Just before I left for the US, the eagerly awaited Halloween stocking book by Blackbird Designs arrived in the shop. Which meant that I simply *had* to take it along and start at  least one of the stockings. So while travelling to the US, I picked the what I thought easiest stocking and started stitching. Oh, what fun are these stockings to stitch. Especially one that only requires 2 colors!

Now at some point in time, I will have enough courage to do the finishing. I have seen several tutorials on the web and hope that I will be able to do it myself . We’ll see.

My Countdown Calender has been sadly neglected these past weeks, but I have picked it up again and will make an effort to get at least all the stitching done this year. I think it’ll be a bit too much to get all the ornaments finished as well before December 1st. I am making good progress with the outlines of the squares, just a meager 26 more to go. After that, I still need to backstitch around most of them as well as stitch the numbers and motifs. Despite my delay in getting this done, it is a wonderful project to work on.

Here’s my progress up to number and motif 9.

Don’t know if I shared this before, but I am using most of the suggested threads, just added Threadworx 1089 for the red in the numbers and will also use it for the backstitches around the design. Here’s an example of what a finished piece looks like.

If you look carefully you can see the red backstitches. Next time I will put something next to the ornament so you’ll have an idea of the measurements. It’s tiny, believe me. Adorable but tiny.

While stitching up the squares, I need to think about my top piece as well. I want something different than what’s on the design, which means that I’ll have to go stash hunting for the right designs. I want at least a house or two, trees, critters and a cardinal or two.

As promised, here are the pictures of our shop quilts. The adventure started almost 2 years ago, when we celebrated our 5th year in business. We had some quilts hanging in our classroom and I mentioned once that I would love to have a quilt with stitched pieces in it. Some customers suggested to ask them to stitch a piece and make a quilt out of it. So when our 5th year in business came along, we decided to go ahead with the plan.

Every participant received a little 6 x6 inches square of Belfast cream and 2 colors of Venus thread (similar to DMC). I believe I included in the note that the stitched part shouldn’t be more than 50 x 50 stitches and they could choose any motif they liked. Somewhere along the line an alphabet was stitched as well. In the end over 110 stitchers participated in this adventure.

After about a year we had most of the squares returned to us and we found out that some letters were still missing. Fortunately, we had some customers who didn’t mind stitching another square and in the end our alphabet was complete as well.

I spent an afternoon with two amazing quilters to select the fabric. For those who quilt this may sound rather ignorant, but I had a very clear idea of which kind of fabrics I wanted to use and I was pretty sure it wouldn’t take long at all to select them. Which only shows that I know more about stitching than about quilting LOL. Anyway, we ended up with way different fabrics, but I thought they were gorgeous.

These wonderful ladies worked on our quilt for over 5 months and it resulted in two amazing shop quilts. The quilts are so special to us, just the thought that customers took the time to stitch something for us, make them very, very special. The quilts are now hanging in the shop and it is as if they have been there forever.

Here are two pictures of the quilts, I will post some pictures of the event of the 17th later on.

Aren’t they gorgeous? If you are “in the neighbourhood” do come by and see the quilts in person. They are more than worth the trip.

We are busy getting everything ready for the workshop day at Merkwaardig and I am not sure if I will be able to post before we leave Saturday morning real early (at least 6.30 am is real early for me LOL). So, I thought it would be nice to give you a sneak preview of what the shop’s quilt looks like.

The first picture is my mom’s stitching. As always she did a wonderful job. Those who visited their farmhouse when the shop was still there will no doubt recognize it.

And this is my piece. I know I’ve shown the stitched pieces before, but at least this will give you an idea of which colors we picked for the fabrics .

And in case you were wondering, or looking really close, yes, that are tied threads in the middle of the tiny square. The ladies who assembled the quilt for us had some extra thread left and decided to put it to use. I cannot even begin to imagine how much time they put into this.

Finally, here’s my finished stitching from Acufactum’s book Sommerland. I loved using the Vaupel & Heilenbeck threads (much like the DMC Flower thread). And the designs by Acufactum are always a pleasure to work on.

I think it’s been a while since I posted my primitive floss tags here, so I thought I’d share the one for October. It’s been just uploaded to the group. My friend Pam stitches the models and I do the finishing, which to be honest is quite easy. Ever since I got a Crop-a-Dile it’s been a lot easier. No more poking around with my scissors, just hoping that the hole would be big enough but not too big.

The Crop-a-Dile is a scrapbook tool, I got mine from Joann’s, but there are several places where you can get them. The one I have runs for about 20 dollars, so if you have a 50% off coupon from Joanns, it might be a good investment if you plan on making lots of floss tags.

Miss Murphy is enjoying my day at home as well it seems. She’s been sleeping on her little blanket near the computer most of the time. Now that it gets colder, she loves to be on her blanket as it is almost on the heating system. Keeps her nice and warm .

After yet another trip and a very exciting event at the shop (more about that later on), it’s time to update my blog again. Finally, some of you might say LOL.

When I got back from my holidays and market visit in the US, the JCS Christmas issue was patiently waiting for me. The release of this magazine is one of the highlights of the year for me. Every year I am anxious to see what the magazine will give us and hardly ever am I disappointed. So, still a bit jetlagged, I went through the magazine and marked which ornaments I wanted to stitch. Rest assured, I never manage to stitch as many ornaments as I pick out. I believe I found 25-30 that I would enjoy stitching.

Anyway, I thought I’d better start with something small and easy and this ornie by Val’s Stuff was just the right ornament to start with. It’s a great design, like so many of her designs.

I chickened out on the over 1 stitching, and used 32ct Belfast raw instead. Easy on the eyes. For the scarf I used a wool thread by Weeks Dye Works. They haven’t yet released their new wool line, but Miranda gave me a skein to try at home and it works like a charm. I wish you could feel how soft the stitched part is.

So, this one will go in my box of small unfinished items and we’ll see if it will grace my Christmas tree this year. At least I had a lot of fun stitching it .

As for the exciting event at the shop, we revealed our shop quilt, which was made by our customers last Saturday. I will post pictures of the quilt as well as the event later this week, but we’d like to have all the participants receive their picture before I post it here. Let me just tell you, it is amazing!

This is the free graph stitched up that is on the shop’s August newsletter. I have loved this graph ever since we got it and couldn’t wait to stitch it. I did the front, showed it to my mom and she said the back needed something as well. So Bird & Flower went home with her and you can see what she stitched. Mom also put the whole thing together and I worked my magic with the Crop-a-Dile to get the eyelet in.

Though you cannot really see it, I left out the Toasted Marshmallow as I didn’t like the color and used Weathered Barn for the backstitches around the design.

We have kits available in the shop for this cutie if you’re interested.

This is the second piece of Hedebo stitching that I did in Denmark. It is slightly different from the first one and I was able to do most of it rather quickly. Contrary to techniques like Hardanger and drawn thread, you first cut the threads and then start securing them. I must admit at first it was a little scary, but once you get used to it, it’s not scarier than cutting threads for other techniques.

And a few more pictures of antique Hedebo pieces that I saw in musea. I loved seeing how they used needlework to adorn their clothing.

I hope you didn’t seriously think that I would stop at just one Halloween ornament from the Prairie Schooler chart, because I didn’t LOL. Here’s another cutie, this must be the friendliest ghost in the Halloween world. He sure was a joy to stitch.

Every morning in Denmark, I’d work on my cross stitch projects. I don’t know about you, but whenever I am working on a technique, I find it very soothing and relaxing to do some cross stitch only projects. Cross stitching is something I know, something I can do almost without looking. Or maybe better said, I “feel” it when I do something wrong.

Trying to learn Hedebo was challenging, lots of stitches I had not done before and while I loved doing it, I surely appreciated my cross stitch project.

At the school where I stayed in Denmark, I started out with this piece of Hedebo. It was not very complicated, but the preparation work takes up a lot of time. I think that’s the same with any kind of technique where you cut threads. You just have to make sure the threads in the fabric are secured and that is not a quick job. But it was a lot of fun to do.

If you look carefully, you’ll see that I hadn’t cut away the threads yet. They are still on the backside of this piece. The threads are gone now and I need to come up with a way of finishing. I might just get a binder with all sorts of examples.