Well, here's my latest start...Lizzie Kate's ABC Lessons. Mike bought this one (and the Christmas ABC's one) for me for my birthday. It's a fun, easy stitch, which was a nice break after stitching on Frederick last week. This wasn't all done this weekend, it was a week's worth of stitching.
Yesterday was our So Cal Stitchers Group get together at a local "medium box" craft store. It's not a national chain, just a local chain with (I think) 3 stores. The location we go to has a nice classroom area, and you can rent a table for the day for $5. The tables are set up in kind of blocks of 4, and we can easily sit 8 around a block of 4. So....for $20, 8 of us can stitch the day away! We were there from 9 am to 6 pm with a short break for lunch. Everyone was stitching away, and we had a great time laughing, talking, and TRYING to count! LOL! I was working on my dollhouse project - I'm almost done with the kitchen, so maybe soon I'll have some pictures of another finished room.
Then this evening I watched a really cool episode of "Ace of Cakes" . I don't know if you're familiar, but it's the one with Duff Goldman (I know some people think he's obnoxious, but I think his bakery does awesome cakes). This particular episode (which I think will be on a couple of more times - the description says it's about a building being demolished, which is one of the other cakes in the episode). The cake I was interested in was a replica of a cross-stitched stocking! The woman the cake was being made for has stiched FIFTY THREE stockings for her family members. Her husband wanted to surprise her, so he brought pictures of her stocking to the bakery for them to make a replica. They made a stocking shaped cake, and the decorator actually piped individual little X's to make the pictures on the cake. It really was awesome, and it was neat to see an artist in another medium (cake decorating) have "respect" (for lack of a better word) for the technique of cross-stitching. She actually took fondant and put it over graph paper on top of a light box to get the squares for the X's. If you get a chance, check it out!!!
Now this week I HAVE to start on family calendars. I make a calendar for my family every year for Christmas - actually I think I make 10 of them, because each one is a tad different than the others. I incorporate pictures each month of the family members who have occasions in that month, and put their occasion where it belongs on the calendar. It is a lot of work, but I love doing it. I think this is the 6th year I've done them! They actually take longer to print than they do to design! LOL
So....not sure how much stitching time I'll get this week. But...I'll be back!!!
Have a GREAT week! And thank you, as always, for your comments!
Here's the whole picture as it stands right now. It's pretty big - I took the picture on top of a folding TV tray, and it pretty much covers the whole top of it. It's a magazine pattern from an issue of Cross Stitch Gold - I think it was in 2008, but I don't remember what month. It's my "big" travel project. I stitch on it at lunch time at work, or if I'm somewhere stitching that I have a table I can use - it's too big otherwise! I really like the colors - kind of a combo of pastels and bolder colors. Lots of backstitching still to do after I'm done with the regular stitching.
This is my attempt at a creative finish - you can't really tell from the picture, but I made it into a "triptych" if you will (forgive my spelling! LOL). The three are connected by two ribbons (You can kind of see it between the snowmen) and then they're backed like you would a flatfold. The fabric I backed them with is kind of a royal blue with white snowflakes. This one is a hostess gift for my brother and sister-in-law who are having us over on Christmas. 