First Attempt at Beaded Tatting and Other Christmas Projects

Every year, I do the same thing:  I see a cute small project that I want to make right away.  And I think, "I just need to LEARN A NEW TECHNIQUE and then I'll whip out 50 or so of these really cute things for all the people I love who would just love this!"  This year, that project was a beaded tatted snowflake.  To the left is the result.    The first problem was that it's hard to tell which way the work is turned with all those beads in the way--which is pretty important--and the second is that apparently I can't count to four, and so put too many beads in the wrong area.  But this gave me time to regain my senses and realize that it is just too late in the year to try to learn this and make a bunch.  But it looks promising for next year....


The next two projects are snowflakes that I made for a White Elephant exchange at my church:

I really hate White Elephants; I think they are tacky.  If I want other people's castoffs I'll go to the thrift store and pay for them.  But I really wanted to support the people who put on this activity, and homemade gifts were suggested as an alternative.  Both snowflakes are from Be-Stitched.com, and they are free!  And fun, easy and quick.


I've finished two ornaments for my family.  This is JazzBoy's:

It is, of course, from JCS Ornament Issue 2011.  "Winter Song" by Primrose Needleworks.

DH gets "Christmas ABC" by Shepherd's Bush:

I am behind on stitching the angels this year.  They are Told In A Garden's free 2000 Angel.  I actually finished one on schedule, then dropped a warm chocolate chip cookie on it.  I washed it with Orvus, which got it mostly clean but left a couple of grease spots.  This disheartened me, so I didn't stitch for a while.  My MIL has advised me to try a paste of Biz, so we'll see how that works.


But I have started stitching on them again.  One thing I love about stitching is watched the design seemingly grow out of the fabric.  I almost always start in the center and do one color at a time, at least as far as I can reasonable count.  This often leads to pools of color that are sometimes adjacent and sometimes not.  I like that; I like how the blobs look like nothing at first, then suddenly you have a beautiful picture.  Sometimes, though, the colors give the outline of the image, and I like that too.  The 2000 Angel is one of those.  One color done, and you can tell what it's going to be:

A couple more colors add a bit of dimension:

And just for fun, a blob of purple: