March heritage ornament by Kelly Clark

I'm stitching these gorgeous ornaments by Kelly Clark at a rapid clip. I love the stitch guides, but I have added my own twist to them. Instead of using beads, I am adding Swarowski crystals in the appropriate gemstone color to each canvas. Bling!

Happy Holidays!

The Spider Queen

After my latest stocking was finished, I said I was working on lots of ornaments.  The Spider Queen was a Sunday afternoon project (I didn't say they were all Christmas).  Again, what's not to love about this series with stitch guides by Robin King?

Robin was so good about incorporating many threads in each piece and also making sure that these threads get used on multiple Creeps.

My favorite stitch is the Elliot Stitch.  Done in two shades of lavender, it gives a feminine touch that belies the fierce look of this black widow.

My brother-in-law's stocking is finally finished.  As my sister said, it has been a loooooong labor of love. This poor Santa has mostly languished in the closet, waiting for me to love him.

Because this is a Tapestry Tent canvas, most of the work was done in basketweave, French knots and lots of beads.

My favorite part is the cuff background--it's a mini scallop shape from one of Brenda Hart's books.  I brought home a skein of Vineyard Silk and Silk & Ivory to see which would work best for this vertical stitch on 18 count canvas.  Surprisingly the Vineyard Silk fit the bill perfectly.

I've since been rewarding myself by stitching ornament after ornament, looking forward to special new canvases at market.

New clip on peacock from Labors of Love

Just a little something pretty to stitch as a reward for FINALLY finishing brother-in-law's stocking....

I love the way the blue breast feathers turned out.  I used the Diagonal Romanian stitch, combining YLI Shimmer Blend Ribbon Floss and the Painter's Thread version of the ribbon floss.  A little Painter's Thread goes a long way.

Creepy Frank finished

Look who just came off the rack ... er ... stretcher bars--Frankenstein from the Creeps series by Needledeeva.

My favorite things--Robin King's wonderful choice of composite stitches and the great way his sweater looks.  He's dressed perfectly for this fall weather.

Spooky times with Brenda Hart at the Bristly Thistle

We had a wonderful 3 days with Brenda in October. Strangely enough, there were more than a few Halloween canvases in the store!

Brenda will be visiting us next March 16-18 2012.

Creepy Devil

What a handsome devil we have here.  This is the latest release of "the Creeps" from Needle Deeva, with stitch guide by Robin King.

I only made one change--I stitched the stars in glow-in-the-dark Kreinik.  "The Creeps" are addictive!