Gifted Gorgeousness November 2024

Gifted Gorgeousness is hosted each month by the lovely Jo at Serendipitous Stitching. GG, on the 15th of each month, is when 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.

My gifts this month are from Mary, Le Coeur Celtique. She stitched these two beautiful Santas that I finished to match the others, the tree goes up 5th December.

Mary was my exchange stitcher for this year's Autumn Exchange on Needlecraft Haven. Along with my lovely ornament Mary included a card, chocolate and thread to match the stitched design. It was a super exchange parcel, my ornament is still on display.

My exchange parcel went to Julie. The design was actually a biscornu design and I was so pleased to find an acorn charm in my stash. I made a card and included some éclairs as the treat and matching thread.

My final gifts are not stitching related. Our daughter is taking part in the Christmas appeal at her work, Sport Wales. We have donated two bags for young boys, this is what was in each bag ... hopefully they will bring a bit of festive joy. 

I can't believe it will be Christmas next month, this year has certainly flown by. 

November's Fully Finished Objects

Rachel, Ten Hour Stitcher, is the super host of Fully Finished Objects which is a great opportunity to show and tell about our crafty items that are completely finished.

I haven't been stitching much this year and as most of my stitching is gifted I can only share once given. My first FFO is a gift for my friends' 40th anniversary, I did show it in last month's Gifted Gorgeousness.

It's a while since I did any beadwork but I managed to find my beading needle, annoyingly it still didn't go through some beads as their holes were too small.

My friend Mary sent two lovely Santas for my tree. I'll be putting it up early December along with the others who help fill St Laurence's with Christmas joy. They are lovely, thank you Mary.

My final Fully Finished Object is a huge one ... it's taken my years to finish this. My tablecloth was a Round Robin in 2010. I placed the various Lizzie Kate designs and once home I just needed to do the edging.

Just being the word but in reality it has taken ages. It was a big job to work out the alignment and for ages it stayed in my to do bag. I did a bit then put it away and other big projects came first.

This year I took it on our holidays and although I don't stitch much when away I did get started and then decided to focus hard on finishing it. The cutting took as long as the stitching. I have only done kloster blocks as doing wrapped bars would have taken even longer. 

I'm really pleased with it and it fits our table well. Thank you to everyone who stitched on this RR.

My final Fully Finished Object is the ornament I stitched for the Needlecraft Haven Autumn Exchange. I'll share details in my Gorgeousness Gifted post in a few days.

Thank you Rachel for hosting and thank you to everyone who pops by and leaves a comment.

Halloween

I forgot to post earlier so here's my decorations before I take down my Halloween, the Autumn things will stay up until 1st December which is the start of winter bbrrrrrrr

I don't really do spooky, my Halloween items are more cute than scary. 

This year Needlecraft Haven our Autumn Exchange was opened on the 22nd October, autumn equinox. I will post about my sent and received gifts in November's GG post but as my ornament from Mary is on display here's a sneak pre-view 

I don't have green fingers but amazingly our indoor plants are blooming. I'm amazed at my cactuses and I do seem to be able to do well with orchids. 

For the first time in many years our plant from M&S is flowering ... does anyone know what it is? 

Enjoy the final month of autumn and all it's beautiful colours. Thank you for stopping by.

Gifted Gorgeousness October 2024

Gifted Gorgeousness is hosted each month by the lovely Jo at Serendipitous Stitching. GG, on the 15th of each month, is when 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.

I really enjoyed stitching this beaded sampler for my friend and her husband for their Ruby Anniversary. It's a while since I did any beadwork but I managed to find my beading needle, annoyingly it still didn't go through some beads as their holes were too small.

For my Mum's 80th I made her a travelling sewing kit, you may remember it from my GG post in June 2019. The sewing kit is now mine, I have slightly changed the top and added a few more fastenings. It was perfect for taking away my holiday project on our recent trip to Scotland.

Thanks Jo for hosting another month of sharing, happy stitching everyone.

The Longest Yarn

 We saw this on BBC Breakfast and really wanted to see it in person especially after our recent holiday to visit the Normandy beaches. 

The Longest Yarn is a knitted tableau of 80 scenes from the D-Day landings. The work is incredible, so many clever knitters giving colour and texture to the scenes. 

Each scene is housed in a glass case giving a bit of reflection on photos but you can see the amazing skill from these I took on our visit to Southwell where it is on show until the end of September.

My favourite scene was Pegasus Bridge, it was amazing to see it knitted and looked exactly as we saw it. The scene with the full bridge, the cafe and the gliders brought a tear to my eye as I remembered the story of those brave men. 

A massive congratulations to everyone involved in this stunning project, espevially the knitters. The web site has details of the companies that are helping move this important exhibition around the UK, there is also a list of dates of where it will be .... The Longest Yarn is definitely worth the long queue!