JCS Ornament Preview results - Quick post!

Sorry I'm late.  I got swamped at work on Friday and didn't get a chance to run the randomizer or post.  It's been busy today too, but I just caught a break and entered the names of everyone who said they wanted to be included in the list randomizer in the order that the comments were received, hit Randomize, and here are the results:

List Randomizer

There were 4 items in your list. Here they are in random order:

1. Elaine
2. Blu
3. KarenV
4. Sherry

Timestamp: 2010-09-27 18:08:36 UTC

Congratulations to Elaine and Blu!  Please email me your snail mail addresses.  My email address is in my profile.  I will also post a comment on each of your blogs, in case you don't wander back through here and see this.

Thank you to everyone for your kind comments about the ornaments and mystery sampler and commiseration about my tremendous blunder.  The restitch is coming along.  I haven't have quite as much stitch time as usual because my son started back to school and the Homework Wars have resumed.  I think I'm on track to be ready for part three, though, when it's released at the end of the week.  Would you believe that I had to re-restich about 3/4 of the green inner border because I was out by one thread in each direction?  Believe it.  AAAARRRRGGGG!!!!

Further proof of my inability to follow a chart

Late last month I started working on the Cat's Whiskers mystery sampler that began in the August 2010 issue of The Gift of Stitching.  I started with the center section, first the verse and then its outline.  Then I started stitching the snowflakes.  Here's a picture I took a night or two in:

  

I only stitched a few of the snowflakes but I wasn't thrilled with  the placement as they were charted, so I decided not to stitch any more of them until the next installment was released a week or so later.  I wanted to see if there was a reason the partial large flakes on the sides weren't the same as the partial ones along the top.  (I won't be stitching the small ones until I do the beading at the end.)  So I moved on to the outer border and the words there.  Once the second installment came out, I stitched pretty much everything released to date, made some assumptions that the bottom will match the top and went to town with my stitching, saving the snowflakes and the center of the top right medallion for last.  This is where I am today:

 

Cat's Whiskers "On Christmas Day" mystery sampler

32 ct. Wichelt Permin Prairie Grain

(true color of the linen is somewhere between the first photo and this one, more green than grey or brown)

DMC in 3052 green, 3866 white, 3721 red, 221 dark red (for my initials) - 2 over 2



I love it!  Except for one small problem...  I miscounted when I started on the outer sections, and the entire outer section, including the bloody snowflakes, should have been one stitch to the right.  See?  No?  Here's a close up of the left side:







and the right:





See it now?  Yeah, I didn't either.  Until I was stitching the very last one of those blasted snowflakes that I decided had to be moved for my sanity's sake, and found that it didn't align to the inner section's corner the way that it should have.  I don't know how I missed it on the other side.  ????!!!!????  There are 7 stitches/14 threads between the green line and the center motif on the left side and only 5 stitches/10 threads on the right.  Trust me, I've recounted it about fiftyleven times since I discovered the screw up on Wednesday and, sadly, the elves didn't come in and fix it overnight, or the second night, or the night after that...  Do you think I could possibly leave it be?  We're talking me here, people.  Me, who had to move the stinking snowflakes down by a stitch.  Um, yeah.  Ain't gonna happen.  So what am I gonna do, you ask.  Based on the lack of love for the snowflakes (which you may have already noticed) I will be unpicking the entire red and green center section and CAREFULLY restitching it one stitch to the left.  I don't know what it is between me and those snowflakes, but I didn't enjoy stitching them the first time, or the second, and I refuse to do them a third!  Much as I hate the thought of restitching basically half of the sampler, I can't just let it go.  If I left it, it would bother me forever, so it's either redo it, trash it, or leave it as a UFO.  I like it too much for either of the last two options, so I'll be filling up my orts jar with curly threads this weekend...

Cool Christmas and extra JCS ornament preview issues

If you've taken a gander at the 2010 Finishes list in my sidebar lately, you've probably noticed that I fell hard for Fresh Threads Studio's contribution to this year's Just Cross Stitch ornament preview issue, with a few twists.  I stitched all of mine on 36 ct. antique white Edinburgh linen, and so far I have not purchased the crystal stars.  I started out by stitching it in the colors charted.  When I showed it to my daughter, she promptly snatched it and said, "Thanks!" 



Which led me to stitch #2.

While stitching #2, I got to wondering what it would look like in shades of orange.

Then I thought it would look great in shades of other colors, too, like blue.

While I was stitching blues, my son requested black and red.  Here is the result:

After that, I got back to my thoughts of pinks

and purples.

Then I decided to twist the black and red to red and black.

I had enough of the fat quarter left for one more, and I decided on darker blues with yummy DMC 995 as the main tree color. 

I love stitching ornaments.  They're so portable and they stitch up so quickly that it's almost instant gratification.  If I ever get my act together and make all the ones I've stitched into actual ornaments, there just might be enough to pretty well fill a small tree.  Or maybe the tree in Rockefeller Center.  The stack keeps growing...

Speaking of stacks, I suddenly find myself the proud owner of not one, not two, but three copies of the 2010 JCS Ornament Preview issue in which Cool Christmas is featured.  Since I only need one, I am putting the other two up for grabs.  If you haven't already acquired a copy, please leave a comment specifying that you would like to be added to the drawing, and I will leave it up to the fates randomizer on Friday September 24.  Entries will close at noon Pacific Daylight Savings Time.  (Open to all, domestic and international, and you do not have to be a follower to enter.)