Ornament parade

As promised, here are some closeup photos of the five Hands on Design ornaments from Cathy's class, the last of which I fully finished last Monday.

Light the Way:

Plaid Tidings:

A Vintage Rocker:

Sweets for Santa:

Hark How the Bells:

And the complete set:

Cathy has already said that she has plans for these ornaments, so if you like them, they should be available from her in the future.

This past Saturday my LNS had their annual craft rummage sale; people donate crafting items (mostly cross stitch, but some yarn and other items), then you take what you like and make a donation to a local no-kill animal shelter. I was able to get rid of a banker's box full of stash, and I only brought home a small pile of charts and magazines, so I'll call it a win!

The two magazines I picked up were old Cross Stitch & Needlework October issues from 1996 and 1998, with some really cute Halloween designs. The 1996 issue also had an ad for a free DMC chart, which I really like (even though I'm not a huge fan of Precious Moments):

Saturday evening, I sent the photo to DMC and asked if they still had it in their archives--I was surprised to receive a reply Sunday morning that they couldn't find it, but they attached a pdf of a different PM chart. By then, I had found it for sale on eBay, where the seller had kitted it with floss and Aida and was listing it for $30. I wasn't going to pay that for a free chart, but because it was free I decided to use the photos of the chart and the magazine photo to recreate it for my personal use with my cross stitch software.

I replied to DMC, thanking them for their help, and letting them know that the name of the chart was "May Your World be Trimmed with Joy" (which wasn't in the ad), in case knowing the name would help in a search of their archives. I then set about recreating the chart, which took most of the day yesterday, and ended up with a decent result. Imagine my surprise when I woke up this morning to another email from DMC with a pfd of the original chart attached! I could have saved myself most of a day if I had just waited one more day... 🤣

I'm expecting a small model from Heart in Hand this week, so I'll stitch that up quickly once it arrives and then get back to my Nora Corbett model. The Mirabilia retreat is rapidly approaching--I fly out on the 15th, so just over two weeks now; starting to get excited now.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!