Christmas Crackers are on theri way

The Christmas crackers are on their way to their new homes. I hope their new owners enjoy them as much as I did making them.

They are stuffed full of goodies and I hope they are not too badly crushed by Christmas. I have not photographed the goodies as they are a suprise for my partners. Thank you all for a great fun time.

Now to do some catch up sewing.

Christmas Crackers Finished

At last I have finished the embroidery on my Christmas cracker swap blocks. I have continued to pratice new stitches as well as this time I did a vine for the Crazy Quilting International vine challange.

The base is feather stitch with ribbon leaves, flowers (rosebuds?) and colonial knot spots. In the background you can see some of  my pratice stitches. Here are some more closeups of the embroidery on this block.

Water Bottle

I did this water bottle carries at a U3A class. The bag is linen lined with some antique cotton fabric I have and the embroidery is fine wool.

Some if the wool is hand spun and dyed I purchased in Yass New South Wales years ago. For those who do not know Yass is in western highlands of New South Wales about 3 hours drive from Sydney and 40 minutes drive from Canberra our capital city. It is the wool raising center of Australia.

The gumnuts I used as beads on the ties I collected in Tasmania. They are from the Blue Gum the floral emblem of Tasmania. And of course I had to use Dorset buttons my new obsession.

Here is a closeup of the stitching.

The Dorset button holds the little outside pocket for odds and ends, like money and ID, closed. I plan to use this when I go walking.

First Christmas Swap Block Finished

Here is the first of my Christmas Swap Blocks. By using the BAS stitches I was not so lost with what to do next. I had great fun creating this block but felt a little restrained because I decided not to use any beads or charms because the block looked to me as if it could be used as part of the Christmas table setting in future and the beads and other embellishments would not suit the future use. Any how here is the first block with some closeups of the individual stitches.

This is the woven cross stitch, detached chain, pistil stitch, backstitch and reverse buttonhole

Another spider and web I love doing these.

A little try at ribbon embroidery it was supposed to be a white poinsettia but looks to me more like a Christmas rose. The leaves are closed cretan stitch and the little dots are colonial knots in gold thread.

The little apricot stitches are picot buttonhole a really pretty stitch and very easy.

And last but not least is the scalloped chain but I over sewed it with the loop stitch that is used in Peking stitch. The flowers in the center are buttonhole eyelet flowers.

I will get started on the next block now although I could keep on playing with this one because there are still some blank spaces.