Sunday, December 23, 2018

❤🎄 A Very Merry Christmas! 🎄❤


❤ The Greatest Gift is Love ❤
My Variation of a Lizzie*Kate design from the
Just Cross Stitch 2001 Christmas Ornament Special

(There's a lovely finish of the design by Anne on Flickr here, closer to the original)

Hope you're getting into the Christmas Spirit! It's been a little hard for my family this year, as it's our second Christmas without my beloved Grandpa. He died on Christmas Day 2016, and last year was a blur - I have no idea how we got through it to be honest. This year his loss is always in our thoughts, and the grief hits hard at the strangest times. So I stitched this little ornament as reminder to us all that it's not the Holiday hustle and bustle that matters, but the time we spend together and the memories that we make 😊


I really enjoyed working on this, and it stitched up quickly! My first idea was to stitch everything with beads, but the lettering looked too wobbly, since I was using inexpensive silver-lined seed beads that have a pretty sparkle but unfortunately aren't a regular size. So I settled for beading the star and the border, which I turned into little red flowers with gold centers. The lettering is in metallic floss, for some extra sparkle ✨


In keeping with the sparkle, I found this beautiful glittered gold fabric for the back! It is so lovely, especially in the Christmas lights - it looks like it's sprinkled with real gold dust 💛 Unfortunately I had trouble capturing that in the photo.

And I used some of my favourite cording, a red-gold-green tinsel cording I found at Michaels a few years ago (and really wish I'd bought more of!):


It's a little challenging to attach, but I've found that sewing through the trim with invisible thread does the trick. And the end result is fantastically sparkly! I tried to capture all that pretty glitter, and this is the closest I could get (sorry it's a bit dark):


You can see a little bit of that gorgeous silver-lined seed bead shine on the star ⭐

2018 has been an interesting stitchy year for me! Although I haven't been able to do nearly as much with the blog as I'd hoped, I joined Instagram and have greatly enjoyed the huge stitchy community over there. I was awed and incredibly thankful for the support my Joyful Jester entry to the SFSNAD Stitch At Home Challenge brought 🤗 And I've been having a ton of fun experimenting with hand embroidery.

Hopefully 2019 will bring more stitchy time, for all of us! 😄


Best Wishes for A Very Happy Holidays, and a Stitchtacular New Year!

8 comments:

Catherine - Hillview Embroidery said...

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas, full of lots of lovely memories of your grandpa. I look forward to your stitching adventures next year.

Katie said...

Beautiful ornament finish. I love the sparkly you added. I'm so sorry for your Christmas loss. No time is a good time to lose a loved one but Christmas is just so painful to lose someone. I look forward to seeing what 2019 brings your way. I will be here cheering you along.

Julie said...

Very pretty finish

rosey175 said...

Sparkly ornament finish (which is really the only appropriate way, yep) for this year! I've had issues with beads being whatever size they want to be and it does make things wobbly. I like how they are in the star and tiny flowers! Wishing you a lot more sparkle for 1019! \:D/

rosey175 said...

LOL, that should totally be 2019 unless you're planning a trip back in time to make it sparkly too.

Aurelia Eglantine said...

Thank you all so much for the lovely comments!

Catherine: Thank you so much for your kindness. I'm looking forward to following your stitchy adventures this year too, it's been so fun following your RSN progress!

Katie: Thank you, you don't know how much that means to me :) It's my first serious loss, and he really loved Christmas so hopefully it will get easier in time. Hope 2019 is good for you too!

Julie: Thank you!

Rosey: You have uncovered my secret plan for World Domination - I'm going to steal a TARDIS and make the Past Super Sparkly!!! LOL 1019 is as good a place as any to start ;) Thank you so much for all of your support this year, and I hope 2019 brings you lots of stitchy awesomeness and sparkle too!

Sheryl said...

A lovely Christmas ornament, I love the stitched gold star and the pretty glittery backing fabric, always difficult to photograph. Happy New Year Aurelia.

Karen said...

Very sparkly indeed! I love the trim and it looks great hanging on your tree. :)