Good morning and happy Wednesday!
Today’s project is an ornament that I stitched mostly last Christmas from the 2014 ornament issue and when the holidays were over I tucked it away. Since it needs very few stitches to finish it, I’m tucking it in my bag for this weekend (details coming tomorrow..) and plan on finishing it while I’m away. I used a fabric remnant from my stash and some leftover threads from a previous project. Ornaments are such a great way to use up leftovers. Fawn over at Stitch Therapy is working on Plum Street Samplers “12 Days of Christmas” series at the moment and I love that she is also using up what she has on hand already.
Marion asked me a great question yesterday on the difficulty of seeing high count fabric and tricks for helping. I’m certainly no expert but what works really well for me is always having very good lighting wherever I’m working. Many of my stitcher friends use a product called mag-eyes – and let me tell you, we are one sexy bunch when we gather in a group. None of us could care a whit, though – as long as we can see what we’re doing. My favourite light is an off brand ottlite style light that is portable and I carry it around the house with me. The power draw is also extremely low and I can use it at the cottage without the batteries dropping much at all in charge in the evening which as you can imagine, thrills me to bits and allows me to work into the wee hours.
My other light is a stand LED light with a magnifier in the middle (which has come in VERY handy for the pulling out of the odd splinter in a certain small child’s hand). Here’s my stitching chair in the bedroom and this light allows me to keep working after John is asleep without needing the other lights on in the room. Once I almost set the house on fire because I had the light under the skylight and the sun hit the magnifier at just the right angle. I smelled something burning upstairs and discovered a scorch hole in a blanket that I was knitting for Sarah at the time. As we were about to leave for a week away with the children, this could have been disastrous. Now, I keep it in a different spot and when we leave for holidays I cover it with a pillow case. Crafting dangerously!
My favorite chair is a Morris style chair similar to the one you show in the photo above. I put my Ott Lite on the arm of the chair positioned with the light over my hands while I am stitching and find it helpful with knitting and crochet, although I have not done any cross-stitch or embroidery in years. I admire your work, Caroline 🙂
Thank you so much, Gracie!
Your Christmas ornament is going to be so sweet. I’d never really thought about it, but you’re right – making ornaments would be a great use of remnants and leftover supplies. And I appreciate you posting about lights and magnifiers. I definitely would benefit from getting both of these items. Going now to check out Stitch Therapy. Thank you for providing the link, Caroline.
My pleasure!!
Thanks for this. I’ve sent a photo to my hubby. Hopefully it will arrive as a Chrissy present.
oooooo fingers crossed 🙂
That looks like a cozy stitching chair. I would never have thought of the dangers of a craft light. Yikes! We really are a dangerous crowd!
At first, I thought that your ornament would say “Oy” which is pretty funny, but then realized it will probably say “Joy”.
Fawn<— everyone mistakes it for Fern. 😉
Oh good lord FAWN. I am an idiot – off to correct it now……
Haha no worries. Omg!!! You’re in NYC!!! Have fun!!!