Under the tree...

For Christmas this year, I was so pleased to receive these:
these:and my mom made me this:
This is a little stitch sampler book made from felt. Look at the beautiful stitching and little seed beads on the cover. I love the colors!
This book has blank felt pages. I am going to stitch my favorite stitches sampler style on these pages!

New hoops, floss and...

Last week I bought some new embroidery hoops. This brings my "collection" up to 10. I mostly have wooden hoops, the largest of which is 12-1/2" diameter and the smallest, 3-1/4". I even have an oval wooden hoop. I love the wooden hoops but now I am really loving using these new plastic hoops. These are the 7", 8" and 10":
Here is what the 10" looks like as two hoops. You might notice that one of these two hoops looks a little different. The hoop with the screw is just like a regular embroidery hoop. But the rim of the hoop that you place the fabric on has an edge that extends out a little larger than the hoop.
This acts like a little platform for your fabric to rest on.
The hoop with the screw then opens up wide enough to go over the bottom hoop and fabric. When you tighten the screw, top hoop sits just up under the extended edge of the bottom hoop. This set-up makes the snuggest, smoothest surface for stitching.
I also bought some new floss. These are such pretty colors - do they remind you of anything? Maybe colors you would use to stitch a gingerbread cottage or gingerbread man? I have a new pattern in the works!

Christmas WIP

I am organizing some of my Christmas project supplies! I just love this metallic thread - some I already had and some are the new colors I just bought. Metallic thread comes in so many beautiful colors!


I also have a new wip :)