WOWSA!!

I took a big sigh Thursday at 4:45 PM when I signed off my work computer for the last time this year.  On Friday, I had an enjoyable lunch with one set of in-laws, went to the grocery store and finished all my errands.  I am determined to stay home as much as possible this coming week.  I will be out and about on Tuesday as I have to have my car inspected Tuesday morning and on Thursday as The Hubs is finally having his shoulder surgery, but other than that I'm planning to be in and stitching or crafting.

Before I get into my normal blah, blah, blah stuff...

I was reading through my blog list and was scrolling through Jill Rensel's (of Rensel Studio fame) blog and saw this:

WOWSA!!!  There was no information on who stitched it but I am in awe of whoever did.  They combined two Lavender and Lace patterns Celtic Christmas (the lady in the red dress) and Oh Christmas Tree (the two children and the tree) along with bits from other patterns or maybe designed them themselves.  I can't even begin to estimate the amount of time it took to design, never mind stitch this - I would count it an accomplishment to finish one of the two larger pieces that were used.  Pop on over to Jill's blog to see this and many more beautiful pieces and if you know who did this piece, tell them "Congratulations."

So on to my inadequate pieces :-)...

I have been enjoying my hummingbird rotation (flitting around from piece to piece) of the last few weeks.  Last weekend I pulled out Enchantment of Winter by Terrence Nolan and spent a few hours with it.  I loved working on it but it is kitted with silks and my hands are very dry so it kept snagging.  I'm going to have to do some major softening before I pull out a silk piece again.  Despite the snagging, it went from here:

to here:

This is stitched on 28-count Wintered Marble from Stitches 'n Spice there are very subtle splashes of light grey and blue  with the called for threads.

After my time with Winter, I decided a Santa fix was needed so out came Mirabilia's Santa's Magic. He looked like this when he was last out:

And today he looks like this:

He's stitched on 32-count opalescent Ametrine from Silkweavers.  I do wish the photograph could show you how sparkly he is but the camera keeps adjusting and unsparkling it.   I think I've mentioned it before but if you have an older pattern mine is from right around 1996 it calls for #8 Kreinik braid - don't do it!!  Order the #4 and save yourself a lot of headache.  I'm using #4 and don't see how you could get the heavier braid through the fabric without distorting it.  Also and this is soooo irritating, my pattern says that you'll need multiple skeins/spools of 085 and 202hl without saying how many more.  I am almost through my second spool of 085 and nowhere near done, so an order was sent to 123 Stitch and should be here by the end of the week.  My plan for today, tomorrow and maybe Boxing Day is to finish his beard and the Wisper parts of his sleeves so that I can get to the other Kreinik in the design.

And before I forget because I have forgotten almost every month this year here is my December TUSAL photo:

TUSAL is hosted by It's Daffycat and is the easiest SAL ever to participate in.  Collect all the snips and bits from your crafting, put them in a container of some sort and post a photo on the new moon each month.  I'm good at the saving the bits part, but not so good at the posting picture part.