As I've said before...

...I LOVE Judy Odell! I have so many goodies, I'm not sure where to start!

 Hmm, maybe with the model I finished for her that took a bite out of my blog-able stitching. It is called Tapestry Sampler, and the colors are just beautiful:

She released it at the Online Needlework Show, along with her Sophia's Rose:

Her pattern contains both the stitching and finishing instructions for this clever stitcher's toolbox. To show the versatility of the finishing instructions, Judy asked me to stitch up another design; I chose a couple of Lizzie*Kate designs, Spooky String and Tingles Spooky, which I showed in a previous post:

Here is the finished toolbox:

Another piece that I sent to Judy was Just Nan's Honeysuckle Rose, which I stitched many years ago and then put in the "finished" bin:

Using her finishing instructions for "Your Grandmother's Pincushion", which she offers for free in her Facebook group, Judy turned it into this:

Another finishing technique Judy showed at the ONS was for a dry-flower vase:

She asked me if I had a finished piece that might work with this finish, so I sent her Passione Ricamo's Poinsettia Fae (again, pulled from the "finished" bin). However, Judy thought it was just too romantic to finish into a vase, so she made me this gorgeous easel instead:

I just love whatever Judy has sent to me; here is a picture of several of my treasures all together:

Hope everyone has a great stitchy weekend!

No Cars...

...yet, but I'm going to start on Luigi today:

I am having so much fun on this one; nice, bright colors and easy stitching with all full cross stitches (and a bit of back stitching, but not too much!). It is making me want to do the two other Vervaco Disney alphabet kits I have:

I bought the Tinkerbell kit at the same time as the Cars kit, probably about seven years ago. The Pooh kit I just happened to find on eBay within the past year, and I just love it. They would be cute to stitch up for my 3-year-old niece and nephew (twins). Of course, they'd probably be in high school before I'd actually get them both stitched up!

Hopefully I'll have Luigi and Mater done by my next post...stay tuned. :)

Hope everyone is having a great stitchy week!

And another Halloween finish (and a wintery one, too!)

Yep, finished up The Mysterious Halloween Town by The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery:

I had so much fun making changes and playing with colors with this one! Here's a picture showing the chart photo, so you can see some of the changes:

I finished it just in time to enter it in The World of Cross Stitching's #projectoftheweek on their Facebook page, and they chose it!

Talk about fun!!

After finishing this one, I finally pulled out Country Cottage Needleworks Frosty Forest so I could stitch the last block. Luckily, I had stayed caught up until the last block was released, so a couple of days' work led to this:

It was stitched on Silkweaver Karma on Belfast, and I made quite a few color changes to this one, too. It was kind of strange to get into a winter piece after so much Halloween stitching lately, but I'm glad it's finally finished.

I'm kind of wavering about what to work on next, but I'm leaning towards a piece I started in February 2008 called "Lightning McQueen & Friends". My son was 6 years old at the time, and we watched the movie "Cars" at least once a day back then. It looks like I put a day or two into this one, and then it disappeared into the Bucket 'o' WIPs:

The fabric is Silkweaver's Ametrine on opal Lugana, which I thought looks like a sparkly, sandy, desert background. My son is 13 now, and over six feet tall, so it seems a little silly to stitch this now, but I do really like the pattern, and it will always bring back good memories of when he was just a little guy!

Hope everyone has a great stitchy weekend!

Another Halloween finish

It is definitely the time of year for Halloween stitching! After finishing Ghostly Mandala, I picked up Lizzie*Kate's Tingles and was able to finish it this past week. It is stitched on PTP Cauldron on Belfast:

Continuing on the Halloween theme, I then went back to The Mysterious Halloween Town by The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery. I had finished parts 1 and 2 before I put it away, and tomorrow I should be able to finish part 3; hopefully all four parts will be done by the end of the weekend.

The shop in part 3 is charted as a bakery, but that just doesn't seem very Halloween-y to me, so I changed it up quite a bit. I wanted to call it a potion shop, but I couldn't get that to fit in the sign, so it is an elixir shop:

This one is being stitched on PTP Haunted Edinburgh. Once it's finished, I'm not sure what I'll be working on; I'm getting in the mood for a new start...

Earlier tonight I was going through my bucket of finished pieces, looking for something that Judy Odell could use for a new finishing idea that she had. I didn't realize just how many Lizzie*Kate designs I had done that haven't been framed yet:

Her designs are just so much fun to stitch, especially the Halloween ones. :)

Hope everyone has a great stitchy weekend!