That lull between Halloween and Christmas

Sigh, Halloween decorations are taken down and stacked in piles around my house waiting to be put away for another year. I have my Thanksgiving decorations up and will post a photo in my next post. After the excitement of Halloween the Thanksgiving stuff feels like a bit of a let-down. But I am getting excited for putting out the Christmas decorations. 

 I am also getting started on stitching and finishing some Christmas ornaments. The top one is a Lizzie Kate out of this years Just Cross Stitch Ornament issue. It took me two days to stitch, and I challenged myself with the trim on the finishing. I love the ric rac, and pom-poms but they took some fussing to get right. And the little reindeer is from the December snapshot chart by Pine Mountain. Very cute, and very simple all DMC threads with the charts and quick to stitch up.

 As you can see I have done some stash enhancement this month. The Sunshine on a Stem chart I fell in love with while watching Cathy Haberman on flosstube. I can't wait to stitch it, but will probably wait till spring as I am occupied with ornaments now. I also ordered the December, October, and May Snapshot charts from Pine Mountain, they are very cute and of course my favorite is October with the little witch and black cat.

 I also discovered a new designer (new to me at least) this month-Artful offerings. My middle daughter loves penguins, so she will be her ornament for this year. And I love bunnies wearing crowns, so he will be on my spring stitching list as well. I also picked up the JCS Ornament issue, and found about 10 ornaments I want to stitch out of it, so I would say it was well worth the purchase.

And here is my last Halloween finish. Bent Creek's "Spooky Row". I hand-dyed the fabric myself, but discovered I did not have quite enough to stitch the cauldron. So I improvised and used a purple fabric and sewed them together. I am going to do some black X's on the seam line to make it look intentional and Halloweeny. I have loved this design for a long time, and am glad I finally stitched it up. I have the other half of this fabric too, and want to stitch the "Trick or Treat" row on it.