Gifted Gorgeousness January 2025

Gifted Gorgeousness is hosted each month by the lovely Jo at Serendipitous Stitching. On the 15th of each month we share our latest gifts. These can be gifts given or received, or any item made using fabric, threads, buttons, ribbon, chart, backing fabric that has been gifted. Thank you Jo for hosting GG again in 2025.

For my stitchy friends and my friends at scouts I made some gnomes. They were actually gifted gifts as they were made using felt and wool from my Mum, I still have a lot of felt so I am thinking of making more for next year's Christmas Market to raise Scout funds.

I was a gnome ... well a dwarf really. I'm my very young days, this was probably around 1970, I was in a dance show as one of Snow White's 7 dwarfs. I was so shy I took a while to go on stage. Everyone thought it was part of the show as I was playing the role of Bashful.

I saw this design by Faby Reilly and knew it would be perfect for my friends at Needlecraft Haven for Christmas. It's a lovely design that I will stitch in full but for gifts I stitched each character on plastic canvas.

To choose who had which character I used an online wheel spinner giving the characters in chart order left to right. I did take the Santa for me as I was the giver and he went on my tree at church. 

My Christmas gift parcel to the Needlecraft Haveners was a gnome, the Christmas Crew chart and a character with some Christmas colour thread, goodies and an upcycled card.

I received lovely gifts from my stitchy friends. Julie knitted a beautiful scarf and Mary gave me some lovely tea towels from France to remind us of our travels. I received a great bookmark kit from Gill, it's a Tudor rose designs and I'm looking forward to stitching it, and Christine sent a beautiful thread keeper. Candles, goodies and a lip balm keeper for my handbag were also gifted, thanks everyone I felt very spoilt.

Julie also sent me a bookmark chart ftom a kit she had stitched, along with the spare threads. I had some aida band in my stash so decided to stitch it up. I only needed a little bit of thread yo finish the blue edging and there was enough thread left to make a fringed edge. 

The final part of my first GG in 2025 is a gift to giveaway. Many years ago (probably over 20) I was a model stitcher for some designers. Millennia Designs was one and I received this gift from them but I have never stitched it. It has all the threads but they may need straightening after being stored so long.

I'm offering it as a giveaway - just say in your comment if you would like to be in the drawer. I'll use the wheel spinner at the end of February to choose the lucky winner.

January's Fully Finished Objects

The lovely Rachel, Ten Hour Stitcher, is hosting Fully Finished Objects again in 2025. It's a super chance for us to show and tell about the crafty items we have completely finished.

Thank you Rachel, your FFO prompt each month really helps me finish my projects instead of them still in my project folders. I'm hoping to get a few UFO's finished this year. I love the new SAL photo, thank you.

I stitched these lovely characters as part of the Christmas gifts for my lovely friends at Needlecraft Haven. I'll tell you more in my Gifted Gorgeousness post on the 15th... cute aren't they?

 

I had so much (and still have) felt from Mum's and wool that I decided to have a go at making gnomes. I made one each for the wine tasters (details in my other blog), one for everyone at Needlecraft Haven and two smaller ones for DD and DS's GF. I'm hoping to make quite a few for the craft fair at scouts next year.

I finished three of the Seasonal Challenge designs on Needlecraft Haven for 2024, the final one I used for my 2024 Orts Ornie, it's stuffed with all my orts saved in my bon-bon jar.

My first stitch and finish of 2025 is this lovely robin bookmark. It was a kit that my friend Julie had and after stitching she passed the chart and unused threads onto me. I had just enough apart from the blue which I managed to match as there was no colour code. The few threads left made a great fringe.

My final Fully Finished Object for January is my Pensee Positive from Jardin Prive. I stitched this in 2019 and have had the frame since 2022 but just didn't get round to mounting it. 

My 2025 plans are to get stuff made up, recycled and/or used.... no more keeping just in case either!

 

My 2024 stitching

What a lovely stitchy year I had, not so many finishes as other years but I really enjoyed working on many different projects. My absolute favourite was the dandelion I stitched for our daughter's 30th birthday in February, how time flies.

February was a busy stitching month as our son's girlfriend also turned 30. I upcycled one of my boxes and made a sewing kit for her with a padded top, I find watch and old jewellery boxes perfect for upcycling. 

My friend and her hubby celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary in October , I loved stitching this beaded sampler for them. I also enjoyed stitching a wedding card for their son and fiancé who got married in May - quite a year of celebrations for them all. 

I really enjoy the exchanges with my super friends at Needlecraft Haven, our Valentine's Exchange was non-stitchy but we did have three ornament exchanges: Easter, Autumn and Christmas. They are always such fun even if we know who is sending to who as being a small group we recognise everyone's postcode on the parcels - hee hee 

I did quite a lot of upcycling this year, I have many stitched cards from over the last few years of exchanging and I managed to make them into ornaments. It was tricky at times as there wasn't always much spare fabric at the edges, I also stitched together two of my Mum's lace samples to make a coaster and changed a mini pillow into a small mat. I'm hoping to do a bit more upcycling this year as I still have bits and bobs about, especially cards. I made new Christmas cards for 2024 from the previous years and will be doing the same for Christmas 2025.

We have a Seasonal Challenge each year at Needlecraft Haven, Christine posts links to for Christmas themed and four general freebie charts and we can stitch them throughout the year. This year I managed to stitched the Hen House which now lives by my egg rack and three of the Christmas designs. The robin is my Orts Ornie for 2024 and is stuff with all my orts from last year. 

I'm trying to reduce my crafting stash, hence the upcycling and card making, I also managed to stitch up a few kits I had been given over recent years. The Wales keyring is perfect for my Scout HQ keys and I gave the butterfly to our friends' granddaughter for her new bedroom when they moved house. 

As you know much of my stitching is gifted, I rarely stitch anything that hasn't already got a designated purpose or recipient. This Christmas I stitched two humbugs, one for our daughter and hubby, the other for our son and his girlfriend. There are four in this series so I think they have guessed what may be stitched next year, although who knows as I might find other designs. 

With Mum passing away last summer I have inherited more craft items. Although I didn't do the same crafts as my Mum fabric and thread can be used in many ways. Mum had a lot of felt and this Christmas I made gnomes for my friends and family. I still have plenty of felt left so I might make a few more to be sold at our Christmas Fair at Scouts next year. 

For Christmas 2023 I gifted my Needlecraft Haven friends a biscornu chart with a different flower for each of us. My chart was a blue iris which was my Grandmother's favourite flower and her name. I'm hoping this year to stitch the other biscornus in the series, they are by Faby Reilly who also designs the humbugs and designed the chart I gave to everyone at Needlecraft Haven this year - the Christmas Crew. It is actually a design of all the characters together but I stitched them individually on plastic canvas and gifted one to each of my friends along with the chart for us to have a 2025 SAL as we did in 2024 with the biscornus. 

My biggest stitching finish of 2024 was finally completing my tablecloth. This was a Round Robin many years ago and it had been waiting for me to finish the edging. It's always tricky marking out hardanger, I worry about if it will meet up. I only did kloster blocks this time, no wrapped bars as they take too long. I'm so pleased with it, it now has pride of place on our table. 

My 2024 tree for the church festival was a Santa Tree, huge thank you to everyone who stitched and sent a Santa. My 2025 tree will be a non-stitchy tree as I want to focus on more of my own projects - there is an opportunity for you to join in if you wish, I'll be posting details in my January Gifted Gorgeousness post.

I've had a super 2024 and hope next year will be filled with many stitchy moments. Wishing you all a very Happy New Year and busy needles in 2025.

Happy New Year

It will soon be 2025, I hope you have a super New Year and a super year making more memories.

I have just finished my orts ornament for 2024. I saved all my orts from my stitching in 2024 and any threads from kits.

The design was one of the Needlecraft Haven challenges and I only used the orts not the extra threads.

I used some chenille wool as edging, I'm really pleased how it turned out. 

I'm not yet sure of my 2025 stitching plans, there are always gifts to stitch and I do know I want to get a few UFOs finished and projects made up. 

Happy New Year to you all 🎊

Merry Christmas

I hope you have all had a lovely Christmas and time with your loved ones. 

I had some lovely gifts from the ladies at Needlecraft Haven, I'll be including them in my January Gifted Gorgeousness post.

It was a quiet Christmas Day but so lovely. Our daughter and her hubby are staying and our son and girlfriend joined us in the morning to open gifts, a super family moment.

They then travelled to spend the day with her family so we were just four, very different to other Christmases when we've been up to 13 for dinner.

The weather was really mild, perfect for a glass of Mulled Wine in the garden. The sparkles are from the sun on my sequined top, although mild I needed my white fleece for outside.

We had a super dinner with our favourite champagne and wine. Too full for dessert we enjoyed our profiteroles and chocolate log cake later in the day.

Of course it wouldn't be Christmas with a cocktail so there was lots of shaking going on!

A day now to relax, a walk in the fresh air and it's time to start my ornie ornament, a Christmas ornament stuffed with all my thread ends from 2024. 

Merry Christmas everyone and a Happy New Year, wishing you all busy needles and blog postings in 2025!