Progress pic - Angel of Hope

I'm getting excited now that I can see the end in sight. Just the left side of the skirt and frill to stitch now, and a few beads to add to the top section. I'm loving my Angel! I am so pleased I decided to substitute beads for the cross stitches in the floral trim at the top of the flounce, and the gold trim on the hem. I am very happy with the way it looks.

Lately I've found myself thinking often of my HAED Jolly Old Fellow, and I'm keen to start stitching on it again soon. I'll do a few little projects as soon as I finish the Angel, then in mid to late October start back on JOF and do one page at least before Christmas.

Totally Useless SAL progress

Here's my jar as of close of stitching today. It's a couple of months since I put in a pic of my TUSAL jar. I just don't know what happened to those months - they just slipped by. I have been collecting things in my jar, even though I forgot to post a pic. Since the last pic I have added to the jar quite a few floss labels, 2 empty DMC fil or reels, and lots of threads. There are whites, browns and blue threads from my Angel of Hope; pinks, blues and gold threads from some pincushions; and gold, browns, green and red threads from some little Christmas projects. There are also a number of broken needles, and at least 2 empty needle packets in there as well, and a few rejected beads. It looks as though my jar will make it to the end of the year, as there's still plenty of room in it.

Half an Angel

My Angel is half-finished. So far she measures a bit over 35 cm (14 inches), and I've estimated that the finished Angel will be around 65 cm (26 inches) long. I usually have no trouble working out the size of my projects - it's the uneven weave of the linen I'm using that is the problem here. I've not come across this before, but though the threads are evenly spaced horizontally, there is a marked variation in the thread spacing vertically. Very odd. But it seems to be working out OK. Luckily, I wanted an imposing Angel to hang on a very high wall, so I'm getting what I wanted! I need to get back to her - I still have a lot of stitching to do, and I really do want to get her to the framer at the end of this month.

Another tiny treasure ...

Here's a tiny Christmas topiary tree I just finished . It's just over 15 cm (6 inches) tall. I rescued the topiary ball, which already had the red berries on it, from a local charity shop, and set it into a tiny terracotta pot I had previously painted gold. I decorated the tree and the top of the pot with 15mm clear AB beads, red stars, and gold stars.

Working away ...

I'm making slow progress on the Angel - but happy to be working on her after such a long break. I haven't yet stitched enough to justify another pic, so I've posted a pic of two little urns I just finished decorating. The pic of the white urn didn't show the colours of the flowers, so I added a detail pic (below left) showing the flowers. Both urns are tiny - the white one is about 4 inches (10cm) high, and the green one is just a little bigger.