'Tis the Season

Christmas is one of the most wonderful and hectic times of the year.  Every year we push ourselves to make Christmas magical for our family and friends.  Loving this time of year, and wanting to make everyones Christmas perfect, I find it hard to say no to any stitcher bringing in their stitched pieces for finishing.  This year I received a record number of pillows, Christmas stockings, ornaments, bell pulls and a box top to finish for Christmas.    One of the bell pulls I finished is the one shown on the left in the photo.  The one on the right is our shop model.   We had stitched our model 1 over 1 on a 28ct linen banding.  We stitched it over one, so all 13 flowers could be included without the bell pull being too long.  If all 13 designs would have been stitched over 2 the bell pull would be over 8 feet long; too long for most homes.                                                                            I was so taken with the bell pull, stitched 2 over 2, that I just had to share it with all of you.  It arrived in the shop just a few days after I had told another stitcher that she didn't have to stitch all of the flowers for her bell pull to look just as beautiful.  These designs are all in Gitta's leaflet G-236, it includes all 13 provincial and territorial flowers.  The leaflet was named Wild Flowers, as many of these flowers are also State flowers.

Tonight I am just 3 stockings away from having everything done;  I have been sewing steady since the Christmas Open House.  With all of these finishing  projects I have had very little time to decorate at home.  But when I came home on Saturday I had a wonderful surprise.  My kids had decorated the kitchen bay window  with my Christmas village, and my husband strung Christmas lights on our apple tree in the backyard. 

 What a wonderfull Christmas gift.  

I love sitting at the table and looking at my lighted village window. 

Isn't Christmas magical.  Wishing you all some magic over the holiday.

Merry Christmas

Christmas Open House

From right to left are Margaret, Gitta, Ietje, Mary, Monika, and myself.

Gitta's annual Christmas Open House is an "all hands on deck" kind of event.  It is the busiest Saturday of the year at the shop, with stitchers both locally and further away dropping in for some Christmas cheer, goodies, and shop specials.  The Open House is our opportunity to say "Thank you" to all our customers.

In preparation for the Open House, the shop is decorated, with a touch of Christmas throughout the store.  In the shop window, the stockings are hung by the chimney with care, and the Christmas tree is decorated with stitched ornaments of Christmas' past.

The front counter is decorated with ornaments of Christmas present.  Every year there are great ornaments to be found in magazines, the Mill Hill collection, which we stitch them on fabric rather than perforated paper, and there aren't many that we can resist.   We stitch as many as we can, with Mary stitching the most, and I then try to finish them into ornaments in time for the open house.

At the back of the shop was our goody table with lots of munchies.  Back by popular demand from last year's favourites were my dad's hummus, and my sister's guacamole.  There was also a selection of "can't resist" crackers, a spinach dip and Christmas squares and cookies.

To make this year's Christmas even more special I designed my own Christmas ornament.   We then prepared  kits that included the fabric, threads and charm.  The kit, a few other Christmas Freebee charts, and a chocolate completed our Christmas gift to everyone that came to the Open House.   As not everyone was able to drop by for whatever reason, I would still like to make this chart available to all of you.  Click here for a small Christmas gift from one stitcher to another.  Merry Christmas.

At the Open House we also revealed a  Christams themed 15 sided Biscornu.  This biscornu is designed by a local designer, Sam Calderone of Snow Dragon Designs.  She will release it in April 2012, by making it her gift to all those retreaters attending  Gitta's Getaway.

Many more photos were taken to remember the day, and if you would like to view the entire album here is the link to my facebook page.  Enjoy!!

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.302349976463482.75075.100000654471706&type=1&l=3bf31da6d6

Preparing for Gitta's Christmas Open House

I spent the weekend finishing Christmas ornaments for our Christmas Open House this coming Saturday, December 3rd.  Every year at the Christmas Open House we take the opportunity to thank you, our customers - without you the shop would not be here. 

As a special thank you this year, I designed a flying reindeer.  Mary was kind enough to stitch it for me as I was busy putting together the thank you packages for the Open House.  Ietje was so taken with the design that she also stitched him in her favourite colour - red.
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Every year the shop is decorated for Christmas, goodies are baked, a thank you gift is prepared for our visitors, and shop discounts are marked.  My sister even visited this year for a few days to help deocorate the shop.  She did a fabulous job on the shop window, and she'll be back in time to help for the Open House.  

I would like to invite all of you to join us this Saturday 

December 3rd, to celebrate the Holiday Season 

with shop specials, goodies and lots of Christmas Cheer.

Mystique

During the NeedleWorkers MarketPlace, this past April,  Carolyn Mitchell and I discussed the possibility of her teaching a workshop at Gitta's.
Carolyn is a canvaswork and hardanger designer.  Her original designs are filled with a creative use of various fibres and layered stitches.  And "Mystique" is no exception.  It is an absolutely stunning design.

 This was a 2 two day workshop held this past weekend in our class room at the shop.

Carolyn teaches at guilds and shops both in Canada and the US, as well as mentoring new designer.
In the photo above she demonstrated the Twisted Bow stitch.

She is a wonderful and well respected designer and instructor.

The ladies had a great time and accomplished a lot in 2 days.  This was the last "live" Mystique workshop for a number of years, as ANG, the American Needlepoint Guild,  has reserved the rights to this design for their Cyber Class line-up. But for now the "Mystique" model and some of Carolyn's designs are on display at Gitta's. So if you are able to visit the shop, drop by and see for yourself. 

 I would like to thank Carolyn for a wonderful weekend - for sharing her knowledge and love of Needlework.

Don't forget that December 3rd is Gitta's Christmas Open House.  

Drop by for some Christmas Cheer.

Happy Halloween

On All-Hallow's Eve

the dreaded awake

Their solitary purpose

to make your knees quake

Witches soar across starry skies

Where the moon shines with grim intent.

to light the way for the luckless few

who'll see All Hallow's dark portent

Black as the night

with silent feet

This is one Hallow creature

You'll not want to meet

To cross his path on Hallow's Night

Could spell the last you'll ever know

For you'll be caught within the sight

of feline eyes yellow aglow

So if you see a shadowed form 

streak across your wondering path

turn around and retrace your steps

Lest you see All Hallow's Wrath

Author: Sarah Ellison

 


This black cat pattern I had designed for a Make-it & Take-it class in Lancaster, PA last fall.   I stitched it in the continental stitch with 6 strands of floss on 14 count mono canvas.  I then finished it into a cell phone pouch.  

While the kids are out enjoying their night of Trick or Treating, click here for a little treat for you. 

I headed home early to put some Halloween into my front door.

 

What an awesome night, filled with screams and treats. Many brave little superheros, dragons and princesses dared pass my skeleton crew to collect their treats. I had a blast from all the screams and shrieks from the kids that came to our door and were startled by my singing & dancing Pirate motion detector, spooky noise making Scream mask, eerie noise making door mat, and spiders. There were also quite a number of little kids that wouldn't approach the door without mummy.  But the promise of a sugary treat always won out over fear. I had a blast.

Blast from the past.

This past week I visit my oldest and dearest friend at her new home.  My housewarming gift to her was one she had requested, a biscornu.  Ever since she spied the bowl of biscornu's at Gitta's Getaway this past April, she just had to have one.   Not being a cross stitcher herself, I stitched one for her in her favourite colour - purple.

To my surprise I was not the only one bearing a gift.  While packing for her move she had come across a photo she had taken of me at Gitta's, the original shop.

She had taken this photo in 1995.  What fascinates me with this photo, besides my polka-dotted top, is the size of our fabric corner, just 2 shelving units, and the collection of specialty fibres just to the right of the fabric shelves.  Today our selection of linens, evenweaves, aidas, and canvases have their own "room" (about 1/3 of the shop),  and our selection of specialty fibres has expanded greatly to the entire fibre collections from numerous silk and cotton floss dyers.
The floor space of the old shop was only about 1/4 of what we have today.  In 1995 we would have been in this shop 9 years and already bursting at the seams.  It was the following year that we moved just 10 shops down the road, to our current location.

Out Numbered

Petit Point model

The newest design in our Inuit series is Out Numbered.  Being a petit pointer at heart, we stitched our model in petit point, using the continental (tent) stitch on silk gauze.  While visiting with David's family on the Canada Day long weekend, my mother-in-law had cross stitched these cute little playful Huskies and gave it to her granddaughter for her birthday.  David & I loved it, so once we were home I arranged to have it cross stitched for the shop.  The friend that stitched it, loved the design's title as much as the design.  She wanted me to chart the title "Out Numbered" so she could stitch it as part of the finished piece.  While we were away on holiday in Alaska she finished the stitching and my mother framed it.  They wanted it done as a surprise on our return home.  It looks fantastic, David was pleased with the finished piece, and here it is!

Cross stitched model

As the charted wording is not part of the original chart pack, Click here for this additional chart of  "Out Numbered".  I will also add it to the Gitta's website as a free companion chart to G-139.  Enjoy.