No Matter Where I go...I ALWAYS Meet Myself There!

Here we go, and not a moment to soon, the 2007 family ornies!!
First are the boys/menfolks. I am still not happy with these. They were going to be the present that I did in my article here, but, as I said previously, I decided to take a shortcut, and heat'n'bond the backing on. These are still going to fray, probably after this christmas alone, but at least it is only 2 sides... I left these as squares (because I would of ruined the stitching to cut them), folded them in half diagonally, and sewed that one seam. I actually really like the shape of them. A few lovely danglies (were time permitting) from the point, and these are a shape that holds much potential for future tinkering.
I stitched these in the DMC metallics thread, they are a "Bee-aach" to stitch with, which is why I started again with the girls ornies...

So, the gals got mini trees/cones . These are only about 2.5" tall. I stitched these with perle 8 & 12 white cotton, and beaded with clear seed beads and wee pearls. I wrote the names on with pigma pen.












Below is a new round robin I am working on. This one is being done a little differently. We are doing a certain 'step' each time. This being my first block, I was to do the basic seam treatments. No beading, no SRE, argh....just basic seam treatments. Helina has made a wonderful landscape block, which I found to be very challenging. My usual style is loud and proud when I am first to stitch on a block, but being a landscape, I had to keep things nuetral and in keping with the block. I have added weight to the foreground with heavier laces etc, and gotten smaller as the perspective has moved further away. I felt that the blue (under the green tatting) was to bright for block, which is why I added the tatting. I have a vision of the block completed, and it is going to be a wonderful excerise to watch it develop and see where the other stitchers take it.

I just realised I hadn't posted this block either. Jewels on Black RR. I just loved doing this work on the black. I went completely overboard with the SRE and beads and embellishment. This block belongs to Hideko. She didn't have a theme or name for her block, but I have called it "midnight in the garden". Remember that loud and proud thing, yep, I was first to work on this block. Despite the fact that it looks like I have done half the block, I have actually only done two seams and two patches...a little less than I would normally do on a RR block!! I will post some close ups over on my flickr site .
I am all ready for christmas. Having Rob's girls over tomorrow (christmas eve here), for roast lamb, and my parents and sister and nephew over on christmas day for a glazed ham. YUM!!