It's Christmas Eve

For my last post of the year, I thought I'd share the ornament I made for my friend Stacy. Her family got a black lab puppy this past July, and he is just the sweetest boy. Not too long ago I came across a leaflet called "Lab Puppies" by Tara Moore, and I thought an ornament for Cinder's first Christmas would be cute. I'm still working on my finishing skills, but I think it turned out nicely:

Stacy's family has had two golden retrievers before this puppy, so they have a lot of retriever ornaments, and were commenting when they put their tree up that they didn't have any black lab ornaments. So this was good timing!

My mom is visiting for the next few days, and even though this will be our first Christmas without snow for at least the last 14 years, it will still be a wonderful Christmas. Here are a few wintry cross stitch finishes to enhance the mood:

For those who celebrate it, wishing you a very Merry Christmas, and to everyone a wonderful New Year!

Contest results

I am happy to post that I finished in a tie for third place in the Passione Ricamo Winter Whisper contest. There were some "voting irregularities", so in the end the winners were decided by Laura and her model stitcher. I had voted for Anne Beale for the best finish, and she tied for first place, and I voted for Giovanna Ferraresi for best stitching, and she tied for second place; I'm very happy that they did so well!

I am still plugging away at the model, but I do slip in a bit of "fun" stitching now and then to give my eyes a break. I was able to finish this cute little Santa & Rudolph ornament from Mill Hill:

Gracie kept me company while I finished up the beading last weekend:

I also managed to get a rare picture of all four of my kitties together; the warmth of the sun's rays is stronger than their dislike of each other!

Hope everyone has a great stitchy weekend!

Voting is open!

After seeing some of the stunning finishes in the Passione Ricamo Winter Whisper contest, I'm thinking it's going to be a tough competition! You can see all the entries here; and here's mine again:

If you really like mine, I'd love your vote, but if you like a different one, that's good too. Anything that brings positive attention to this wonderful craft of ours is welcome.

Still working on the model, and hopefully about 2/3 finished. A bit of bright news there: it turns out my vision isn't quite as bad as I thought it was. The night before Thanksgiving, my Ott Light started flickering, and the flickers were nice and bright. I ran over to Joann Fabrics to grab a new bulb, came home and installed it and it is so much brighter than the old bulb! I had no idea that the bulbs would dim over time; I always thought they would just burn out suddenly. It was also nice timing, because the bulbs are normally about $35, and they had them on sale for $13.

So I am stitching with renewed vigor now that I can see again, and am hoping to be done with this one by the end of the year!

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!