Happy New Year!

Can you believe that we are already half way through January? I sure can't... Life has been so busy (in a very, very, very good way) for the last couple of weeks that I simply didn't have the time to take pictures of my finished Christmas ornaments together on our tree. Luckily our tree is still up, and as today I am taking pictures of some pendants I've been working on, I decided to take the opportunity to shoot those ornies, too.

Wishing you all a year filled with love and joy, with good health and lots of creativity!

Hardanger Ornaments - Readers's Creations

As much as I would have liked to finish Christmas Joy and share it with you before the Holidays, my cold (yes, I am at it again) proved to be stronger than my desire and ability to stitch. Today I managed to do all the baking, so maybe tomorrow I'll give stitching another try. No promises, though...
Until then I am proud to share with you the beautiful ornaments stitched by my dear readers.

Tatiana's work:

Martina's work:

Victoria's work:

I just love seeing all the different interpretations, thank you, ladies!

Happy Holidays, Everyone!

Stocking Ornament

After the "summer break" yesterday, I was a very good girl and finished up the Hardanger Stocking Ornament.

There are no red beads on the golden side, because I simply ran out of them... Oh, well, these ornaments were not a planned thing, so I am glad the beads lasted as long as they did. 

My friend said that if she didn't know that I had designed this with red beads, she wouldn't even miss them :)

Christmas Joy is coming soon and I can't wait to put up our Christmas tree already!

Happy creating, Everyone!

Apprentice at work

My daughter joined me while I was browsing the internet for handmade Christmas decoration ideas for kids the other day, and to my surprise, she was not taken with the "cute" ones, but with the fabric covered styrofoam balls. "Let's make these", she said. Ok, as long as I do the cutting. She agreed and we ran up to the studio to choose some fabric and ribbon. Need I tell you how much I loved seeing her go through my fabrics and ribbons, choosing "just the perfect ones to go together"???
She did need a lot of help finishing them, after all, she is only four, but all the choices were hers and she was so happy and proud of herself, and oh, did we have fun making and photographing  these balls!

Happy preparations, Everyone!

Snowflake Ornament

As the majority of the ladies participating in my little game wished, let me introduce to you the finished Snowflake Ornament.

It wasn't the easiest one to make and I sure had my moments of frustration while whip stitching the two sides together, but where would we all be without challenges and in the end I am happy with the result.

So happy, in fact, that I have entered it into a competition for handmade Christmas decorations, reason for which I have made the collage bellow. More about the contest in a later post.

Happy creating, Everyone!

Help Me Out And Win My Heart - Christmas Giveaway

As my "ornament cloth" is getting closer and closer to the moment when it will turn into a butterfly seven Christmas tree ornaments, I found myself wondering which one to finish first... A bell and a heart have already been finished before starting the "cloth", so one of the other three would be more fun to continue with: the snowflake, the stocking or poor little no.4, for which I couldn't come up with a name...

So here's what I thought: why not ask YOU to help me decide and make this a fun Christmas giveaway? Are you in? Great! Let's play!

Which of the three ornaments would you like to see finished first: snowflake, stocking or no.4?
And as I think that no.4 is too pretty to be called a number, what name would you give to this ornie?

Leave a comment to this post answering one or both of the two questions above for one or two chances to win my two sided hardanger heart ornament.

Hurry up and leave your comment until December 10, midnight (CET) and I will draw a name on the 11th, so that I can post the ornament as soon as possible, hoping that it will reach its destination by Christmas, wherever the winner of the giveaway may reside.

Spread the word if you would like, and when you leave your comment make sure it links back to a working email address so I can get back to you.

Thank you for your help and good luck, Everyone!

Christmas Ornaments - Readers' Creations

Creating the Hardanger Christmas Ornament patterns was great fun in itself, but seeing them embroidered by you, dear old and new friends, is such a wonderful feeling, I can't even describe it in words. It feels like we all became part of each other's joyful preparations for Christmas :)

Milena from Italy created this lovely ornament using a simplified version of my snowflake ornament on blue felt:

Rita from Hungary chose to embroider the heart, creating this pretty ornament:

Manka, also from Hungary, finished a complete two sided ornament, using the heart ornament pattern:

Congratulations, ladies, for your beautiful creations and thank you sooo much for sharing these photos with me!

Wishing Everyone a happy weekend,

Progress on Hardanger Christmas Ornaments

My "ornament cloth" is getting busier and busier by the minute and it is looking great, if I may say so myself.

Some of the ornaments are ready for beading, some of them are waiting for the courier to bring some more Kreinik braid, and until he arrives I am stitching the first kloster blocks of the last heart.

Let me say a  big Thank You again for all your kind emails about the patterns, and tutorials! I am so glad that you liked them and found them helpful, and receiving photos of your finished ornaments makes me happy beyond words. I will be sharing some of those photos with all of you during the weekend.

Until then, have fun, Everyone!

All Together - Ornaments in Progress

In an attempt to save my hardanger fabric, I am working on the entire set of Christmas ornaments at the same time, finding a place for all of them and then some, on a strip of fabric that was left from another project.

The snowflake, stocking, no.4 and a smaller heart are already in place, while the heart, bell and maybe even a little angel, are still to be added. Just stopped to work on the Algerian eyelets, to break the monotony a little bit.

It does take longer to finish them this way, but when they are finished...

they are all finished at the same time :)

Wishing Everyone a happy day,

Christmas Ball Ornament

This lovely Christmas ball ornament was made by Victoria  from Ukraine. For the embroidered section of her ornament, she used the center of my Snowflake Ornament in her own interpretation:

Thank you, Victoria for sharing the photos of your work! Receiving your messages and seeing this pretty ornament have made me really happy.

On another note, Victoria also drew my attention to the fact that I forgot to flip the patterns for the back sides of my Stocking Ornament. I edited that post, replacing the photos with the proper ones, so if you have downloaded the photos, you might want to go back and download again or simply flip horizontally the image of the pattern you have chosen for the back of your stocking... Sorry about that...

Again, if you have requested the patterns in PDF files in an email from me, I will be sending to you the corrected version on Monday. 

Wishing you all a great week!

Christmas Stocking Ornament Pattern - Edited

Concluding the series of my hardanger Christmas ornament designs, for this year at least, today I am bringing to you the patterns for a Christmas stocking ornament.
I am also working on a tutorial for finishing these two sided ornaments, hopefully to be posted in a day or two, so stay tuned.

Enjoy! And remember, it would make me really happy to receive photos of your work.

Should you like to receive the patterns in a PDF format please let me know, I will be happy to email them to you and answer any questions you might have, just make sure that your comment links back to a working email address. 

Have a great week, Everyone!

Heart Ornament

I wouldn't be surprised if this little heart started singing "Adeste Fideles" all of a sudden, so many times I hummed the song while working on it.

Just like the bell ornament, the heart is lined with red satin and has different designs on both sides. 

Now on to working on the snowflake. Lining that one will be a little bit trickier, can't wait to see how that goes. 

Wishing you all the best,