A fun little gift from my faraway daughter

 

Yes, my lovely and dear daughter Joanna, far away in Nevada, surprised me with the sweetest little gift.  She had sent our wrapped Christmas gifts to our local daughter Carrie, to be opened there on Christmas Day.  But she left a few things unwrapped for both Carrie and me, so that we could have the fun of using them before Christmas.

The above mini ornaments are part of what she sent to me.  Look how cute: little tiny embroidery hoops!  Each is made to look as if it has a little embroidered design in the hoop.  It's hard to tell from the scan, but the background in each design actually looks like cloth, although of course it is not.  Aren't these the sweetest?  Now I want to enlarge that house design and stitch a larger version of it!

Thank you, JoJo!  You made my day!

Stitchery Christmas card art

 

 Vintage Christmas cards are so much fun, don't you agree?  I pretty much love them all, from village scenes to Santas to bells, candy canes, fireplaces, and more.  The idea of using vintage card art to make larger, more long-lasting projects is very appealing to me.

Recently I came upon a stitchery project from Bev at Flamingo Toes that was inspired by bells similar to those on the above cards.

Here is the project Bev ended up with:

Photo by Flamingo Toes

Doesn't it look like fun?  You can find the details here: Vintage Stitched Christmas Card Art.  Bev gives all of the specifics for making this project, from applique to machine stitching to French knots. She does say that all of the little details may be done with hand embroidery.  This is a relief to me because I have never tried using (nor do I own) a free-motion sewing machine foot.

What do you think?  Would you try making one of these?  I definitely would, and am thinking I might make mine similar to the red card above, which sold in my Etsy shop in 2019.

**(Edited to add: the winner of this week's give*away is GrammaGrits!  Gramma, please leave me a comment with your snail mail address (which I won't publish) and I will get your little gift pack out to you.)**

And just a few more ornaments to share ...

We had our last Christmas event of the season last evening: supper and gifts with our oldest teenage granddaughters.  That had been postponed from Christmas Eve, our usual time to celebrate with them, because one was ill.  So last night we enjoyed Christmas Eve Soup with pizza, and a cookie and fudge tray for dessert, and opened gifts in a festive time together.  Now I can think about taking down some of the Christmas decor, making sure to leave plenty of light and sparkle to get us through the rest of the winter.

Before I put the ornaments away, however, I wanted to share just a few more of them with you.

The one below was quite large so I hung it near the bottom of the tree.  As you can see, I was having a hard time getting a good photo of it there.   So I moved it temporarily just for the purpose of getting a decent picture.   You can see it much better in the second photo.

This is one of those "kitschy" ornaments that is so tacky it is almost cute.  (That's what I told myself, anyway.)  Somebody made this, probably in the early 1970s or the late 1960s.  It looks as if the white part was made by crocheting with white yarn around a ring made from a plastic lid, or possibly two plastic lids put together for stability.  Then plastic greenery was glued to it to give a wreath effect.  Two colorful little plastic figures, ice skaters in this case, are glued to the bottom center of the wreath.

Below is the only ornament in this lineup that is not handmade.  It's a sweet little vintage white metal bell with red and green striped candy canes pictured on it and just a plain white string looped at the top.

Below is a mother and baby mouse that I embroidered on felt back in the day.  This was something I had made for my mother, I believe.  It's from Erica Wilson's Christmas World and is intended to be Beatrix Potter's Hunca Munca.  I made quite a number of ornaments from that book.

 Below is a felt gingerbread boy.  Not sure but it may have been made by my Aunt Dot.

 And below, another which I am pretty sure was knitted by Dot.  It's a mitten that matches the stocking I showed in a previous post.  I finally managed to get a decent picture of it.

 The ornament below was cross stitched by one of my friends from the Christmas craft forum and enclosed in a Christmas card in a previous year.  You can't really tell, but the Aida cloth used is glittery!

These two photos (above and below) are of the same snowy owl ornament, just taken from slightly different angles.  This one was made by our friends Sam and Jennifer out of a toilet paper roll.  Very, very creative, I thought! These would be sweet on a tree with just woodland trims or just birds.  I think I will keep this owl out for winter along with the snowflakes, pine cones, icicles, etc.
 
I love ornaments -- especially handmade ones -- don't you? 

Great source for Christmas embroidery designs!

I love to embroider and just wish I had more time for it.  Truth to tell, in many ways I enjoy it more than counted cross stitch.  I have found that embroidered dish towels can make wonderful handmade gifts which people really appreciate.

Not too long ago, I found a great source for free designs: Bird Brain Designs.  They also have many lovely patterns and materials for sale.  If you enjoy embroidery, it will be well worth your while to visit the site.  There are also designs for quilting and wool applique.  A needlecrafter could get lost in this site for days.

There are many Christmas and winter designs, as well as designs for other holidays -- even the Fourth of July, for example.  I think a set of tea towels in seasonal designs would make a fabulous gift!

Here's one example of a winter design:
Let It Snow tea towel.  Below is a screenshot I took from Bird Brain Designs.

I've written other posts about embroidery and dish towels which you might enjoy seeing, and which give links to other sources for designs, so you might like to take a look at the following: Christmas Embroidery Designs and A Christmas Tea Towel.

Clicking the "dish towels" label on either of my blogs will also take you to posts that will hopefully inspire your own stitchery.

 The slower days of summer are perfect for embroidering small projects.  Have fun with these ideas!

A few posts from the September archives

Image from The Graphics Fairy

I guess I must not post very often in September on my Christmas blog, because there were not a lot of posts in the archives to choose from.  Still, here are a few, and I'll post a couple more of the links later in the week.  Today I want to focus on some handmade gifts that you could complete if you started in the next week or so.

Personalized Cookbooks make a wonderful gift and are great for any gift-giving occasion, not just Christmas.  Over time, these have become my standard wedding or shower gift.  It's an easy project, but is time-consuming.

Christmas Tea Towels are fun to make, and are nice gifts for your daughters or women friends, maybe even co-workers.  You know your friends' tastes.  I myself would always enjoy receiving a gift like this, as I would decorate with it even if I didn't use it to dry dishes!  A whole set of these would be a nice gift for a family member.

And then there are these Pillowcase Grocery Totes and a nifty way to present a set of them as a gift.  I made a set for each of my daughters one Christmas and have since made a set for myself.  They are handy for many uses, but always elicit favorable comments at the grocery store!

Have fun with these ideas!

A couple of pretty 1970s cards

This card features both knitting and embroidery.

 First, I'd like to thank all of my readers and blog friends who stopped by to visit my Christmas kitchen during Christmas in July!  It was a great mental health booster for me to spend that time in my Christmas kitchen, and I'm thankful for all of you who visited and left comments.  So thank you!  Now, to the topic at hand ...

I may be all wrong about this, but from my limited observations of greeting cards in recent decades, it seems that the 1970s -- as the United States approached and then observed its bicentennial, were a time to re-emphasize traditional handcrafts.  A number of the cards I've seen from the 70s reflect this.  Here are a couple of examples I've recently found.

The mitten card at the top of the post features a knitted mitten embellished with embroidery.  To me it looks as if the mitten may have been sewed from a repurposed sweater.  A veritable sampler of embroidery stitches adorn the mitten, from simple cross stitches and chain stitch on the cuff, to satin, chain, and straight stitches, plus French knots, on the hand part of the mitten.  I like the design of poinsettias, holly, and snowflakes and am thinking it was no small challenge to stitch these on the cable-knitted mitten.  Very unique and pretty.

This one features embroidery and applique.

Then I also found the card above.  This one has applique beautifully embellished with embroidery, and features a cross-stitch border around the edge of the design.  If you'd like to see more of the detail, remember that you can double-click on the picture to enlarge it.  I love the sprigs of fir and holly (especially the fir) tucked in with the poinsettias.  How I'd love to duplicate this!  But I have so many want-to-make projects already that this one probably won't get done anytime soon.  Maybe I will frame the card and enjoy it that way.  We will see!

Christmas embroidery designs

Image from French Knots.com

I was reading a post over at My Mom Calling concerning Embroidered Kitchen Towels. The blogger, Carrie, does beautiful work.  It made me think of embroidered towels I have made for gifts and how fun it would be to make some more with Christmas designs.

You can find some free Christmas embroidery patterns, like the one above, here: Christmas Embroidery Patterns.

And for some absolutely beautiful, inspiring designs, go here: Crabapple Hill Studio.  Click on Winter/Christmas and prepare to be enchanted!  There are dish towels among their designs, and I have made some using their transfers and patterns.  Lovely.

Not a Christmas towel, but I used the scalloped edging from Crabapple Hill's pattern.

This is one of the "Twelve Days of Christmas" dishtowel designs from Crabapple Hill Studio.

A closeup of the simple design -- Christmas cookies with sprigs of greenery

Another camper towel using the same scalloped edging.  You can read the details on the camper designs here:  Vintage Camper dish towels.

This type of project is a great one to work on during the summer,  It's small, portable, and sometimes  stitching a wintry design can even make you feel a little bit cooler!

A newer vintage card

I think this card is from the 1980s, so it's not super old or an antique, but I believe it's probably still considered vintage as it's over 30 years old.  It's a very pretty design -- applique with touches of embroidery.

I love the cross stitched border and the embroidered touches in particular.  The embroidered fir branches look so real!

Wouldn't it be fun to do a wall hanging like this?  I sure think so!

My "Crafting for Christmas" Pinterest board

A "Pinterest project" I made previously

I've been doing a lot of pinning lately and thought it might be nice to share some of my Christmas boards on Pinterest with all of you.  I know I've done this in the past, but have added so many pins to my boards of late (mostly just from blogs and newsletters I get via email).  Since crafting for Christmas is on many people's minds right now, I thought I would start by sharing my Crafting for Christmas Pinterest board.

I just love crafting, period, but never more so than at Christmas time.  I like to see that my kids and grandkids have gifts handmade by me.  Sometimes the ones for my grown kids and their spouses are just kitchen gifts -- candy, cookies, jar mixes -- but there is usually something handmade for everyone.  My goal this year is to get the handmade gifts done by the end of November (all except the kitchen ones).

Then, I should (ideally) be able to spend the first part of December crafting some fun decor items and baking.  I thought that by sharing the Crafting for Christmas board first, other people might find some inspiration for things they want to start right away and complete by Christmas!

Edited to add: I had actually posted this a week ago, but decided that I would edit it to add some links and pictures for some of the nifty ideas on my board.  Here goes:

Let's start at the front door with this creative Christmas Church Wreath from Homespun With Love.

Photo by Homespun With Love

 Isn't it gorgeous?  I love this and would really like to make one.

Now, let's go for a few simple ornaments.  I so enjoy making ornaments and like to add a couple of new ones every year, if I can find the time.  This Tart Tin Ornament by Indulge Your Shelf is so sweet!  The page these were on seems to be gone from Indulge Your Shelf -- I pinned this a couple of years ago -- so the link probably won't work.  But I think they look easy enough to replicate without instructions.

Photo by Indulge Your Shelf

I have a bunch of these little tart tins (brand new) that were my grandmother's.  These ornaments look so simple, and I have plenty of bits and pieces on hand that could be used to trim them.

You noticed the sheet music on the ornament above?  Here is another easy-looking ornament that uses sheet music: the Sheet Music Christmas Ornaments from The Graphics Fairy.

Photo by The Graphics Fairy

So cute, don't you think?

For some pretty Handmade Holiday Napkins, check out  bhg.com.  The simple embroidery patterns are free and downloadable.

Photo by bhg.com

These napkins would be a lovely gift or add an heirloom touch to your own holiday table.  You could certainly add whatever sayings you prefer to these.

Some special Christmas art is so nice to display at this special time of year.  Here are two ideas: Twinkling Christmas Canvas Art from Clean & Scentsible is so pretty.

Photo by Clean & Scentsible

I have seen twinkling art pieces and always admired them.  It's nice to know how to make my own.

And then there is this Simple Christmas Art by Just a Girl and Her Blog.

Photo by Just a Girl and Her Blog

So pretty and meaningful!  Looks fairly easy to make, too.

Just a couple more ideas that I couldn't resist!  First is the Car in a Jar Snow Globe

Photo by It All Started with Paint

 from It All Started With Paint.  Isn't it just so cute?  It seems to me that I need one of these.

And then, lastly, this masterpiece from Elizabeth at Creative Breathing: Seasons Greetings Shadowbox.  The photo below is only a partial view.  You can see it in its entirety on my Pinterest board.  I did find, in clicking my link to make sure it worked, that I got a "the page you are looking for in this blog does not exist" message.  Don't worry.  Click the "shadow box" label in the right sidebar and you can find it easily.

Photo by Creative Breathing

I had made a Christmas shadowbox with vintage bits & pieces a few years back and I was thrilled with how it came out.  But it pales in comparison to this.  I just ache to get out my materials and craft another one!

Okay, that should be plenty of Christmas crafting inspiration for now!  Enjoy!

Embroidered felt gift tags ~ a fun little project!

Photo by Flamingo Toes

I'm not even sure if I should admit this, but I have over 1000 unread emails in my Yahoo inbox.  I subscribe to a lot of blogs by email, and some of them publish every day, so that's a lot of mail.  I try to keep up with the ones that come in each day, but inevitably during holiday time or busy seasons of life, there are those I don't get to.  Then when I have time, I go back and look through the ones I haven't read.  I nearly always find things to try, pin, or save.

It's sort of neat that right now, while I'm trying to come up with posts for Christmas in July, I'm looking through the unread inbox items from last December.  And I found a keeper that I want to share with you all -- lovely gift tags made by embellishing felt shapes with beads and embroidery.  These are the work of the amazingly creative Bev at Flamingo Toes.

Flamingo Toes is one of my favorite creative blogs.  If you have never visited, do go over and spend some time looking around.  You are sure to be inspired!  Bev dreams up some fabulous creations and she does beautiful work.  She does a lot of hoop art and I am wanting to make some of that myself.  But these Beaded Embroidery Felt Gift Tags are what I want to share with you today.

There's a snowflake, a holly berry, and a monogram tag.  These will add beauty to any gift, and I think the recipient might even like to use them as ornaments another year.  The felt shapes are neatly backed with kraft paper to cover the back side of the stitchery.  Aren't they pretty?  You might even think of variations of your own that you would like to try.  Have fun!

Felt tea wallets -- a sweet stocking stuffer

A fall themed tea wallet

Inside of  tea wallet

 After my last post, Luludou's comment got me thinking that I really should post the link again to the tea wallet instructions.  I've shared about them before, and you can read about them, and find the link to the instructions, here: Tea Wallets</>. 

I've made a number of these for gifts since my daughter made one for me several years ago. 

The tea wallet Carrie made for me.  Mine has one side for tea bags and the other for index cards.

 They are fun, practical, and easily personalized.  You can make any design you like for an applique.  I just made one recently which had a design of colorful autumn leaves on the front.  Hopefully I can share a photo of that soon ... it's still on the camera!

A Christmas tea wallet

On the inside

If the recipient works outside the home or spends a lot of time on the go, a tea wallet is a handy way to carry a selection of tea bags along.  You can make one side large enough to hold index cards, which means you always have a place to jot down a list or an idea, someone's email address, or even Bible verses.  I always take my tea wallet when we go off on a getaway, so I have a nice choice of tea flavors.  And I like the idea of the index cards so I always have a writing surface handy if needed.  Who thinks to bring scrap paper on a getaway?

Since all of the sewing on these is done by hand, this is a nice little project to carry with you and work on when you have a spare minute.  These make a great stocking stuffer or just a fun small gift to share with friends.  Have fun with this idea!

A finished* UFO

  The adorable Digital Washi Tape  may be found at A Typical English Home.  She also has a nifty polka dot assortment.

 * that is not completely "finished" -- because it still needs a frame.

(I apologize mightily for the quality of this photo.  My husband had been using the camera previously (to take pictures of flowers, at my request) and I'm assuming some of his settings, or the time of day, might have made a difference to the pics I tried to take with it afterward.  I promise, I will get a better picture when we get it framed.)

This embroidered winter scene had been started by a friend many years ago.  She had completed the snowman and the children around him, and I think part of the barn, but that was all.  Later she was cleaning out her needlework stash because her eyesight wasn't conducive to it anymore, and gave me a lot of things, including this just-begun winter scene.  I had always wanted to make something like this, so it worked out well.

I'm thankful to have it finished at last.  Now my hubby wants to make a frame for it.  Really, I think any wooden frame would do, but his sister suggested a birch log frame, so that is what he is planning to do. 

The birch log frame in this picture is the type he wants to make to frame the embroidery.

 He's very busy, so I think we will be doing well if he gets it completed in time for us to hang the picture on the wall this winter.

Interestingly, this design is called "Snow Angels".  What's funny is that my other major UFO is a cross stitch (on 18 count Aida; yikes!)
 
and it is also called "Snow Angels"!

A finished project

This runner has been on my "to finish" list for a couple of years now.  I am so pleased to have completed it.  My daughter loves chickadees, and I had wanted to make this for her birthday a couple of years ago.  When I bought the kit online, I mistakenly thought it was stamped cross stitch and embroidery.  I obviously didn't look too closely, for it was stamped embroidery, nearly all of it in satin stitch.

End motifs are like this

Entire runner -- I took this pic with the runner spread out on the floor.

I plan to give this to my daughter the next time I see her.  She can then put it away to have ready when the Christmas season arrives.  I'm not too worried about spoiling the surprise, as she seldom checks my Christmas blog, but even if she should happen to see it here, she will still be surprised by it, I guess.

One of the side motifs

It's a wonderful feeling to have finished this project at last!