Missed a week!

Hey-ho!  I've been working on the boys' Halloween costumes.  Squiddle wanted Link's Champion tunic from the video game Breath of the Wild, so I sewed the tunic and Wonderful Husband has been painting the white decoration lines onto it.  Jazzy opted to be a dragon, and the pattern (McCall's 8225) has been giving me a few headaches.

That said, I finished another Christmas stitch!  This one from Crafting Traditions magazine from Nov/Dec 1996!

I did change it slightly from the original:

I felt that since it had Santa in it, "Merry Christmas" was somewhat redundant.  And having Santa's sack being matchy-matchy with the shutters seemed a bit dated, so I took a poll of Jazzy and my mother and they both voted for a green bag instead.

It's not perfect - for part of the border and most of the pine trees, the stitches ended up going in a different direction than the rest of the work.  But by the time I'd realized it, I really didn't want to rip it all out and redo it.  Plus, in my household, no one but me will ever know or notice.  I did end up getting a slightly stronger pair of readers to work on this, because that full coverage midnight blue behind Santa was a bitch to deal with.

Two Finishes!

 Haha!  I am triumphant, and have finished (a) my first all-me major cross stitch project in some time, as opposed to finishing someone else's start, and (b) worked successfully on evenweave linen!

I changed the color of three of the Santas' skins, because my goodness we live in a multicultural and multiracial world, and since I was stitching on an off-white linen, I also changed the color of the snowflakes from gold to white.  Now I just need to wash, press, lace, and frame this.

I also did a quickie project, Little Quaker Pumpkin, which is a freebie on Stitchy Fish Designs' website.  I only had one of the colors recommended, so I subbed in the others as best I could from the box of threads I have on hand.  And I messed up in five separate spots, but as Wonderful Husband always points out, no one but me will ever notice or know.

Wonderful Husband thinks I should cut it out in an oval and sew it into a little pillow so it can be a "pumpkin bomb" to amuse our boys.  Maybe?

And!  We went to the Gig Harbor Quilt Guild's show this weekend.  I got some lovely compliments on Squiddle's Rainbow Quilt, which I entered, but unfortunately both boys were not really wanting to be there, so I didn't get to stay as long or take as many photos as I would've liked. :(  Que sera sera.  I also virtuously went and got my flu and covid shots, which knocked me down yesterday.  Bleh.  Better today!

Almost there....

Posting a day late, but most of yesterday we were up in Seattle, at first the Children's Museum, then at the Space Needle!  Both of which the boys greatly enjoyed.

I've kept working on the Santas cross stitch, and hope to finish it in the next week.

The top two Santas are completely finished.  Bottom right needs his topstitch detail lines.  Bottom right needs Santa's and the doll's skin done, the topstitch details, and the snow in the background.  I did opt to go for four different skin tones instead of all the Santas being lily pale.

Other than that... I've finally sewn the minky binding onto the red/cow print charity quilt.  And I have sworn never to work with minky again.  It is difficult to sew, felt like an oil slick against my hands by the time it was finished, and it will spend its life shedding microplastics into the environment.  Blech.

I also pulled a blouse and a skirt off the mending pile and got them taken care of.  Five minutes to fix, five months to work up to the actual fixing.  Why am I like this sometimes?

Oh, and I took a bit of black I'd gotten from the treasure table at last week's guild meeting and used it to make 6.5" rail fence blocks.  I have more black that I need to find, and a ton more precut strips to use up.  Project, go!