Home again ...

We're just back from a 17 day trip in the van.  We travelled up the coast to Byron Bay, stopping at Woolgoolga on the way up, and Yamba and Laurieton on the way home.  They're all coastal towns in my home state.  In all, we travelled around 1400 km.  It was a very relaxing holiday. We were so lucky with the weather - we had lovely warm to hot sunny days and cool nights, but no rain.  Each of the towns we went to had severe storms and loads of rain in the few days before we arrived, and our home town also had severe storms while we were away.  We picked our trip time well!  We had company on this trip.  Our friend Merre and her Toy Poodle puppy Bella came along in their van.  Bella is 4 months old, and took to camping like a natural. Here's Bella:

and just to be fair, here's Maddie sleeping on a cushion in the van.  Maddie is still really not convinced we needed another dog on the trip, but she was reasonably tolerant of whirlwind Bella.



I managed to stitch a little in the van - four Christmas ornaments stitched but not yet finished up.  The first one is adapted from Dale Burdett's 1990 booklet "A  Mini Christmas" DB#132 (I added some extra space between the branches, and changed all the floss colours).  The other design is from Sam Hawkins "50 Santas to Cross Stitch" book (1993) ASN #3616.

That's all from me now - I'll be in the laundry for the forseeable future trying to reduce the mound of dirty clothes and linen - yuk!

WIPocalypse Report

I'm a little early wih my first August report, because I won;t have computer access for the next two weeks or so, so I thought better earlier than later.  It's been a relaxed stitching month for me.  I've been stitching on Christmas ornaments, and in the past month I have crossed off a total of 7 ornaments from my stitching list. Here they are:

I have credited the designers in posts this month.

I'll be stitching on Christmas ornaments again in August - I hope to have five more ornaments crossed off my stitching list by the end of August.

My final ornament for July

This one is for a friend's new baby grandson.

The stocking design is very loosely based on  the stocking in LA's Christmas Caboodle leaflet (1986).

Two little Christmas bears

I've just finished the beaded hangers on these two Christmas ornaments.  They are for the grandchildren of a long-term friend.  One little bear will travel to England, the other is off to New Zealand.

The little bears are from Dale Burdett's 'A Mini Christmas' DB132 (1990).  They are stitched over 2 on evenweave.

Another two Christmas ornaments finished

Two Christmas gifts finished.  The designs are oldies but goodies.  the stocking design is adapted from LA's Christmas Caboodle leaflet (1986), and the Christmas is Love is adapted from ASN #3618, 50 Santas to Cross Stitch by Sam Hawkins (1993).







Two tiny Santa stockings

These tiny stockings are Christmas gifts for my niece and her new fiance.  I've lost count of the number of these stockings I have made over the past few years, they are favourites of mine.  I adapted the design from the Littlest Stocking Design #7 by Kooler Studios (in LA's Christmas Ornaments booklet, 2003).  The design is charted for perforated plastic, but I stitched it on fabric and backed it to make a real little stocking, and I added the cuff for the name.  These little stockings are just 2.5cm (1") wide at the cuff, and 6cm (2.5") long.  I won't stitch any more of these stockings this year, but I have at least four on my list for next year.

WIPocalypse Report for July

Wow - another month gone!  This year has just been slipping away far too quickly for my liking.  June was a good stitching month for me - a major finish (my HAED Jolly Old Fellow started in January 2009).  I credit the WIPocalypse with providing the motivation to actually finish JOF this year.  Left to my own devices I probably would have stitched the 10 pages I promised myself I would stitch this year and then  moved on to start another stitchy project.  So, big thanks to Measi for organising this WIPocalypse. 

This was my Jolly Old Fellow at the beginning of 2012:

 and here he is now (finished!):

JOF's details (designer etc)  are in the panel at right.

I also stitched and finished this ornament:

Santa design  is from the Faces of Santa Afghan design in LA's Christmas Keepsakes book (1990).  Although not credited directly, I believe the designer to be Carol Emmer.

And I have stitched but not yet finished this tiny stocking ornament:

Santa adapted from Kooler Design Studio's Littlest Stockings design (charted for plastic canvas) in LA Christmas Ornaments booklet (2003)

In July I plan to make several more Christmas ornaments - not all of them Santas.