Embroidered Ornaments

Here's 2 more holiday gifts for my kids teachers that are finished! I made embroidered linen Christmas tree ornaments and stuffed them.

One is a ukulele, decorated with Christmas lights.

One is a bird, with folk art-ish designs.

Both have the green tree fabric on the back.

Now I just have one more teacher gift to make... and my deadline is tomorrow. I'm trying a new bag pattern so I hope it goes smoothly!

Stitching Up Some Fun

I've been doing a good bit of library book borrowing this summer, especially looking at quilting and craft books for inspiration. My 8 year old daughter has been really interested in embroidery, and learning some "actual stitches" as opposed to just messing around with a needle and thread, so I checked out Colorful Stitchery by Kristin Nicholas for her.


We liked the book so much- both the instructions and the projects and ideas- that we bought a copy on Amazon. Funnily enough, it's an old library copy....


I designed a sampler for my daughter so she could learn a number of the basic stitches right away.


She did a great job and it turned out really cute! She learned cross stitch, chain stitch, straight stitch, running stitch, back stitch, French knots, lazy daisy, stem stitch and satin stitch. That's pretty good for a little summer sampler! Her 4 year old sister is now asking for one of her own, so she'll get plenty of practice!