My son's christmas quilt and my birthday gifts

I started this christmas quilt stitching for my son for over 3 years now. I was going to finish it in one year and it just got dragged on. I keep on changing my minds as far as what designs I want to stitch. I decide in September that it is time to get it done and have my friend to finish it as a christmas quilt for him. The total squares will be 25 and I will stitch 24 squares and have my friend to do some type of machine embroidary for the inital "M" in the middle.


I just finished stitching 4 more squares and they are from the new Prairie Schooler all button up:

If you are interested in looking at the squares I have stitched so far, you can click here. I still want to find more train and christmas tree patterns.

I finally took pictures of my birthday gifts from my stitching friends. I got a lot of great gifts . I did not take the pictures individually. I just took a few pictures in various groups. I got a gift certificate from stitching bits and bobs from Susan, NJ. A suprise gift from Cathy OH on the walnut wood hornbooks. I have been wanting to get those hornbooks for quite a while. I got 2 bourses, one from Maralyn in Australia (French design) and one from Sharon (JBW design) in Texas. They are so pretty. I got a very cute pinkeep (Trilogy design) stitching one over one from Angi in Italy. She is the expert in one over one stitching. Cathy OH also stitched me a cute Mill hill design and Sandy from UK stitched me a beautiful petite Needleroll. I got a surprise package from Julie with a Bent creek chart, ribbons , some DMC linen threads and a chinese character birthday card. I also got quite a few beautiful threads from Sharon (lots of Anchor threads), Angi (French silk threads) and Maralyn (Australian silk threads). I got a few stitching accessories and buttons fromSandy, Angi, Janet and Maralyn. A few flat quarters from Sandy and Janet. Cathy in New mexico made me a very pretty beaded scissor fob and sent me a few books with samplers, floral motif and finishing techniques. She still has another package on the way to me in October. A few other Birthday cards as well. Thank you so much for all the great gifts.

Here are the pictures:

I am going to be back on my Fall stitching #2 and the update will be next week around Friday. Thank you so much for all your comments. Have a great weekend.

Some Fall Stitching

Fall is my favorite time of the year. It is not Fall at in the Texas area and the temperature is only a little bit cooler and soon the ragweeds are going to be out. I have terrible allergy this time of the year if I stay out too long.

The first pinkeep is LK Autumn boxer. Yes, I stitch it one over one again. I changed the design a little in the middle and added some orange beads.There are details on the ribbons that I used, they have leaves and pumpins on them but you just can't see in the pictures. I used a green and some type of red ribbons on the top and the green one just did not show up too well on the picture due to the background. This is definitely my favorite pinkeep:

Here are more Fall finishing, I stitched these last year. Here is the Sweetheart tree Pumpkin heart pinkeep:

Of course there will be a pumpkin biscornu:

Cay you tell I LOVE pumpkin designs and I hand dyed the Orange pins to match the designs. There is another Pumpkin scissor fob to follow in the next few weeks, I just need to practice on making tassels.

Here is the last pinkeep for today, it has acorn and squirrel:

Have a great weekend and thank you for taking your precious time to leave me comments.

AMAP designs pinkeeps

I have more one over one stitching to share today. One of my upcoming stitchings is a set of Blackbird designs smalls which consists of a scissor fob, pinkeep and a piece for a retangular wood box. All of them will be stitched one over one with Autumn theme.

I have some tips to share about stitching one over one. First I prefer the stitching done with evenweave fabric than linen, 25 and 28 counts are great to start. I also use petite needles 26, and 28 preferrably John James. I like to stitch in the daytime next to a window to maximize the natural light. I generally complete each "X" as I go, but I also use the method of //// and come back to \\\\\ to complete my "X" too depending on the designs.

Here are my just finished pieces, they are from AMAP ( a French designer). I added Mill hill gold beads on both pieces but they did not show up too well on the pictures. They are mixed with DMC threads, 814, 815, 816 and 817.

The First pinkeep: I used Ric Rac ribbon and I made 4 ribbon rose pins for the 4 sides:

I wish the gold beads showed up better on these pictures, they are around the border and on the 4 corners of the first diamond shape next to the stitching lady.

Yesterday was my birthday. I will have some stitching gifts pictures to share at the end of September. Thank you so much for visiting my blog. I do spend a lot of time reading blogs to get inspired and enabled. It is such a great way of learning and meeting new stitching friends.

Have a wonderful week.