Just as I stood the Reindeer alongside the more finished cone Christmas figures and accepted it would not be fully finished for Christmas and the wire made an appearance.
Perhaps my acceptance made its game of hide and seek no longer fun.
So, with a ring of wire holding the body in shape and another stopping the Bambi on Ice slippage of the legs, and some sequins for added snowy sparkle
He is finished and done.
I think he looks almost as happy as getting him finished made me feel.
a week and a day later than planned we managed our online get together. We fully expect it to be the last one for 2024.
I was working on the same pattern(s) as last week. One colour at a time.
First blue, that was my pick.
And then I asked Roni to choose, she asked for red as there is no red in her current stitching has no red.
So with the red.
what is left, green, white and black.
as this is a RAL and not a SAL I can, should I wish to and find the time keep going with this one.
Ah and this time I can add a link to my BFF's blog for her update. It might not be there yet but I expect there will be shortly. Click here for Blog link That feels so nice after we have had quite a long gap. Wow its been 5 weeks !
this almost made it for Christmas 2023. All the stitching was done, I had even found the bell I knew I had somewhere and then? Well then I stopped. Why? Well I was also working on the cone snowman, I had a plan for the snowman and I thought I would be finishing them off together.
Then I realised I had used two different whites on the snowman and I paused and the pause just went on a very long time.
Roll around to December 2024 and I thought I would try again.
Got a bit further this time.
Reindeer is cut out, and has his bell added.
The bell is not part of the pattern, it is a stitched one, but I thought adding a real one would be fun. And they did suggest it might be a nice idea.
However, and it is a funny thing to say but I think I am more pleased with how the behind turned out.
I did a one square overlap and then cross stitched that row. I think it is a nicer looking finish that the suggested closing method.
You can just about see the join, but not that much.
So is he finished?
No not for me. I wont be hanging it, I want it as a standing ornament to go with the other cones. CLICK HERE for link to them
As such and to to prevent Bambi on Ice with the legs he needs a bit of supporting wire.
The wire that has been there and getting in my way and being annoying and has been moved to a sensible place.
Hmm now if I could just remember where I thought would be a good place to put it when I moved it!
The snowman, well he is a little further on also with the white issue settled in my mind. However he also needs me to find my wire, white wire and I have some black, I think they are together, snowman needs the black as well as the white.
So wish me luck in finding my wire and if I do there may be a snowman soon, or Christmas 2025, you never know!
Follow this LINK to the host blog for an explanation of the Gifted Gorgeousness Link up process and to fins links to other participants.
This is a combination of gifts. The 12 days of Christmas panel was a Gift from my BFF for last Christmas, although as you may be aware we have over the last several years tended not to manage an in person at Christmas and oft end up "doing" Christmas at the same time as our joint birthday get together, which is usually in the middle of the year!
Things were much easier to arrange when we worked together and when we lived in the same town, but things change and you manage how you can.
That aside, the edge and the back of this project are from material gifted to me by Mrs Jackson. It was nice to use it up. Well there are some small trimmings from the green and a row of kings from the patterned back. I did think of using them to make cards, but I ran out of puff and maybe next year!
Oh this was the 8th zip getting inserted when I made up the cushion covers for the children at Church.
The size was determined by the size of the red cushion I bought just as a prop for a photograph related to a completed BFF SAL 11.
So all I needed was a festive cover and not a new cushion.
If you have not visited before and the items on the wall in these pictures have you wondering, yes I made them and the details are in the post christmas-card-inspirations.html
I did think there might be a fourth joining them this year, but I managed to mislay the Christmas card that one is based on just before Christmas last year and I only found it again a week ago! It might get worked on over Christmas and I have taken pictures of the card just in case I manage to loose it again.
I have a few more festive projects on the cusp of completions so although there is sadly no Advent Hop this year there will be some festive things to look at.
we had a later start that became no start at all. We have been using Facebook Messenger for our get togethers as Skype had become unworkable for some reason.
This evening Messenger was not feeling cooperative. We tried for a bit wondering if it was my device or my BFF's before we thought to google it and discovered it was not our problem but a general one.
By that point we had lost half an hour of time and had to reluctantly accept that we were not going to get our sewing session even remotely.
I had picked up my RAL and was determined to finish the browns so kept going after we gave up on our plans.
So here it is.
It still puts me in mind of little Egyptian Figures on a wall. That is not what they are and I am sure the next colours will bring that out. The backstitching certainly will.
We had intended this to be our last RAL or indeed SAL for the year. Christmas stuff of one sort of another requiring our time. However, as this was not a proper get together we will try to find a time slot next week.
It is at this point I normally add a link to my BFF's blog for her update. Well, as a tech type she was more frustrated than me about the on line thing not happening with nothing we could do to sort it and did not feel in the right frame of mind to sew. Her intent was to play video games and have the tech there do her bidding.
This years tree cards. I was a little more pressed for time this year. The plan to do a tree or two each time I was doing something else just did not happen. So the wording on this years trees, big and small was simpler but I did add some baubles with the patterned tips.
Again they can be removed from the card and used as a Christmas tree decoration should that be the recipients choice.
Link to last years trees CLICK HERE and plans for next year?
Oh I always have plans, I just don't know to what extent they will happen.
making more cushion covers with zips in. Not for me this time but for the children in Primary. Each with an outline of their hand on one side, their name and some of their art work on the other. All done with T-shirt dye pens.
I decided to try using some thin wadding from the Pound a Meter people as an experiment. Its rather thin but I wanted something lighter both so I could try some machine quilting and as I wanted this as a summer quilt.
I started with fan shapes in the patterned squares marked on using cardboard templates I made myself and washable markers..
That went reasonably well, but the wadding did pill a bit.
I had intended to quilt round the squares but decided not to.
However because of the fan shapes that left a bigger space in the quilting at the cross points of the squares than I was comfortable with.
What to do, something simple quilt a circle. Ah if only I was capable of sticking to simple. At about the same time as I was thinking I could just use the circle template I got at the charity shop a certain wonderful Korean Crossover singing Group (I may have mentioned them before ) released both a new song and a new format of their logo. Which just happened to be somewhat circular in nature.
More cardboard was sacrificed and I got to try out a new cutting tool that looks like a pen.
it worked quite well and I cut two templates in case one wore out as I used it as cardboard templates are prone to that.
But I only needed one.
In a fit of confidence I marked them on using dark blue T-shirt dye pens.
That was sufficiently darker than the blue of the material for me to be able to see to stitch without being excessive .
I think it has also added a little emphasis on the finished ones.
There are nine in total with the star in each free styled rather than added via the template as having the star cut out made the template too weak.. With the edge on the quilt already done you would thing that is the quilt finished and just in need of a name and a label.
And I waver between thinking that and wondering about adding something else.
Quite a few somethings.
The pale blue is the edge of this quilt, it is on top of another quilt when taking the picture.
So what am I considering as additions?
Names, the names of the members of Forestella.
I have worked out I can add their names on the sashing between the blocks and have all the names appear the same number of times.
But, and it is an interesting but for working it out, do I do it in the Romanised form of their name or in the Korean Hangul lettering.
The spacing is of course going to be considerably different depending on which I choose and as the horizontal sashing is a different width to the vertical I would need to make two different sized templates for each name. Hmm, I know that doing the lettering Romanized would be easier for me, however the Hangul would be more stylized and with potentially less directional issues to consider as it is easier to do in either orientation . Additionally I think the names may become more similar in length that way
Other than I am a little crazy what do you think?
I have with some amusement posted a picture on one of the fan group sites as they were holding a competition and one category was a sewn napkin with the group emblem or name on it. I have asked if my quilt can pretend it is a big napkin! I am not expecting to get very far with that.
Now what Forestella song can I add a link to for this item?
I think perhaps as it is a fan quilt (yes the fans on it made me think of that so pun intended) it will be the song that the group dedicated to the fans.
Maybe instead of the group names many times I could do each one once and put Forestella and Soopbyeol in the other spaces. At times contemplating the options is so much fun and the quilt is still useable whilst I think about it.
