Year of the Sheep (4) FINISHED!

This is my last Year of the Sheep and it's finished.  AND I changed the colors.  I think it turned out better than the rat that I changed colors but I should have picked a darker brown for the color and inside the ears so the transition stands out more.  I also should have used a darker brown for the backstitching.  I'm still happy with it and I'm not going to nitpick about it.  Now I only have 2 left to stitch.

14ct red Aida, 2x1, full

Ornaments Xmas 2012

So I've been thinking.  Dangerous I know.  What I've been thinking about is the Chinese Zodiac projects I've been stitching up.  I'm pretty sure that some of the guys (okay probably all of them) will not be that enthusiastic about getting 'em for Xmas presents.  I thought about what would make this better so I was thinking about things I got for xmas.

One of those things was each year I had a Grandmother who would buy an ornament and tape it to the outside of our gifts.  When we opened the gift we could put our new ornament on the tree.  She always tried to find something that we were interested in.  One brother got a lot of drum ornaments because he played.  I got a lot of dance stuff.  Another brother got a lot of music stuff.  Nothing really exciting but when we looked at the tree it was nice to know some of those ornaments were yours.

One year, as we were taking down the ornaments my mom started sorting them in different boxes.  We were to get all our own ornaments to hang on our own tree.  We were all moved out of the house so we could have our own tree.  It was nice to get a shoebox full of ornaments that I could shift through.  I don't remember what gifts I got with each ornament but sometimes I could remember what ornaments my siblings got just by looking at mine.  And every ornament was a memory of my grandmother.

So . . . I decided to stitch up ornaments for everybody and stitch their name and year on the back.  They might not like those any better than the Chinese Zodiac, but maybe many years down the line when they have a shoebox full of ornaments (if my parents or my siblings decide to take up the tradition) they might have a memory of me to hang on their tree each year.  "Oh this one!  My Aunt Gwenn made it for me."

I got this idea right at the end of June and thought for sure that someone would have a "Christmas in July" sale.  Sure enough 123stitch.com did.  I moved a bunch of ornament books to my cart but ended up getting some of them at the local store (full price for everything I got was still cheaper than the sale with shipping).  I didn't get all the books but maybe I'll pick up more later.  I did have 12 xmas patterns that someone in college had given me.  These first 4 designs are from that collection.

So while I only have 3 more Chinese Zodiacs to stitch I now have 18 more ornaments to do.  And, yes, I'll be doing one for myself as well.  I want something to remind me of this crazy year.  I got waste canvas to stitch their names on felt for the backing and it will be my first time using that but I'm looking forward to it.

Here's what I've done so far:

Year of the Snake (3) FINISHED!

Here's the last of the Year of the Snake.  Still 14ct Aida, 2x1 full.  I thought it would look better on the green than it does.  Maybe when I wash the white lines off it will look better.  I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to paint the frame for this one.  I have time to experiment.  I only have 3 left and that includes the one I'm doing for myself.  I'm actually getting really excited to finish these and start to get them frame.  I still have a lot of the frames I need to paint but I can't wait until I'm finished with the whole project.

Year of the Monkey

Here is my latest in the Chinese Zodiac series.  It's the Year of the Monkey.  14ct 2x1 full on light blue Aida.  I did change the hair from blonde to dark brown.  This one is for my niece and she has dark brown hair.  This pattern didn't have a nose on it like all the other ones do so I added one anyway.  It just looked too weird without one and I didn't want people to look at it and think I forgot the nose.  I wish I wouldn't have save this one until towards the end because of all the 945 stitches.  I'm getting really tired of that color and this was almost too much for me.  I persevered and finished it but it was a struggle at times.

Year of the Rat (3) FINISHED!

This is my last Rat to finish.  I changed the color scheme to a gray instead of blue since it's for a little girl.  I don't think it turned out as well as it could.  Instead of looking through all the grays in the color spectrum I picked 3 that I had already pulled for the kit.  And for some reason I think it looks more like a boy that a girl. 

It's done on Mulberry 14ct 2x1 full stitches as usual.  I also stitched most of this up with only 1 functioning eye.  Due to eye problems I wasn't allowed to wear my contact in the left eye.  Fortunately that eye is used for distance and my right eye is used for close up stuff.  Still, my depth perception is off and sometimes I was hard to get the needle to come up in the right hole.  Only 5 left to go.

Year of the Tiger (2) - FINISHED!

I'm getting closer to my goal.  This is the second and last Tiger I have to stitch up.  It's done on 14ct Pewter Aida 2 x 1.  I used this fabric for another guy and didn't like it.  This time I didn't find it so thin and flimsy.  I also found a nice groove when stitching the Tiger parts up and it went very smoothly.  I'm getting pretty good at these guys.  I have 6 more on my list after this one but I just finished one of those today at lunch.  I'll have to scan it and post the picture on that one later.  That means I have only 5 left to do.  Two of those are singletons so it will be nice to have something new to stitch with these guys.

Year of the Dragon (3) - - A Happy Accident?

So I've stitched the last of my Dragons (thankfully) and with this one I couldn't decide if what turned out was a happy accident or a terrible disaster.  I had stitched all the flesh including the legs before I stitched the body.  I just wanted to be done with that color because I'm getting tired of it (7 more to go Whoo hoo!).  I did the pink belly part and those confetti stitches, but I decided to do the confetti color in the surrounding area before I did the bigger block of color. 

Unfortunately I must have gotten interrupted between looking at the pattern, deciding what to do next and pulling the corresponding color.  What I pulled was the color for the big section . . . which I ended up using for the confetti stitches.  I didn't realized my mistake until I finished and went to grab the color of the bigger section and realized that was the color I had just used. 

So . . . the orange main color should be small confetti stitches around the lower body, the muzzle outlines and around the eyes in the headdress.  The dark red/coral color should have been the main body color (which I did in orange) instead of the single confetti stitches.  Once I made the mistake in the lower half I had to leave myself a note on the pattern to switch them up on the headdress.  You can go look at a previous one to compare.

On one hand I think it looks great.  I think it gives more definition to the headdress but the pink belly next to an orange body (which should be dark coral) looks a little off.  I have a couple other characters that are going to the same family group so I've decided to change the colors up a little bit so everyone's not the same and for those it will be easy.  I have 2 dragons going to my sister and niece but I couldn't figure out how to change the colors without it being a disaster.  So maybe I got lucky.  I wasn't going to mess with the Snake's colors either but now maybe I can work something out.  What do you think?