crawford Christmas train.  Here is one of the wheels.  That's a smooth spider in the center.  Why oh why didn't I do the last 3 wheels when it was oh so easy and I had the same tension in my stitching???  I think it's been 2 years since I took this class and while I keep up pretty well while the class is going on, when I get to the last lesson and actually finishing...I am a disaster.

Here's a few more glimpses of parts of the train that look almost FOREIGN to me

I have to recreate the stitch in the tree for the wreaths in the windows of the third car :-(

And here are some bows....did I actually do that????

Enjoy Thanksgiving!

Linda

Rings on Her Fingers

Hi everyone,

I don't know what happened to Thanksgiving this year, but it is all about Christmas around town.  I think Thanksgiving was about 6 weeks ago?  And I am still finishing up those last Halloween ornaments???

Here's number 5 of the 12 Days of Christmas and the edges of two of those rings required making cording and pulling it through and anchoring it so it didn't show through the open purple background.

First you make the cording and then thread a 6 inch piece of kreinik through the loop

take the cut ends and put those through the needle (a bigger one than the canvas calls for)

Use your laying tool to enlarge the holes that you will come up and down in with the cording

pull it through and whip stitch it on the back


EASY PEASY

And here are two more Golden Crackers finished

One thing about the Golden Crackers - I now have a GREAT stash of gold thread and beads!

See you soon,

Linda

Gray Clouds

Hi everyone,

I'm on the last panel of my Halloween cone and I have to do something with the gray cloud next to the moon.  Don't you love Frank?  He looks like a rapper.

I wanted to use gathered Frosty Rays but I didn't have the right color.

Had this, but it was too light

And then I found this in my thread stash

So I started tubing the two together (this is tip #2 from class last weekend).  The Frosty Rays is a nylon tubed thread perfect for inserting other colors.  Here I threaded up the Silk Lame Braid and threaded it through the Frosty Rays to the other end, making it a deeper gray color

Now I can gather it up and make the cloud the right color

Enjoy your weekend.  THANK A VETERAN!

Linda

Susan Portra Takes On Jurassic Park

Ally about to eat Lisa's Texas magnet

Hi everyone,

Here's my canvas from last weekend's Bring your Canvas to Life class with Susan Portra at Needlepoint in Paradise in Naples.  All around me were beautiful flowers, Christmas stockings and standups, The Thanksgiving March and the Christmas March.   What did I have??  You guessed it...a Florida Gator.  That's what happens when you let your husband pick out the canvas :)  Yes those are real pearl teeth!

I learned oh so many tips from class so here is one.  Do you ever make a huge mess of your floss when you pull on it?   Here's the tip

With Anchor Floss

first you push the tabs together

Then pull the thread from the TOP

With DMC floss, push the tabs together as before

and pull from the BOTTOM

She also showed us a super cool way to make a realistic Christmas tree, but I need to try it out first.  You use looped turkey work as the layers of the tree. (I learned that from watching her teach the Christmas March).

Me...I learned how to make water move!  I'll clean up "Ally" and get some stitches to show you next time.

Have a great week!


Linda

On Track (Sort of)

Hi everyone,

I am almost done with my Halloween stitching...good thing since Halloween is Thursday!  I must say that having the World Series on almost every night helps.  I had no idea the Boston Red Socks actually have RED SOCKS on their jerseys!

Here is my candy

These really come to life with the beads

And the glow in the dark witch from her cone...great boucle hair.

And I finished the first firecracker

I tried working on my UFO which is due in June but SOMEBODY managed to eat the thread so I had to put that on hold.  Here's what the thread looked like after I reached down her throat to retrieve it :(  My husband still doesn't believe that I do that.  I pull all kinds of stuff out of her mouth... some animate and some inanimate and we will leave it at that.

Off to Naples on Friday for a class with Susan Portra!  Taking rock star Lisa from Accoutrement Designs so hopefully we will get a good seat.

Linda

Holiday Jumble

Hi everyone,

I've been working on my Halloween works in progress and along the way received some Christmas finishing back!  I also got a start on the little firecrackers from Ruth.  They look much better in person.  So October has been a jumble of starting and finishing.



Here's the gingerbread lady

and here is the first little firecracker almost done but the beading on the top

Here are the Halloween pieces

I have 2 matching cones...one finished

the second one has the same bottom half but different top panels.  The witch is going to get orange Boucle hair!

and another Halloween candy almost done.  I plan to do the last 2 next year.

Have a great weekend!

Linda

Why I Love October

Here she is all finished!  Now lest you think I am a fast stitcher, I must confess that this canvas dates to 2007 when I first went to Aristeia while on a college trip with my youngest daughter.  I think I have worked on this canvas at least 5 different times.  Who knew I only had a week's worth of work left!

Here are some details

The shoes...I couldn't find the right beads so I just took some fyre werks and did french knots.

the umbrella...it was Susan Portra's idea to put the green beads on the fringe

the tassel

and one more closeup

I also re-started working on my Halloween candies- have 3 left after this one

check out the crystals

and I turned in my last golden cracker for finishing!

Now why do I love October?

1.  It starts getting cooler! and when it finally does we have 6 months of beautiful weather

2.  I love Halloween - little kids all dressed up, candy, candy, and more candy

3.  There is no stress to this holiday - EVERYONE has a great time!

4.  Last but not least I spend the WHOLE month stitching with my favorite colors!

Have a great weekend,

Linda