Woo Hoo! I’m only four days into my new 25 project challenge and I can already mark one off the list. I finally got around to stitching an ornament kit that I received a couple of years ago as part of an ornament round robin. This piece was a lot of fun to stitch and took no time at all.

The design is called “Christmas Joy” and is from Little by Little Design Co. This design appeared in the 1998 Just Cross Stitch magazine ornament issue. The design is also now available for purchase individually.

The original piece called for DMC fibers and 35-count Dark Espresso linen from R&R. When Nancy kitted this for the round robin, she used Vikki Clayton’s silks in place of the DMC. She also included a piece of her own tea-dyed 36-count linen. I think it all looks really lovely together.

As I promised earlier in the week, I have a couple of other photos that I want to share that are of a project stitched by Lorraine, one of the ladies who comes to the monthly open stitch at my LNS.

Lorraine visited an art showing at a local gallery a couple of years ago. The artist created his works by using small squares of varying colors and textures to make up the overall appearance of the piece. I know I’m doing even remotely doing justice that what he does, but I’m just not sure how best to describe it.

Anyway, after seeing the show, Lorraine was inspired to do something like this on a needlepoint project. She found a cross-stitch pattern for a Harlequin that she really loved (Mystic Stitch’s Black & White Harlequin) and used it as a basis for creating her own needlepoint masterpiece made up of smaller squares of varying colors, textures, and stitches.

After roughly two years of stitching, Lorraine recently finished the piece which she affectionately referred to as her “thinking project”. Here is a pic of the whole piece followed by a close-up pic of the face which shows the detail the project involved. As always, click to biggify:

It’s been a joy and simply amazing watching Lorraine as she worked on this piece. I can’t even begin to imagine undertaking such a task at my age and Lorraine is in her mid-80′s! I definitely want to be Lorraine when I grow up.

Until next time …