Christmas

With the same song as last Christmas, in a different interpretation this year, I would like to wish to all of you, my dear readers

Ugyanazzal az énekkel mint tavaly, ezalkalommal más előadásban, szeretettel kívánok minden kedves olvasómnak

Áldott Karácsonyt!

Merry Christmas!

Crăciun Fericit!

Feliz Natal!

Learning Reticello

Part 8 of Lee Albrecht's International Embroidery Exchange:

Another buttonhole stitch flower, almost the same as the previous one, but made using a slightly different technique, and with 4 additional little arches:

Snow, Rosebud and Reticello

Learning Reticello with Lee Albrecht, Part 7: Buttonhole Stitch Flower:

Rosebud on a pendant (yes, another one), this time with a couple of thorns, too.

And it is snowing... But the only visible result so far is in the quality of my photographs :)

Forget-Me-Not

What can I say? I love making these pendants...

Forget-me-not flower and buds on sky blue silk dupioni.

There are times...

... when everything falls in the right place, and there are times when they just don't. I have a few unfinished projects to prove the latter. Finishing the embellishment of my globe ornament went just fine, I was quite happy with the result, but the mounting didn't go as I have imagined. It can be saved, I have figured out a way to do that and even started finishing it up, but by then I got so frustrated that I needed a quick, rewarding project to lift my spirit a bit.

So I put the ornament away, not too far, just on the corner of my table (it will only take one or two more hours to get it done, just not today) and pulled out my box with silk ribbons and a piece of silk dupioni - got to love both of them - to make this cute little pendant:

I do feel a whole lot better already. Silk is just as good as chocolate :) Maybe even better. But, definitely, at least just as good!

Snowman Finger

If there are people who suffer from tennis elbow, here I am suffering from snowman finger. Pricked, that is. Again, worse than ever... I should have learnt my lesson by now, shouldn't I? Who in the right mind would try to stitch by hand, without a thimble, through 6 layers of taffeta, plus 2x interface, plus 2x backing??? Besides me, I mean :-)
Ha van olyan aki tenisz könyökkel szenved, akkor szenvedhetek én is hóember ujjal. Agyonszúrkálttal. Megint... Pedig már igazán megtanulhattam volna ezt a leckét. Ki az aki józan ésszel, kézzel, gyűszű nélkül akar átvarrni 6 réteg tafton, meg 2x közbélés, meg 2x bélésen? Úgy értem, rajtam kívül :-)

But even though I am not able to stitch today, and I have my questions about tomorrow, I am so happy with the result of my pricked fingers:
De annak ellenére hogy ma egyáltalán nem tudtam tűt (sem) fogni a kezemben, és a holnapban sem vagyok biztos, nagyon örvendek az ujjaim szurkálása eredményének:

A snowman suit for Sára, my daughter, as she is going to be the snowman the school's Christmas play this Wednesday. Her first play, our first costume... I just hope she will want to wear it and have enough patience for that half an hour she has to wear it (rather hard thing for a three year old, let's face it).
Egy hóember jelmez Sára lányomnak, aki hóember lesz szerdán, az ovis karácsonyi játékban. Első szerep, első jelmez... Remélem meglesz benne türelmesen abban a fél órában amíg viselnie kell (lássuk be, nem könnyű dolog ez egy 3 éves számára)

Very special thanks to Sára's godmother, 

who helped me (or let me help her) and bared with me for the entire
8 hours 

of the making of the suit on Sunday!!!

Hálás köszönet Sára keresztanyukájának,
aki végig segített nekem (vagy megengedte, hogy segítsek neki) és elviselt engem
vasárnap, a jelmez készülésének mind a 8 órájában!!!

Fitting session in the studio

We used one of her white T-shirts (sliced up in the back) to hold the upper body, and we made a plain underskirt from cotton fabric to hold the lower ball, we gathered lots of taffeta to make the two balls, we sewed them to the holding parts, and then sewed the two balls together by hand. The suit closes in the back with velcro - she will have to change clothes during the play, so we needed a quick solution. For the arms we simply cut two straight openings on the upper snowball. And last, but not least, I made the buttons from black and red felt and some stranded cotton.
A felső rész vázának egy, a lányzónak megfelelő méretű, pólót használtunk (hátul középen felhasítva), az alsónak pedig varrtunk egy egyszerű alsószoknyát, aztán buggyosítottunk sok-sok taftot a két hógolyóhoz, rávarrtuk külön-külön a vázakra és aztán kézzel egymáshoz varrtuk a két golyót. Hátulra tépőzárat varrtunk pontokban, mert a szereplés közben át kell majd öltözni, így egy gyors megoldást választottunk. Hogy a karocskák is kiférjenek valahol, egyszerűen hasítottunk és eldolgoztunk két nyílást a felső hógolyón. A gombok fekete és piros filcből készültek és 6 szál osztott hímzőfonallal öltöttem fel őket.

I think that we did quite well! Except for my fingers, but that will be all forgotten by the time I'll be the mother watching her daughter in her first little play :) I'd better pack some more hankies into my purse...

Merem állítani, hogy egészen jól sikerült! Kivéve az ujjszurkálást, de az meg biztosan el lesz felejtve mire az az anya leszek aki a kislánya legelső szereplését pityergi végig :) Megyek, bepakolok még pár szebkedndőt a táskámba...

Progress on Christmas tree ornament

The globe ornament is the one I chose to start embellishing first.

I found some small pieces of this pretty, slightly silverish lace and thought they would make a nice addition to the globe. I made the seam treatments with pink and green Kreinik fine braid no.4 and a few beads, then played a little on the lace with 7mm hand dyed silk ribbon.

There are still a few additions I want to make, a bit more green, a few more beads and a small motif on the burgundy patch, maybe tonight if I am still apt for stitching when all gets quiet :)

I hope you are all having a beautiful day!

Piecing again

This morning I walked into my studio strongly determined to clean it up after my last project - ok, projectS - and start rearranging my flosses and threads by color. I even ventured into thinking that I might have time to do the same with my beads too. Maybe even have a cup of tea in the meantime... After all, I did have 4 and a half hour's time to do all of that.

So I started gathering the bits and pieces of fabric laying on and around my cutting table, going through my scrap bin, wondering which ones were big enough to keep in the bin and which were small enough to throw away without feeling sorry for them... Pinks and purples from my latest RR blocks and from my very first finished crazy quilted piece, blues and greens from some phone pouches, burgundy from the little Christmas stocking, whites and creams from the ring bearer's pillows... The next thing I know is that I was piecing those tiny bits into ornaments. Ha! There went my organizing and my strong determination... 

But I did have just enough time and so much fun (no tea, though) to piece these six ornaments, about 10 cm high, little reminders of all my crazy quilting projects this year.

The flosses and beads will have to wait some more to be reorganized, now I have urgent embellishing to do :)

I hope you are all having a great time!

Is it Christmas already?!

If I look at my calendar, it is crystal clear that Christmas is more than two weeks away. But the boxful of presents that arrived from Lee Albrecht states otherwise:

A gorgeous box embroidered by Lee herself, two more oh, so beautiful handmade boxes, handmade soap (with a heavenly scent, by the way), cute muffin pincushion and pins, Lee's gorgeous kits (I can see a small change in my stitching plans soon, as the lavender kit keeps whispering to me), her Matrioshka  thread keep, Japanese embroidery book, yummy sweets (they didn't make it to the photo shoot, sorry)... oh, my... breathtaking... and most precious all, kindness and friendship...

 Muito obrigado, Lee, pelo mais este carinho!

Three pink blocks and an angel

As promised, here are the other three tone on tone blocks. And they are pink :)

Thank you, ladies, for playing this little game with me. 

Four of those who left a comment guessed right, and with the help of my DH I had a little draw from the hat. Sorry, I couldn't take photos, you will just have to trust me this time. 

And the winner of this hardanger angel is 

Ati

Congratulations :)

Phone Pouch no.4

Taking advantage of another glorious sunny morning, I finished this cute phone pouch.

I used green fabric for the back and pink for the lining and for the closing I put to use a pretty vintage metal button.

I really like making these pouches, so there will definitely be more to follow.

Made my choice

Thank you, ladies, for sharing your opinions about my color combinations! They were all helpful and greatly appreciated.
My very first choice was purple, to begin with, but as I didn't have enough purple fabric to make all the six blocks, I had to "diversify". Hence my dilemma.

We had such a wonderful sun this morning and I managed to piece all six blocks. I started with purple, of course, all yummy silks, silk satins and taffetas:

The photos just don't do these pretty colors justice, but this is the best I could do, with the sun being gone by the time the blocks were ready for posing.

The color of the other three blocks is...................... well, what do you think? 

I will show you tomorrow, but until then feel free to take a guess! There just might be a little prize for someone who guesses right before my next post :-)