Pussy Willows (a Little out of Season)

 I love decorating with pussy willows late winter/early spring, and I've long admired DusiCrafts's beautiful patterns, so I bit the bullet and bought one. And then I made two ornaments, one for my mom and one for me:

The nice thing about DusiCrafts's patterns is that she offers a lot of options -- several different versions of the pussy willow branches, some with buds and some just with catkins, Easter eggs to add to the design, and different sizes and shapes for the ornaments themselves. I liked being able to customize them a bit!
 

A Long-Overdue Christmas Wrap-up

 It's been a tough month.

On the crafting front, I started Sue Spargo's Christmas tree pillow project. I cannot actually afford any of her kits, though, so I worked out of my stash. In the process I changed some motifs and stitches to suit my tastes, such as adding a manger scene because Christmas isn't secular for me, and eliminating most bullion knots because those are the devil's stitch. What I have so far:

I also stitched this freebie from Momentoell. I like the chunky effect she gets by using 6 or even 12 strands of floss. The lovely, soft colors are a nice change of pace, too, from the usual embroidered Christmas tree.

Not much jewelry making happened, but I did remake a bracelet (which apparently I never photographed) with several Christmas-themed charms into a necklace. No point in wearing a bracelet if my wrists are covered up in several layers of long johns and wool sweaters (it's so cold where I work).

 

My middle son gave me a skein of acrylic yarn for Christmas. I love the color, but it is too scratchy to wear so I crocheted a garland. This worked up so fast and fun I made a second with a different yarn.

He also gave me more buttons, so I made a button garland for the tree.

And I finally finished my youngest's quilt: 

On the book front, I read three Christmasy books:

The White Priory Murders by Carter Dickson: An enjoyable locked-room mystery, where, amusingly, Dickson had two characters immediately propose the most obvious explanations to accuse each other. John Dickson Carr was name-checked in the locked-room mystery Wake Up Dead Man, too, which was a fun little easter egg.

Snowed In by Catherine Walsh: a cute holiday-themed contemporary romance, related to her previous novel, Holiday Romance. I enjoyed it, but it lacked an effective structure to hang the story on.

Golden Age Christmas Mysteries ed. by Otto Penzler: some of these would better be classified as spy thrillers or adventures, but all were enjoyable. The collection runs the gamut from light-hearted, comedic stories to darker, melancholic ones, so there's something to suit most tastes.

I think that about wraps it up. Aside from the food, cancelled trip, car troubles, pretty snow fall, improv king cake ...

Día de Muertos

 Much of my Día de Muertos handiwork was ruined last year by water and mold, so I made something new.

This was very loosely inspired by a project in Quilting Arts magazine from many years back, made using what I had on hand -- assorted milagros medals, cheap but all-wool flowers acquired from a big box store, two wool marigold flowers that I made for a craft fair booth, and, of course, lots of beads. All that's left to do is attach the panel to the backing with a blanket stitch (probably).

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

Ain't that Just the Way

 Have you watched Over the Garden Wall? It's a wonderful series of cartoons telling the story of Wirt and Greg as they try to make their way through a scary forest. Gentle enough for all but the youngest kids, it's also witty and poignant enough to appeal to adults (it doesn't hurt that Wirt and Greg remind me of my youngest two sons). It's not just the story, though; the art and autumnal vibe are perfect. I liked the imagery so much I felt the need to memorialize it in thread and fabric.

I'm really proud of this. I used a mix of embroidery and wool and cotton applique I'm especially enamored of Enoch, the pumpkin guy at the top. For him I used long and short stitch which is normally too fussy for impatient me, but a messier, more impressionistic approach worked. The Beast (at the bottom center) was made with turkey stitch and was a total pain, but it was the best way to get the fringe effect. The glow of the Woodman's lantern is a mother of pearl disc bead; I bought a strand of them because I needed one to make a moon but they've turned up in other projects. Adelaide's stork scissors were intended for a cross stitch pattern I bought ages ago. I will need to hunt down another charm when I do stitch it, but that's Future Beadgirl's problem. 

Over the Garden Wall is brilliant, and that's a rock fact!

Spooky, but Make it Cute

 

Turns out, black felt is hard to photograph properly

 

This little bat was inspired by something I saw on Pinterest. The image linked to a long-gone etsy store so I can't give credit where credit is due, however.

I like the interplay of spooky images and pretty florals; I had hoped this October I could make something with Woolly Petal's Ghost Party pattern (using pink and orange scraps for the background), but alas, life intervened (as it so often does for me). Next year!

In a Hole in the Ground there lived a Hobbit

It was the summer of the hobbit.

I convinced my youngest to read The Hobbit this summer (he loved it, except for a couple of "boring" chapters). That inspired me to buy a hardcover version of the annotated edition (not for my son to read, though; he's hard on books). It's a great version -- lots of notes on the creation and publication of the novel, plus numerous illustrations from Tolkien himself and dozens of other artists.

Coincidentally, Aimee Ray of Little Dear issued for her September Patreon pattern a trio of doors to make, including a hobbit door. So of course I made it:

I've built up quite the collection of small Tolkien crafts.

Spring!

 Cherry blossoms are beautiful and I wanted to make a little hoop of them:

I free-styled a branch with snippets of brown wool felt, then cut little flowers out of pale and very pale pink wool-blend felt and stitched them down with dark pink stitches. As soon as I find a wooden 5-inch hoop I will rehoop it, and maybe iron the cotton fabric, haha.

I work on this little hoop every spring, choosing a couple of the blooming trees and bushes in my neighborhood to represent:

Most recently I stitched the cherry blossoms and large yellow flowers at the bottom, above the pink knots. 

I'm lucky to live in such a pretty neighborhood.

Holiday Stitching Photo Dump

 Well, December did not turn out like I had expected. My oldest went in early on for surgery and ended up getting very sick after, not coming home until New Year's Eve. A lot of stitching got done in his hospital room, but very little social media and posting.

But before then, I participated in Wild Olive's ornament SAL in November, which gave me an excuse to finally make some of the designs from one of her patterns, which I bought ages ago.

Beatrice's 2022 Adventrees pattern was the perfect thing to keep my hands occupied during the long hospital stay. I had lots of fun choosing stitches and colors for each tree.

At night I got a little cross stitching done, enough to finish Praiseworthy Stitches' Snowflake Dreams and Elizabeth's Needlework Designs' Red Bird.

In early December I traced and cut out all the felt and fabric pieces to make a bunch of "bowl fillers" from Debbie Busby's Jingle all the Way pattern book; none of the stitching got done until January, though.

The mat is a design by Annie Lippincott, from an old issue of American Patchwork & Quilting.

Not a bad amount stitched for a crazy season!

Sparkling Leaves

 I don't know what I'm going to do with them, but they were fun to stitch.

They were stitched on wool-blend felt with Gloriana silk threads and size 8 seed beads.

Sue Spargo's Bloomed SAL

 

 

I started this back in May, when I was 80 days into the 100DayProject and desperate to stitch something new. For a few weeks, Sue Spargo demonstrated different embroidered flowers and stems, all done on a piece of wool felt. I used a smaller piece, so I only did one of each flower (and omitted a couple). This was a joy to stitch, so fun and pretty.

Some close-ups and in-progress pictures:

To finish it I backed it with a piece of cotton and did some "big stitch" quilting with pearl cotton that matched the felt; as you can tell, I didn't worry about even lines or precision. I was inspired to stitch the false binding closed with french knots, rather than slip stitch -- faster, more fun, and another way to add texture.

 

Love it! And now I get to put it away until next spring.

Ornaments, Ornaments, Ornaments!

 Now that the cross stitch gifts have been finished and given, I've been able to make some things for myself.

Such as Wild Olive's adorable Emmet Otter ornament:

 Or this quotation from Elf -- one for me, one for a friend:

 I adore the yarn I used for these stars, and I'm making pompoms from it, too:

 And then there's the freebie from Love Embroidery magazine:

 Whew!

My Annual Epiphany Photo Dump!

 Once all the holiday prep was over, I finally found time for stitching.

Christmas Forest and Christmas Girl by Tamar Nahir Yahai:

A second covid-themed ornament (sigh) by BeverlyStreetShop:

 Floral trees by Fabric and Ink (this was a kit to make two pink trees, but I was inspired to use green sequins for the second one):

 A kutch embroidery tree designed by Sarah Homfray for Stitch Magazine. This is a new-to-me stitch from India, and it was lots of fun to do:

Nutcracker Dancers designed by Naoko Kudo, from the December issue of Just Cross Stitch:

Santa Birdie by Bobbin and Fred, from the 2021 Just Cross Stitch Ornaments magazine:

And finally, finished in the nick of time, the indefinitely-named Applique Banner from Mollie Makes magazine:

Happy Three Kings Day!