January's Gifted Gorgeousness

 

Hooray hooray the lovely Jo at Serendipitous Stitching is hosting Gifted Gorgeousness again in 2021. She started this super idea in 2015, it's great to see everyone's gifts, sent and received. Gifted Gorgeousness covers so many things - here's Jo's guidelines:

• Any chart/kit which was given to you
• Any chart/kit which you won in a giveaway
• Any chart/kit which you bought using a voucher given to you/won by you
• Anything stitched on fabric received in the above ways
• Anything stitched with floss received in the above ways
• Anything embellished or finished with items received in the above ways
• Anything which is intended as a gift or prize for another person
• Anything else you can somehow shoehorn with word "gift" into!

Today is the 15th so it's time to share my GG. I couldn't wait until mid January to thank my friends for their Christmas gifts so I have already blogged about them - you can read about them on my previous post Christmas Thank You

There is however one gift I have not shared as the post from US took ages. My super friend Cathy has woven this beautiful scarf for me, it is so soft and so so neat. I have not done any weaving but I am very very tempted; thank you Cathy.

I did quite a few gifts for Christmas, some were catch ups that I just couldn't do last year. The first two were for my favourite TV weatherman, we chat through Twitter and over the years have become good friends although we've never met. It all started with him being on the TV every time we went on holiday but never when we were at home. Anyway he has two lovely girls and each Christmas I send them something for Christmas. 

This year I used the Summer Challenge on Needlecraft Haven as my ornaments - a lovely design from Aliolka 

Last year our niece and her husband who live in the US finally had the adoption papers through for their little girl Blake. I stitched a name plaque for her which they have hung in her bedroom. It felt a little odd to be stitching for our great niece - great aunts conjure an image of old ladies smelling of lavender hee hee

My second gift also went the the US to our other niece. She got married in 2020, not quite the wedding they had planned as many things were changed due to Covid restrictions but they did tie the knot: wishing them a 'happy ever after'

My next gift also travelled to another country - Wales! I stitched this for our daughter's partner's family. This was another Challenge with Needlecraft Haven, this time the Winter Challenge, a lovely design from La Contesse & Le Point de Croix The full design is Joy but I used just the centre O. 

Closer to home for my next gift but again a gift I didn't manage to do last year. Our good friends became Grandparents for the first time last summer. I was a bit sneaky in asking questions about the nursery decor and was delighted to discover it was an owl theme as I knew I had the perfect design in an old magazine. 

Our Christmas was different to usual; it was just me, Hubby, our son who lives at home with us and our daughter and her partner who came to stay for a few days. As they live in Wales it was not really following the guidelines for them to travel and they did stay for more that the one day allowed. However they have been extra careful all year, they both work from home and only go out for shopping or a walk. They have done this so they were safe to come home anytime last year if I needed them or they were safe to visit his family with his elderly gran. It was certainly a time we all needed. 

Every year we give the 'kids' a tub of chocolates but as our daughter is dairy free I stitched a label for her own chocolate tin. For her birthday last year I had made a similar tin for her cake decorating things - it's in my GG for February

My final piece for the first GG of 2021 is a piece I stitched just after Christmas. One of my stitchy friends has a birthday very early in January and I do always worry about the post delivering a gift in time. I found this table top small mat in my stash and stitched this pretty pansy design from Stitched Modern.

I have a few more gifts that I am stitching so I'm already building my GG for February, thanks Jo for hosting this great blog sharing event.