Three Projects

In today's paper (which we received yesterday), there was a flyer for one of the big craft stores, advertising 60% off a complete custom framing order. Great, I thought, I can take my niece's birth sampler in to be framed. I pulled the ironing board out this morning, prepared the sampler, and drove down to northern Virginia to the craft store.

Naive me. I thought that at 60% off, that my framing order would be significantly less than what I usually pay at my LNS for framing. HA, HA, HA. After 60% off, it would have cost me about the same as my LNS. I brought the sampler home and will take it to my LNS instead. I'd rather give them the money, and they'll do a nicer job. They might even have a pre-made frame that will fit it's unusual size.

Here's an updated picture of the sampler. You'll see I added name, date, and a spiral of my own design. The spiral was to fill in the blank space left by centering the name. The spiral should have probably been a few more spaces to the right, but I'm pleased with how it came out overall.

Since I was ironing anyway, I thought I'd pull out my stash of FUFOs that need ornamentifying. All of them are washed, ironed, and trimmed of excess threads. The pile included 7 of the 8 ornaments that I've stitched this year (the 8th, my February heart, is completely finished already). It also included 5 more projects.

Pictured here are 2 that I stitched in late 2005 out of the 2005 JCS ornament issue. It was the first JCS OI that I bought, and it's probably the one that I like most to date. It's also the only one from which I've stitched any projects, and I think I've stitched 6 or 8 different ornaments. I've given most of them away, as usual.

Both were stitched on scraps of fabric with DMC threads. I liked the second one so much, I stitched it twice, giving one to a non-religious friend as her winter holiday gift that year.