July Ornament!!

This is Mill Hill’s Icy Snowflake:

I love these ornaments….. they stitch up quick and are easy to finish.  (I did one of these for my February Ornament also)  The kit actually came with a pretty crystal to go in the center, which I promply lost and had to replace it with another mill hill blue treasure that I had in my stash.  It matched, and I’m happy with it.  I noticed that there’s now a series of these type of designs that are halloween themed.

I’ve got a vacation planned in a couple of weeks and will probably work on my August ornament during the trip.  I’ve got a couple designs in mind, but today started toying with doing this design by Teresa Layman:

Yep…. that’s all french and colonial knots.  I know… its insane, but I love the design and and I saw a model stitched up when I bought the kit.    I’d recommend visiting her page (linked above) and reading about her.  Pretty interesting…  I took a bullion class from her at Celebration of Needlework so in addition to the neat stuff about her on her page, he’s also a nice person and a patient teacher.  Anyway, the instructions say that there are approximately 1100 knots per square inch and its 3-1/2 by 2-5/8 inches.  The pattern is actually printed on the fabric, so no counting or anything…. just lots of knots!  We’ll see how long my patience lasts….

Alpine Seasons Update

I have been SO BAAAD about blogging…. primarily because I haven’t been stitching as much as normal and don’t have a whole lot to show….  Unfortunately, I’ve been playing Mafia Wars on MySpace for a couple of months and this has seriously interefered with my stitching time…

So, here is the last progress pic I posted:

and here is where I am now:

So… not a whole lot of progres, but I don’t have much left of the border to do, then I’ll be onto the fun stuff!

This project has reminded me of my love/hate relatioship with perle silk. 

Love:  luscious colors, soft feel, pretty pretty stitches 

Hate:  curly off the card, hard to lay due to fiber spring, tangles also do to curlyness, constant attention required to keep twist 

The Hate Parts can be alleviated by dampening the length and running it through your fingers, tho, so its not all bad. 

In other news, I booked my summer vacation and am off to the mountains again!!  Colorado this time!  I lived in Denver for a summer in college while doing and internship, so I’m a little familiar wih the area.  Right now I’m trying to get in shape for hiking by doing lots of cardio.. I wonder how much good it does when you are starving for oxygen at 10,000 feet???

Anyone know of a good LNS in Colorado?