Chanukah Pinkeep and French Cellphone Case

Most of my crafting time since my last post has been spent in frogging everything I attempt.  Very frustrating.   So I have some knitting in the works that should have been finished long ago, but not when I can't make any valid forward progress!

I really never stitch for the Jewish Holidays.  Frankly, what small ornament patterns exist for this are so uninteresting that I'm never tempted and I don't do larger pieces much anyway.  But when I saw this Shepherd's Bush Chanukah piece, I was intrigued and thought I'd stitch it up.  Who would have expected a Chanukah design on that site!  I was still mad at myself for not being able to crochet my favorite trim in black for the Mary Gary Halloween ornament. So I gave it one more try for this one.  This thread seemed to have a little more heft so it went much more smoothly this time.

The design is a bit busy, but I thought the idea of doing a Chanukah-related word for each letter of December was pretty clever.  The 'B'  for bulbs was a bit of a stretch, but I couldn't think of anything better so I went with it.  I know Chanukah starts unusually early in November this year, but with eight days, it will slide into December as usual.  I substituted little buttons for the dreidel button they had at the top.

Taking a break from that knitting, I decided to stitch a little French design that caught my eye.  This is a free sample from a magazine and I believe the designer is Perrette Samouïloff.  You can get the freebie here.  She's such a perfect little French girl with her kitty.  It's stitched on what I thought was 32 count lambswool Jobelan, but it came out larger than expected so maybe it was 28 count.  Whatever.. goes with all the other mistakes I've been making.  I turned it into a cell phone case for WOCS.  These are photos before I added a button on the back.

 

 

Turkey and Eagle

Not too much stitching in the last few weeks.  Seem to have spent way too much time fighting off one kind of minor health problem after another.   I was scheduled for jury duty too, but luckily my number was high enough that they didn't need me on the actual day so I was excused.

One piece of good news during my downtime.... a big, beautiful, new Joann's fabric and crafts store opened in a mall nearby!  Usually, I just hear about these things closing.  What a pleasant surprise!

When I finally felt a bit better, I just wanted to stitch something cute.  So out came "Bok Bok", a freebie from Plum Street Samplers that came out in 2009.  You can still get the pattern here.  He's such a an elegant little turkey, stitched on a piece of lavender hand-dyed Aida.  I turned him into a coaster/mat to use for the season.  I'm afraid the guy got all dressed-up without knowing his Thanksgiving fate!

I also managed to finish a square for a WOCS quilt.  They are doing a couple of quilts for wounded warriers and vets.  I thought this sweet piece, "Pride and Glory", from Threadworks Primitive would work well for the theme.  The rules required white, 14 count fabric, and I had one lone piece of Aida in my stash that filled the bill.