1 Year of Stitches: Week 52

Unfortunately, I can't say that I managed to stitch every single day, and the project petered out at the end because of Christmas preparations, festivities, and so on (and a terrible cold that just won't. go. away). Nevertheless, it was a fun project and it serves as a diary of the year.

Happy New Year!

1 Year of Stitches: Week 51

This project got neglected again as I hurried to finish the quilt, but I did get a few stitches and motifs in.

Merry Christmas!

On the First Day of Christmas ...

Well, it's not the first day of Christmas yet, and not the first day of Jo's Online Advent Calendar, but it still seems appropriate because my two most recent cross stitch finishes are partridge-in-a-pear-themed, to go with my growing collection:

Prairie Schooler

Just Nan

We don't celebrate Boxing Day in the States, although I am familiar with it because my father-in-law is English. Nonetheless, we have developed traditions for the day -- my brother is a Benedictine priest, and while he is required to stay at the Abbey Christmas Eve and Day, he is given a short vacation after. So every year, my mom and brother come on the 26th to stay with us a few days.  Since Christmas Day usually has an English vibe (turkey or goose if we can afford it, Christmas pudding, crackers), the day after I crank up the Puerto Rican Christmas music and prepare a pernil (roast pork shoulder). If I'm especially ambitious, I'll also make tostones (twice-fried plantains), queso frito (pan-fried white cheese), or coquito (like eggnog, but coconuty). It's nice to keep the celebrations going for more than a day.

Merry Christmas, and I hope everyone has a wonderful Boxing Day!

A Star, a Star, Shining in the Night

It's finally done:

And it only took *mumble mumble* years.

 

Made of an assortment of star blocks from a bunch of different sources, in lots of different sizes (see, this is my problem -- I get ideas, and I don't realize how complicated they will be to sew up until it's too late).  It was quite a jigsaw puzzle to put all together.

It's bigger than I anticipated, too, but then it will fit a full-size bed if he ever gets one.

The lovely quilting was done by Susan Wood of Valentine Quiltworks, and I couldn't be happier with it:

The backing fabric:

I can't wait to give it to Beadboy1 Christmas morning.

It's a Marshmallow World in the Winter ...

So it turns out, there aren't any Christmas songs with the word "gingerbread" in them. But the "icing" on this gingerbread woman is sweet, if I do say so myself:

This was originally a Victoria Sampler pattern, "Gingerbread Cookies," but if you go to that link you'll see I made a lot of changes -- I got rid of the Santa hat and omitted the buttons and beaded necklace, instead filling in her dress with a blackwork pattern accented with the necklace "pearls." I did use two of the white buttons for eyes, and added a few white seed beads for the mouth. She's backed with a brown batik fabric and lightly stuffed. The picture is not great, but I'm really pleased with it.

1 Year of Stitches: Week 49

(Eep! Almost done!)

A very bad back injury kept me from doing anything other than feeling sorry for myself the last two weeks. Also, we got a new (to us) car.