Smoking Needles..

I've had a busy couple of  months stitching, in very short burst only.

I've stitched  three ornaments, two of which I've stitched twice. One is a single stitched piece for the August Challenge. The second is for the Halloween Ornament Exchange, while the third is for the Christmas Ornament Exchange. I've belonged to both the latter groups for some years, so I always stitch myself a duplicate of the ornament I send overseas.  It does add to my collections & I can look back & reminis about things that were happening, when each was stitched. Photographs of these items later, when they have arrived with their new owners.

I've also completed a patchwork jacket which has been in & out of the stitching cupboard for ever so long. In the original form it had patch worked panels down the right & left front edges, which I never really liked. Much thought went into the replacements for those panels, eventually I decided to add more panels of different fabrics. I selected them from my vast collection of patchwork fabrics, including scraps from my daughters dresses when they were children, along with scraps from my own dresses.
The binding is a Laura Ashley polished cotton, which I've had for 20 + years. It was such a beautiful piece of fabric to work with & it went well with all the colours in the jacket. A few years ago I hand pained  small wooden toggles, with tiny spays of matching flowers for the buttons. This year, I decided pink glass beads with silver linings were the ones to use.  I had many compliments when I wore it for the first time.

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 You can see in the photo below, that the jacket is reversible.

 I did however, feel like the Michelin Man so I'd  use thinner batting, if I ever decided to make another similar jacket.

Dear Kay,

Your jacket looks stunning - so much beautiful work. 

Keep well and enjoy wearing your beautiful jacket.

Much love and God bless,

Marg.xxxx

I also made this small needle case for a stitching friend's birthday.

A Tad Late.

I've been somewhat remiss this month with not posting my Challenge for July. The challenge title, vaguely, as I remember, was something to remind one of Christmas. My choice was hardly depicting the correct season scene in this hemisphere. However, this small Prairie Schooler pattern scene has always reminded me of the Christmas season. I've stitched it twice before. I managed to lose it once in the street when I was looking for a suitable backing fabric & the second time, who knows? Third time lucky. I have the photograph, along with the piece in my possession, although still to be completed as an item.  I really need to have a completion day & make all of this year's pieces into finished items, sometime soon.

 
I finished the August month's Challenge a couple of weeks ago. It is already photographed  so I'll be on time for reveal, in early September. I must say how much I have enjoyed stitching these small pieces. A sense of accomplishment can be achieved very quickly.