Coffee Altoid Tin Top & Freedom Mat

So it's down to the final projects for 2014.  I made yet another embellished Altoid tin for my coffee-loving Jazzercise instructor.  The design is a slightly re-worked version of Barbara Ana's "Drink Coffee, Stitch Faster".  I probably could have used the entire design if I had done over-one stitching, but I wasn't in the mood to go with any higher count than 36 over-two on Summer Khaki Edinburgh.  Naturally I enclosed the cute Starbucks gift card keychain fob in the shape of a  mini-red Startbucks coffee cup. With coffee, lip balm and a few chocolates, this seemed like the perfect little package to carry around.  I had those two little gingerbread people embellishments in my stash from one of those "Dress it Up" collections.  My instructor said her two sons are really enamored of gingerbread this year, so I expect they got a kick out of it.

And continuing in the Barbara Ana theme,  I stitched up this "Freedom" design that Barbara donated to the members of the Star Spangled Stitchers FB group.  My camera just couldn't capture the lovely colors of the floss and fabric.  It's stitched on 36 count HDF linen in a beautiful pale blue.  All the other colors are DMC as suggested.   The finished piece is a 5" x 6" mat on which my eyeglasses are currently resting.  The backing is the same as the gold/brown fabric around the piece.  Not my best binding effort, but the camera seems to point out every flaw much more than I would notice in true life.