Here are a few finishes that I have done.  I will post more about them soon!

It took me a while to think about what I wanted to do for these announcements.  I had initially thought about a Christaine Dahlbeck design from her Shone Momente.  It is a beautiful book with truly lovely designs.  I purchased some cards for completing designs in this book from Scandinavian Stitches.  After going to the home show for Scandinavian Stitches, I found another book that I fell in love with, and identified a design that I didn't even need to change the colors for!  Here is a picture: 

August 3, 2012 was the most wonderful day I have ever had, when my sweetheart Dan, asked me to marry him.  We are going to be married on the 4th of April 2014, in Quebec City.  We will be married at Notre Dame des Victoires, and will be having a wedding dinner at Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac.  Farimont offers an elopement package for up to 10 people.  We will have five quests with us.  We are so excited!  The day after the wedding we leave on a romantic honeymoon tour of Paris for a week!  Because we are having such a small wedding, we wanted to send wedding announcements with a picture of our wedding day to our family and friends.  Because we have minimal planning and preparation to do, I decided to make these announcements my special project! 

I will post more on this project again!

I posted about my Daisy Chain ABC's a little while ago when I started it.  I have never done any crewel work before, so had only stitched the letter "O" becasue it looked the simplest, and I wanted to see how I did.  It is really quite fun doing crewel, and it does work up fairly quickly!  I have completed up to the letter K so far:
 

There are some stitches on this that I have never tried before, and I am pleased with how they came out.  So  far, I found doing long and short stitches on the "K" the most difficult.  The next letter has some other stitches that I have never completed, so we will see how it goes!  I am really looking forward to see this in a frame.  

This pattern is called Flip Flops, and is part of the Jelly Miniblock series by Hinzeit.  It was a quick stitch, but I had some trouble finding the frame that matched it, produced by Kay's Frames.  After some searching, I found that it was available at a store in Michigan called Stitches 'n Things, where the store owner Deb was extremely helpful in finding the correct colors to go with the pattern.  

 One of the things I love about stitching for another person is that you often find yourself becoming even more connected to the person than you were before.  I made this design for my Godmother.  She is like a second mother to me, and my Mom's bestest, bestest friend.  She has had a roller coaster year, where she has had happy things to look forward to (her daughter's wedding) and sad events (her mother passing away).  I could see all year how much stress that she was under, and especially that there was nothing I could do about it to help.  I gave this to her recently after all of these things have happened, hoping that by giving it to her she would know how much she means to me.  She loves wearing flip flops, and is a real beach person, so when I saw this design I immediately knew that it was for her!

I had the most wonderful day this past weekend.  One of my favorite online shops, Scandinavian Stitches had a home show on Saturday.  The owner, Lynda opens up her home twice per year for a show where stitchers can see the items that she sells in person.  This was my first time attending, and I am sure that I will be back again!

  I first found out about her shop at the Celebration of Needlework Show in Nashua, New Hampshire this past year.  I loved the designers she carried, particularly her own line of designs.  Christiane Dahlbeck, a German designer, became a fast favorite.  She creates very whimsical, simple designs that are often finished as three-dimensional objects, which I love the versatility of. 

Although it was a bit over a two and a half hour drive to her home in Greenwich, Connecticut, it was well, well worth it!  I left in the morning, with a tea to go, and my favorite CD’s playing in the car.  It was an easy drive down, and on the way back home I could daydream about all the projects I was going to start.  Lynda had a lovely spread of snacks and treats, and it was so relaxing to browse through her rooms at the stock she had displayed. I was able to add several items to my stash, and learn a bit about Scandinavian embroidery as well as designers.  She also carries a wide variety of linen banding in different colors and sizes, which I have some ideas for, and Danish and German Flower Thread that I am excited to try!

Here is a photo of the new items I acquired on my shopping trip!  Of course, being a librarian, I couldn’t pass up purchasing a few pattern books.  I also bought a few of the three-dimensional objects I mentioned that are easy for finishing and which I have seen in Christiane Dahlbeck’s books, such as a watering can decoration, a needlebook, and two little bags.  As I have these stitched up, I will be sure to post about them!