From the Netherlands

Oh my! I have just received the most wonderful ornament and extra goodies too. It is so much fun to receive stitched gifts from around the world. This one is from Annemiek. Isn't it wonderful?! I love it! I've learned the desiger is Little House Needleworks and this design is in the 2005 JCS Ornament issue. I love this americana style designer.
This is the second item I have received from Annemiek and her stitching is excellent, of course. This proves good things come to those who wait.
Thank you so much, Annemiek! My husband loves it too. The girls haven't seen it yet.
Thank you also for the beautiful sparkly fabric, the gorgeous Gloriana silk, and the cute Christmas sticky notes. Blessings to you and your family this Christmas season and Happy New Year too!

Rose Parade - Trader Joe's float

My plan was to keep this blog to stitching related posts. However, I must digress. It's not the best picture in the world, but what you are looking at is a picture of my daughter and her friend working on Trader Joe's entry for the 117th Annual Pasadena Rose Parade. It was the feature article in the Local section of the Orange County Register. She is a Key Club member at her high school and this was a service project they were honored to participate in. That's my girl! She the one in the jacket and hat.

I am officially a Model Stitcher

I don't exactly know why, but I've wanted to be a model stitcher for some time now. The first item I completed is now on the designers new website. I have to admit it is kind of fun to see it (even though the pic is super blurry).
Curious? Visit The World of S for a look at it. I stitched the letter "V" of the Ruritania style. I was glad when it was done and shipped off to Australia.

Soon, I will be working on another piece for a different designer. I am really looking forward to this next one.

Edited to add:

Subject: References - oodles of them

The following stitchers did a great job stitching for me:

Veronica (Senorita Stitcher) did an absolutely beautiful job of the
Ruritania V. And I have to say I have never seen anything packed so
beautifully!
Thanks so much to all of you for your wonderful sticthing and for
helping me to get started.

Sharon Carlton
www.theworldofs.com

Marvelous Malaysian REDWORK

I am just beside myself with utter elation over the Redwork Exchange piece I have received. It came to me from the other side of the world - Malaysia. It is the most wonderful bourse. Thank you Leena! It was worth the wait. I will treasure it forever.
I am posting these scans but I am hoping Leena has digital pics I can substitute.

I've been busy!

Here they are! All three of the ornaments I stitched AND finished for exchanges this year. I consider this an enormous accomplishment! LOL...
The mini stocking is from an older leaflet by NeedleLove (I think).
The Santa is this years' Prairie Schooler 2005. He is a quilter. :) I learned the box finish technique from Judy O'dell's on-line class. It's easy. Give it a try!
The last one is from a back ornament issue of JCS. It's by Darlene O'Steen. The design is a continuum of the breast cancer ribbon. I modified it. Basically, I sized it down to 1/4 of the design and added a tassel. It's my first attempt at a fancy tassel with beads.

Christmas Ornament Exchange

I joined three Christmas ornament exchanges this year. I love Christmas. While I am still waiting to receive my redwork exchange, it was a special treat to receive this one a bit early. Thanks to Stacie! She did a great job of picking something I would enjoy- both sampler motifs and sajou letters. Cute tassels too, don't you think?

Antique Redwork

Thankfully, my redwork project has been received by Murielle. These are my scans of the project. I dream of owning a digital camera someday. If you want to see the wonders of a digital photo compared to the scan you must visit Murielle's blog.

Murielle’s blog
Be prepared. The blog and gallery of a PCB member is a sight to behold.

A little detail about my project- The motifs are from a french book, Repertoire des Frises, by Valerie Lejeune. If I owned only this book alone, I could stitch for the rest of my life. My goal was to try to achieve an antique look. I love antique needlework and tools. Someday I plan to own some. For now, I must mimick it. The cushion is stuffed with wool. The thread is Vicky Clayton's silk floss in garnet, one of my favorites. The ribbon edging did not come out quite like I had hoped - it was hard! I know how I'll do it next time, so I have learned something and that makes me happy. Besides that, Murielle loves it, and that makes my heart glad.

Senorita Stitcher Stitches by the Seaside

This is the blog I used for a short while. I did not like the photo part of it. Everything about it takes too long. I'm using blogger now but I need to learn some more html tricks when I have some time.

Red

Here is my project for the Redwork Exchange on the Stitching Bloggers Board.

The contents are secret for now :)

Sampler Guild Party

I had a fun day today. I belong to a sampler guild and today was our end of the year party. Our special speaker today was Jean Lea, of The Attic needlework shop in Mesa AZ. Our guild stitches ornaments for her shop's breast cancer fundraiser auction every year. As part of our year end gift we each received Jean's first published design and it's just wonderful. It's called the Chocolate Sampler and obviously, it's all about chocolate. She tucked in a couple of the chocolate Dove Promises in each kit and cautioned us not to leave it in the car with the hot sun on it. :) No problemo! Every member received a black bag with orange stitching that said "Sampler Treating at Orange Coast Sampler Guild." Then we when "treating" through the line where each one of the board members deposted a goodie in our bag - truffles, tea, commemorative needles, a special pin "Queen for a Day", and a teacup and saucer with our guild logo on it. We used our new tea cups for a tea party. We had opportunity tickets for door prizes. As usual, I didn't win anything. Not even the Merry Cox scholarship for our project next year. Sob sob. Just so we wouldn't feel left out, even those of us who were unlucky in the draw still got to pick a small gift. I chose the goodie bag from last years party that I missed. I love my sampler guild. Now for the next two months I better get to work on the pre-stitching for January's project.

So here's the ornament I donated. It's a freebie from the Chocolate Cat. It's called Christmas Rose. Visit http://choccat.com/index.html for the freebie. This was supposed to just be a practice one but I ran out of time and this had to do for the real thing. Jean said the highest bid they have ever received on an ornament was $200! A funny lady at our guild asked, "was that for mine?" You know, it could have been!

A New Finish Technique

Here it is! We had a "freebie" exchange in the Birthday Buddies group. We could finish the design in any manner we chose but it had to be a free design. I chose this Merry Cox fob. I always like to try to stretch my skills and try something new. I've had this idea floating in my head. Instead of just whip stitching it closed as called for I wanted to try something a little different with ribbon. How do you like it?

A recent project

I forgot I even started this blog. I didn't like how it was going, that I remember!
Just to get going again I am posting this pic of a friendship exchange piece I did. It was the first time I've ever used beads to finish off an edge and I added the handle just for fun.
The back side is personalized with an inscription in spanish.