Let It Snow!

It is getting rather cool here, of course, not so cool as it might snow but cool enough to realize that soon we will celebrate Christmas and New Year and we must be ready for these holidays.
I made some winter designs and you will see some of them today.
One of my new designs is called "Let It Snow!" I finished it off as a pinkeep, the design will also look nice as an ornament or a pincushion:One more finish is this Bourse. I have wanted to make a bourse in winter colors for a long time, when I saw this fabric in the store I thought that was just what I needed. The bourse looks full, doesn't it? Let's open it and see what is there inside .
This is a new Sewing Set called "Snowflakes", it is not complete yet, two more items will be added soon. Today I present you 4 items from the set:
This is what "Snowflake" Bourse looks like inside:Next goes "Snowflakes" Scissor Fob, front:and back:
This is "Snowflakes" Floss Fob or Tag, front:
and back:And this is a little "Snoflakes" Needlework Case, front:
back:
And this is what the needlework case looks like when it is open:
I also made a beaded Scissor fob which I called "First Frost":

If you are interested in buying any of my designs , please contact me through an e-mail. My address is in the profile.
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Last month I did not posted a picture of ORT jar for TUSAL. I just came home from my trip and did not do much stitching. Now I can see that pretty many new snips were added and my jar or box is almost full.
In the previous post I showed you some pictures from my trip and a picture of an ancient cross stitch from the museum. And I also told you that I saw some items there and could not figure out the technique in which they were made. Michelle supposed that it could be Ukrainean Merezhkas. I guess this is something different, have a look at these pictures:
Do you have any idea about the techniques?
I also promise to show the pictures of the kittens who frequent our yard. We call them Tiger and Panther. Mother cat doesn't visit them but she taught them not to trust people. When they are hungry they come to us to beg for food but they do not allow to pat them. :-(It's very Halloween-ish, isn't it?

I made them a little tassel to play with, they tore it to pieces in no time!
Some autumn flowers for you:

Thank you for visiting and commenting on my blog. I appreciate this , read all your comments with great interest and try to visit your blogs too.
Happy stitching to everyone!

"Pumpkins" Needlework Case, Biscornu and Fob

Oh, it has been so long since I posted last. It's really hard to go back to every day routine, it just takes some time to get used to things which we normally do not notice. And one more important thing happened during this long time of silence - I became a multi-kid-ttens mom. I will tell you about them next time and will take some pictures of my kid-ttens, could not take a single good picture of them because they are wild!
If I did not post, that does not mean that I did not work. I've prepared something to show to you today.
I continued working on "Pumpkins" designs and created the needlework case, scissor fob. I also made some changes in the biscornu pattern and made the back side for it.
Here is "Pumpkins" collection I have been working on.
It looks like a pumpkin patch, doesn't it? I do not know how about you but I love pumpkins! No, not to eat! I love to look at them. No matter how big or small they are - they always make me smile - so cheerful they are! Oh, well, back to "Pumpkins" collection.
This is how "Pumpkins" Biscornu look now:It has two sides and I made a few pins to embellish the biscornu.
Then goes "Pumpkins" Scissor Fob:
Last but not least - "Pumpkins"Needlework Case, its front:
and its back:
It took me a long time to finish it because I could not find the right fabric, ribbon, buttons. After lots of thinking I made the best with what I had. This is the inside of the case:
"Pumpkins" Set includes everything a stitcher needs to work on a project:
If you are interested in buying any of my designs, please contact me. My e-mail is in my Profile.
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If you remember in my previous post I promised a prize for a stitcher who first sends me pictures of the finished "Pumpkins" biscornu. A few days ago Mylene sent me pictures of her work. She made a wonderful job on it, didn't she?
I sent "Pumpkins" beaded fob to Mylene and I also made these pins for her biscornu. Thank you for your pretty work, Mylene!* ** * * *
I made some new beaded scissor fobs, from left to right:
Black Cat, Black Sheep and Frog scissor fobs.
You can also place an order for fobs with me. My e-mail is in my Profile.
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Last time I promised to show you some picture from my trip.
In my town people like to go for walks. The next day when I arrived home my son and his girl friend took me to the Central Park. Here are some pictures from the park. Water always attracts people, it is so tranquil to walk and to look at the water waves and listen to their soft sound.


I also like pretty clouds, especially at sunset...
In the Central Park there is our local History Museum. I took very many pictures of needlework exhibits, so many that I had to change the batteries in my camera.
Most of the works exhibited there are cross stitch, some works have some specialty stitches or crochet lace. But there were some needlework pieces made in the technique unknown for me. They might be kind of hand weaving.
For today I chose a picture of a cross stitch work, I guess it is about 200 years old. What is interesting about these old pieces is that the crosses are rather big and they were not crossed in the same direction.
If this kind of pictures are of any interest for you, let me know please and I will show you some more pictures next time.
Traditionally I finish the post with a flower picture, I took it during the walk in the Central Park.
I want to thank everyone who leaves comments and sends e-mails to me, thank you for your time and kind words. This kind of feedback is so important for me.
Hugs and Happy stitching to you!

Home Sweet Home

Home sweet home... Well, it's almost two weeks since I came back home and have been fighting jet lag since then. I think most of you will agree with me that when you go back home, the trips do not seem so long and boring especially if you meet pleasant people. Talks helped to make long flights shorter but they did not put too much stitches into Mary Wigham sampler. Next time I will show you my progress on the sampler, now I have so many other things to blog about.
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During my stay with the family I could find some time for meeting with my friends, cross stitching, designing and even for blogging a little. If you remember in my first post from Russia, I posted some pictures of my home town and asked you if you could say what part of Russia I am from. I got only one answer to my question. But what an answer it was!
It turned out that H. ( she does not have a blog yet) lives in my home town! And, of course we met ( not once) and exchanged e-mails and telephone calls. We used to live so close to each other for such a long time, we have so much in common but our lives were going parallel to each other. Thanks to my blog we met, at last!
The new designs "Sunflowers" were inspired by H. 's personality.There are already three items in this collection but I can't show them all in one picture because two first items I gave as tokens of our friendship to my new friend. The collection started with this pinkeep:
then followed the Zigouigoui:
and the scissor fob:All three "smalls" can be used as seasonal ornaments, place them somewhere at your computer table, in the kitchen or in your car - they will sure bring a smile on your face.

The camera does not do justice to the pieces - the weather has been so rainy here. The colors are more true to life in the scissor fob pictures. I will replace the pictures when I get better light conditions.

The design for this ornament was inspired by Quaker patterns. At first I wanted to make it blue to match the "Snowflake" ornaments which I had made before but being so far from my stitching room I could not find the right shade of Blue and stitched the ornament in Red. To my mind it looks very festive in this color:
All the "smalls" that I designed and stitched in Russia stayed there. I gave them to my friends; and my mother loved this ornament - now it is in her room.
If you are interested in buying any of my designs, please contact me.
My e-mail address is in my Profile.
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Lately I've made some beaded Scissor Fobs and matching Count Needles. The fob collection which you see in the picture is called Autumn Colors. It includes (from left to right):
"Autumn Leaves" - first two fobs; "Autumn Colors" - next three fobs; "Pumpkin" -the sixth fob; "Halloween" - last two fobs.
You can place an order the fobs and count needles with me. Send an e-mail to me please.
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Now to the fun part :-)....
My little frog Froggy is willingly helping me with some more designs.
I'd like to thank my customers and followers of my blog for staying with me.
This is also a good chance for the followers to come out of hiding and say "Hi" :-) . This "Halloween" design is a gift for you. The offer will last till October 24.

The first stitcher who will finish the design as charted and send me pictures of the completely finished project (an ornament, flatfold, pillow, etc.), will get a beaded scissor fob as a reward from me.
In order to get "Halloween" design e-mail me, my address is in my Profile.

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"Pumpkins" Biscornu is a complimentary design with purchasing any of my designs in October. The first stitcher, who will finish the design as charted and send me pictures of the complete biscornu, will get a beaded scissor fob as a reward from me.
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I also want to show a gift which I recieved from hohla , Olga . Back in April she had a Blogaoniversary give away and I was one of the lucky winners. Look at what I got.
Olga designed and made this very pretty scissor pocket. She is very talented!
The fabric which you see in the picture is hand dyed by her too. I am going to stitch something very special on it.
In the pictures you can see the extras which hohla also sent for me.
Olga, thank you very much for your generous gift, I love them all!

I'd also want to thank Violette for passing me an award. It's a great honor to receive it from this amazing stitcher and such a great artist. I love Violette 's
water-colors very much.
Oh, I know, this is a long post. here are some wild flowers for you to enjoy.
I will show you pictures from my trip in my next post.
Stay tuned!Happy stitching to everyone!