ORNAMENTS ABOUND

This post is all about our adventure to A Stitchers Dream in Mt Dora.  I arranged for our sampler guild to attend a class Karen the shop owner was teaching on simple ornament finishing.  We had great participation from our group - 8 members from the NE FL group attended.  We got up at the butt crack of dawn and headed down thru the Ocala National forest for a day of fun food and friends.  We met at Starbucks - got all "fueled" up on caffeine and headed off.  It was a beautiful cool day -   

I think there were 11 people in the class.  Karen did a great job of helping and providing suggestions for each person's ornament. 

We broke for lunch and headed to downtown Mt Dora for a lovely leisurely lunch at the Garden Gate Tearoom.  Everyone throughly enjoyed their selection and we decided on the next trip down (there will definitely be a next trip) that we will do the high tea instead of lunch.

 My DM Jane was the only one who finished her ornament in class - doesn't she look proud !

Here is a close up of the Prairie Schooler ornament from the JCS Halloween issue several years ago.  She used Watercolors for the twisted cord edging and stitched with the recommended DMC colors on aida.

Humble beginnings on my BBD ornament - this one is from the Joyeux Noel book from last year. There are so many things in that book I want to stitch.

I am SOOO proud of my finish - I am "finishing" challenged for sure and this was the first ornament I have ever finished.  However I screwed up big time and therefore had to get creative with the trim.  I cut the linen too short to properly fold over and anchor down - therefore I eneded up having to lace my linen to the plastic canvas which Karen recommends for simple finishing like this.  It worked out OK except a narrow edging would not cover up my huge pulled stitches.  Anyway - true confessions on my blog - You can see those big stitches I had to use to " lace" the linen to the plastic canvas in the photo above.

A close up shot  - I send out big hugs and good karma to DF Teresa who dug into her magic box and found this lovely gauzey wide ribbon that worked perfectly for this little piece.  I converted the colors in this ornament to Belle Soie. I used PTP Dill linen called for in the book - not sure of the count.  I am SOOO pleased with my first ornament finish and I definitely gained the confidence to try this method again.

Here is DF Ellen hard at work on her ornament.

DF Kerrie holding up her ornament from the newest JCS Christmas issue - the ornament is by Milady's Needle. I was hoping to show the finished ornaments from our whole group.  Maybe some of them will send me photos so I can post them and share them with you all.

I did take a few other photos but for some reason - if you make any wrong moves at all with importing these photos - you can't do anything but start all over - AAACKKKK - I find this so annoying so I just had to leave off a couple of shots of the whole table full of class participants.

While I had the Joyeux Noel book out - I decided to start the little Merry Christmas pin pillow - I think I was just itchy to start something new since I finished something .

Until we meet again - I hope ornaments abound around your place too !