Home Stretch

I baked some sugar cookies this morning and along with the gingerbread ones I did on the weekend, I'm making up some cookie gift bags. I may even decorate some of the cookies tomorrow.

In knitting news, I finished the Capybara scarf last night and just need to get it blocked.

I made some stitch markers for a knitterly friend who really likes the colour blue. (She really liked them and one of the project bags I had made last week.)

And today I knit an ornament from Julekuler - 55 Christmas Balls to Knit. I did one yesterday with red on the white background but the red showed through too much. I like the look of the white on red much better.

I have one more to complete by Christmas Eve as I'll be giving them as gifts to our hostess for a Swedish Christmas Eve feast that Skip and I are invited to every year.

This evening at my embroidery guild (Trillium) was our pot luck and ornament exchange. There were 9 ornaments up for grabs.

 

Sorry this one is such a bad shot.

If you look really closely this one is 'faux' Hardanger. It has Kloster blocks but there are no cut threads. It's Patricia Ann Designs "Christmas Heart" from the 2011 Just Cross Stitch Christmas Ornaments issue.

And from the same issue, "Christmas Tree 2011" by Rosewood Manor.

And Santa's face is all Hardanger.

This is JBW Designs "French Country V Reindeer".

There were other ornaments on display. These are simple but beautifully finished.

I also like how this piece was framed.

Once I get my Christmas knitting done, I can get back to knitting for myself. Yay!

I'm anxiously awaiting delivery of an ebook I created on my UK knitting tour on Mixbook. It's the most flexible online ebook creator that I've found so far. There are a few features that I really liked: 1. the themed books had colour coordinated 'stickers' that could be added to any page, 2. photos or text could be added to any page, and rotated to any angle. 3. The price is comparable to other photobook programs I've previewed (including the Mac one). 4. The customer support were very accommodating and helpful when I realized I had to change several things on my first submission - even after the final editing deadline.

I just got notification that it has been shipped by UPS so I'm really hoping I'll receive it before Christmas. I saw Marion's today and it is wonderful. I sure hope mine gets delivered on Christmas Eve (fingers crossed).