A Fun Afternoon and Some Inspiration

Yesterday Jen1 came over for a stitching afternoon. We worked on finishing a couple of ornaments and yakked about a lot of stitchy stuff and other things going on in our lives. I didn’t get much done but did get some stitching on more mini wreath banners, and got them ready for FFOing.

BTW, the wreaths I was using were covered in glitter and it was getting everywhere. On Saturday at Jeanette’s, Marilyn suggested using a spray sealer to lock on the glitter. I purchased the craft sealer at Michaels. The printed instructions were microscopic on the container so I wisely took the wreaths outside to spray. The smell was so bad, I put the wreaths in the laundry room, closed the door, and lit a candle to get rid of the airborne propellants and chemically smell. Later that evening all the bad smell was gone. I still had one to do so it ended up airing out in the garage.

Tonight is our monthly guild meeting so I wanted to get a couple of things FFOd to take for Show and Share.

Thanks to Jeanette's vast stash, she had the perfect cording for my Moonshine Cabin. It perfectly matches the Falu red on the birds and house.

Aleene's has finally created an upside down format for their Tacky craft glue. I don't know why more manufacturers don't adopt this format. The tip is very fine, perfect for running a bead of glue in the channel between the front and back of ornament. It made glueing on the cording super easy.

I had this stitched this time last year but have spent most of the time since then looking for something to use as backing. So yesterday, I finally got the batting and fabric attached to the backing and the wrong sides of the front and back glued together. 

I attached the cording this afternoon. At the top, I wrapped the same colour thread around and around and stitched it into the top of the ornament.

It's quite heavy, being 8" in diameter but I wanted it to be a hanging ornament so the 'stars' would catch the light and sparkle.

Joanne from my Monday morning stitching group had the perfect fabric to use for the back.

I affixed a silver 2023 charm which completed the finishing. 

I'm very pleased with how it looks and am really looking forward to hanging it up.

I also re-glued the pearly cording on the Holly n Hardanger ornaments. I want to have them ready to send off to the recipients at the end of this month. This time the glue held - again, the narrow tip of the glue bottle really got into the channel.

And again, added a silver 2023 charm to finish it off.

I have 2 more ornaments to FFO and one to stitch for our guild's Christmas ornament exchange. I'll definitely select a pattern with potential for lots of 'bling'.

It was inspiring to get together with Jen1 and it got my butt in gear to finally complete some FFOs.