Welcome to the Jolliest blog on the block! Each month we have a different theme. You choose your OWN chart, fabric and threads. Share your progress as you go along and post your finished piece by the last day of the month. You can join at anytime throughout the year and choose which months you wish to stitch with us. Happy Xmas everyone!
I already posted earlier a PS reindeer without a red nose. I'm calling him "One of the Other Reindeer". It was an incomplete finish as someone told me on a FB post. (I appreciated it too...I would have hated to figure it out after it was finished finished.)
Here's the finished "One of the Other Reindeer":
...and here's Rudolph (from a Lizzie Kate Tiny Tidings):
I am very
happy with that SAL, it is the first year I am going to participate. I
discovered it late last year and I thought there was no point in starting at
the end of the SAL. So I am here this year. I missed January as I was very busy
with my job and that is why I will present now January’s ornament, which is the
one I stitched in February. I will try to catch up……
Two topics
were available, 12 Days of Christmas and Christmas carol. The decision about which design I
was going top stitch wasn’t easy. It was clear for me that I wanted to do the
“12 Days of Christmas” but there are plenty of designs to choose. I found one
which is 12 days of Christmas in owl version called "Hooties 12 Days of Christmas". And that is the one I will do (I
need to say that I have already designs chosen for 2 or 3 years).
This year I am stitching a small Christmas Sampler which includes many of the themes for the year. I was fortunate to have Rudolph make an appearance just when I needed him or this month's theme.
The chart is from Cross Stitcher Magazine (Nov 2017). Happy February!
February's theme is one of the more modern Christmas Carols we have for this year - Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
Originally Santa had 8 reindeer, as listed in the poem 'Twas the Night Before Christmas but in 1939 Robert L. May introduced us to the 9th Reindeer - young Rudolph. His booklet was published by a department store Montgomery Ward who clearly knew a good marketing tool when they saw one!
The booklet was followed by a short animation (1948), THE song (1949), various comic books (1950 onwards) and an animated television special in 1964.
By this time Rudolph's story is firmly fixed in our Christmas traditions and he is indeed the "Most Famous Reindeer of all!"
There are so many versions of Rudolph on YouTube, here's a cute one:
And a Heavy Metal version! The lyrics are different but clean, if you are listening with children!
As with versions of the song, there are many cross stitched designs for you to choose from.
Lizzie*Kate Dear Rudolph
Nora Corbett Rudolph
Our own Daffycat has designed a series of small reindeer which I stitched into a cube finish:
Many of us have the annual Just Cross Stitch Christmas Ornament Special issue and there are always Rudolph charts in there. One of them is the April choice for a Facebook group - JCS Stitch Along
On the Runway by Snoflake Stitchery
Model photo from the magazine.
Looking forward to seeing a whole herd of Rudolph stitchery this month!
This
came from the 2016 edition of Christmas Cross Stitch Favorites. It's
stitched on 14-count oatmeal Aida with the called for DMC floss. The
only change I made was to make the the two Christmas ornaments identical
and stitch them with solid colors instead of the called for stripes.
Here is my February finish. I went with the Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer theme so I chose Red Nosed Kiss by Cricket Collection. It was a freebie from 2013.
I'm trying the songs theme this year and stitched this reindeer by The Prairie Schooler for my Feb. ornament. I thought about changing his nose to red for the picture and then frogging it out to restitch but was too lazy to do that. I hope that the brown nosed reindeer is close enough. ;-) One change I made, though, was to use an overdyed thread (CC Cocoa) for the deer's body instead of the DMC that was charted.
I have chosen the 12 Days of Christmas theme again this year and Just Nan's version is my design. I started this on Christmas Day 2017 and stitched it for the 12 Days of Stitchmas.
So Block 2 had a good bit done already when I picked it up this February. Here is the completed block:
Well, I am still stitching my January Ornie - Fa La La by LHN - but I did a bit of a shoehorn and turned one of the reindeers on 'Twas the night before Christmas by PS into Rudolph by adding a red bead to his nose!
A bit of a cheat, I know but I do love a good shoehorn.
I am very close to a finish on this piece, so I am getting very excited. Here is my latest progress pic.
Hopefully, I will finish my Jan ornie soon, too.
hugs,
P.S. Sorry that my pics are a bit wonky - not sure what happened!
Thanks again to Kaye for the encouragement to join and help me figure out how to post. I'm aiming for smalls so it doesn't slow down my WIP pile. First one for January was Deck the Halls theme, and I found one with holly. :)
This was from a collection of smalls in WOXS this past year I think and I stitched it 2 over 1 on silver 14 ct perforated paper. I used some stash threads and like how it turned out. Hopefully I get February up a little sooner. :) Happy Stitching! Tiffstitch
It took awhile, but I finally found an ornament to stitch for January. It's Fa La La from the 2000 Christmas Ornament Issue from Just Cross Stitch and was designed by Ruth Sparrow of Twisted Stitches fame.
The fabric is 25-count Opalescent Lugana in Elegance and is actually more beige than purple.
