Happy New Year!

May the Cheer of Christmas and all it's joy and good will be yours through each day of the Happy New Year.

This was a holiday greeting card sent by my grandparents in the 1920s!

Happy New Year to everyone!

I'm looking forward to our next meeting, January 11th, at our new time: 7:15 p.m.

Christmas Display

Each year our guild displays our Christmas ornaments at the Irwin Community Center in Homewood. I will share the overall pictures today, and some of the close-ups/vignettes later on.

There are three cases together in a lovely oak cabinet. This is the case on the left. The fleece blanket and the bear are charity projects for this year.



The center case.



The right-hand case.



I was quite pleased with the pictures I got, even though they are not perfect. The glass on the front of the cases, and the mirrors behind make it challenging to get a good picture without glare. I caught the glare from the mirrors in a couple of the pictures but was able to crop it out.

I hope you enjoy this lovely display. Several members take a day in late November/early December to put the display together every year. Thank you so much! I hope to join in on the fun when I am retired.

Jane

Show-n-tell

Since we don't have a meeting this month and most of what I finished recently will be gone by January here's a bit of show-n-tell.This first is a Christmas gift for my sister. It's a 1970s Erica Wilson "crewel" kit that I found in pristine condition--unopened!--in an antique shop a long time ago. You may have seen me working on it at guild meetings--it lived in my guild bag. I finally got it completed and put together.
Just a simple tea towel for a friend.
This is another long in my stash project. A little Japanese pin doll.
I found some fun preprinted fabrics at Jo-Ann's and stitched them up. The above have gone to friends, as has the fun apron below. Please send me pix of the things you've completed recently and I'll share them here.

To help get us into the holiday spirit

Here are three pieces by Pat, guaranteed to get everyone into a holiday stitching mood. These are all chapter projects. I love this quilt.I did one of these needlepoint light bulbs, too. I wonder where it's gotten to. Did you finish yours? I've seen Marge working on a bunch of the beaded ones. And yes, I know the biscornu isn't an ornament but the colors fit the season. I also made one of these cool angels. It was a really fun project and I'd always intended to do more in the series.

Wee People Fairy

Here's a picture of my wee people fairy that sits on my phone at work.



She cheers me up.

Jane

Salley Mavor has a new blog

Several years ago we got together at a member's house to make "wee folk" out of Salley Mavor's book. I just discovered Salley started a new blog, with plenty of pictures here. I will post the picture of my fairy tomorrow, but in the mean time, all these pictures make me want to make some more fairies. They were so much fun to make!

Jane

My favorite places...

I have some favorite places I like to visit on the Internet.

I like Flickr a lot. My page is here and World Embroideries is here. A basic account is free and you can post your photos there to share. Also, if you have loads of time, there's lots to see. You can start by checking out our Contacts (in the top menu bar).

I try not to shop much, but I often end up browsing at Joggles where they have "everything for the textile, cloth and mixed-media artist." I find crewel supplies at Accomplishments and Wooly Thread. Nordic Needle has an extensive website that is well worth visiting, even if you're not shopping. Last, I have found really cool embellishments at Cartwright's Sequins.

CQ Mag Online is a wonderful resource for crazy quilters. You'll find some great tutorials at Needle n' Thread. I go often to Suzanne Cooper's site when I get stuck in a beadwork project and need a tutorial. And when I have time I love to browse the Antique Pattern Library where you can download vintage needlework books.

Once I got going with this, I realized I have a lot of "go to" places for different things (color theory, stitch techniques, supplies of various kinds, tutorials). Leave a comment with what you're interested in and I'll see what turns up in my favorites list that fits the bill.

At our last meeting

At our last meeting, several members brought their embroidered mugs. We are hoping to be more aware of wasting resources and we thought that avoiding Styrofoam products would be a start. Here are the pictures of the beautiful cups people brought.











Most of the stitching was done on the vinyl insert that comes with the cup. That is really helpful in case some liquid might leak (heaven forbid) into the hollow core. I was amazed by all the different types of embroidery as well. Most of them were cross stitch, but one had darning stitch, and another bargello.

One cup was not stitched by the member, but is from South Africa, and has Ndebele beading on it. Even in providing a cup to use at the meeting, the stitching our members do is fantastic!

Pictures

I was really happy to receive some photos in today's mail. Thanks!

Here's one from Tonia:And two from Pat:These are all chapter projects and really reminded me of the variety of cool things we've done (and do). But you don't need to limit your pictures to chapter projects--send me whatever you wish (as long as it's needlework!).

More to come later on.

Welcome!

Here's our Blog! We plan to post our upcoming schedules, open issues we'd like to discuss and share, events for our group and others in the area, cool places on the Internet, and, last but definitely not least, pictures of our projects.
To get us going, here's a heart I stitched for my hubby. I'm planning to adapt this design for a class project for our 2010-11 year. I'm already hunting down scraps of that ugly mustard yellow felt. That was the basis for this design--to take something ugly and make it glow.This was my original project using this concept. It was for a Pieces of Friendship swap at Pat Winter's Gatherings blog. It's one of the many blogs I enjoy.

So, now it's your turn. E-mail your photos and comments to me and I'll post them for everyone to see.