Advent Calendar - Day 6

Today is Finland's independence day. We have now had our independence for 92 years.


For our independence day and day 6 I found this beautiful Christmas three. It's a design called "Navidad 2009" and it's from the blog AlarTTex. I can't wait to see what colours you use for the blackwork part of the chart.
Please send me an email and a picture if you find a chart to stitch from my Advent calendar since I would love to see which ones inspire you and what kind of finishes you all come up with.
Click the picture to go to the blog and there click the "pdf" button under the picture to download the chart.

Advent Calendar - Day 5

On the day 5 I wanted to show you a much loved designer: Prairie Schooler. So many stitchers like their designs and there is plenty of time to stitch a nice ornament from this snowman chart. I hope you like it! :) Feel free to tell about my Advent Calendar in your blog so I can share these to many many people. :) Again, click the picture to go to the website where you can download the chart.

wXSw group's Christmas exhange

I took part in a Christmast ornament exchange on Yahoo group Wonderful XS World. I got to stitch to Annalee from USA and I stitched her a round double sided ornament. She has received it so here are some pictures. On one side I stitched a snowflake, it's a freebie from the blog Bonheur de Broduses, on the other side I stitched white Christmas trees, the chart is designed by Dora and the freebie can be found from Borduurblog. A couple of extra freebies for today's Advent Calendar. :) I used Wichelt-Permin's 28ct Ruby Red linen and DMC's white thread, stitched two over two threads. For the finishing I used white ribbon. The width of the ornament is about 8cm.


Here are some "making of" pictures. :)
After I stitched the charts I cut two round parts of red felt so the padding doesn't show through the linen, two round parts from a sheet of padding and two round pieces of cardboard. I marked the center on each piece.


I put a needle through all the marks so I got the stitching centered.


Then I hot glued the stitched fabric to the cardboard with the padding and the felt between them. I would have sewn but I didn't leave enough fabric around the stitching... But the hot glue worked fine too.

Here are the two sides. I hot glued them together and then hot glued the ribbon around the edge.

Advent Calendar - Day 4

I hoped that Day 4 would bring us one meter of snow on the ground but no. Luckily we have some white outside since the weather has gone below zero and trees and grass have frost on them. :)

Day 4 brings us "Joyeux Noël" by MingiuStitch. This beautiful Christmas tree can be found on a site that has other freebies too. Click the picture to go to that website and the tree is about a half way down on the right.

I was thinking about roasting a whole frozen turkey for Christmas or New Years Eve. Do you have a good recipe for how to season the turkey? I've never done that before so I need advice. :)

A Christmas card exchange from Kirsi and some lovely ladies

This week has been one that makes me want to hug our postman for all the lovely post he has brought me. I would hug the people who sent the packages but that's not possible. :)

First my mailbox was full of tea as Nadia sent me one pack of Sainsbury's Red Label and one pack of Gold Label, each has 160 teabags. Wow! Now I have proper tea again! :) Thank you Nadia so much for helping me! *hugs*

Today I got this beautiful stitched Christmas card from Kirsi. It's from the Pretty Exchanges blog's Christmas card exchange. Thank you Kirsi! It's just my Chrismas colours, red and gold. *hugs*


Another great post today came from Sue. She told in her blog that her article about blogging was published in December issue of Patchwork&Quilting magazine. I commented and asked if it was on the magazines website since we don't get that mag in Finland and she offered to send me a copy of that issue, and for free! I should know by now but I am still so surprised how lovely and kind people there are in blogosphere (I learnt that word from her article :))! And as the package arrived today it was way too bulky to have just a magazine inside.... she had sent me two Christmassy coloured threads from Sample Threads and tea! She offered to help me with my tea problem but I had already sorted that with Nadia. As we were emailing I asked her favourite brands and then she sent me one of her favourites to try. A lovely and kind person, I can't say anything else. Thank you Sue! *hugs*

Advent calendar - Day 3

It's great to hear that you like my advent calendar. This is on it's way to becoming a nice tradition here. Thank you all for your lovely comments.

Day 3 and some blackwork.
This lovely chart called "SAL de Noël 2009" is from Aurelle's blog. You can stitch it one by one maybe to your Christmas cards or all together. Click the picture to go to Aurelle's blog and there click the picture to go to the chart.

Photo from Aurelle's blog

Go and see here how beautiful ornament Carol has stitched from that reindeer part.

Advent Calendar - Day 2

Day 2 and something cute. :)
Today's freebie is a Precious Moments chart from Gloria&Pat and it's called "May Your Christmas Be Decorated". Click the picture and download the chart as a pdf-file from Gloria&Pat's website.

Edit on 3rd of December:Yesterday here was a text in Finnish, sorry about that. I wrote about Cristmas gifts. Have you got all sorted or still have some presents to buy/make? I have almost everything now, just one knitted scarf is yet to be finished, two cross stitched gift almost ready and I couldn't find two things yesterday when I went shopping. So only two gifts left and I already know what I want to buy. :)

Advent Calendar - Day 1

Here it is again! The Freebie Advent Calendar 2009 starts now! :)
First freebie of this year...
Last year Sharon designed a great chart called "Jingelbell Reindeer". This year that reindeer got a friend called "Holly Reindeer". Click the picture and go to Sharon's aka Daffycat's blog to download this pretty chart.

Photo is from Daffycat's blog