Ornament Mode

For a while there, I always had an ornament in progress, regardless of what else was going on or how many WIPs I was trying to juggle.  But I ended up to not care much for the last couple of ornaments I started and laid both of them aside, partly finished, and haven't had any ornies in my stitching pile.  Until today :-)

I was prowling through some back issues of the JCS ornament issue as well as through some charts that I had printed from on-line sites and I decided it was time to start another ornament (maybe some day I'll actually get around to finishing some of the ones I've already stitched!)  I pulled "Grumpy Kitty" out of the pile -- he's a freebie from Brookes Books -- and went stash-diving for a piece of fabric.  The chart calls for 28-count light blue linen; the piece I'm using is 28-count, though not what the chart called for.  I bought it ages ago for some long-forgotten never-started project (you got any of those?).

 I got his eyes mostly stitched this evening:

Whilst I was kitting up the grumpy kitty, I decided to also kit up one of the ornaments from a recent issue of Just Cross Stitch -- June / July, maybe?  The one with the Christmas ornament preview, whichever one that was.  Anyway, it's a stylized Christmas tree, designed by Lynda Keske.  It's stitched over 1 on 28-count (I'm using 27-count Linda) using 3 shades of DMC green, red silk, and a Rainbow Gallery gold metallic.  I haven't hunted out the metallic yet, but I went diving again and found a nice piece of nameless red silk.  It looks a little variegated.  I expect I got it in a kit or, more likely, a detritus bag.  No stitching yet on this piece.

It feels good to be back in ornament mode.  I like having something small in progress.

It's back to work tomorrow.  Here's hoping everyone has a good week -- happy stitching!