Missy Goose

I've been wanting to do this one for for a while.  I figured it would be a good place to start with some of the nursery rhyme ornaments.  This one was really fun and even though it had a ton of pieces, it went together quicker than I thought.  (I won't lie, though . . . I was decompressing the day after Thanksgiving and spent several hours stitching while binge-watching old episodes of ER.)

This one is fun because there's so much you can do in terms of color.  Black boots vs. brown . . . gray hair to look like an old woman . . . bright colors or pastels.

The only change I made was to add spats to both boots because it's my understanding that spats go around the whole boot and would be seen on the inside of the back foot.  (Do you like how I sound all official and artisty like I know one darn thing about perspective???)  

I also enlarged the pattern a little.  As it fits on an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper, I thought she was a little on the small side . . . especially in terms of handling all the detail.  I enlarged her to 115% and used two sheets and she turned out the same size as most of my other ornaments. 

Here's another helpful hint for you.  I didn't have the exact shade of green thread in my ornament box and I just couldn't tear myself away from Dr. Lewis and the rest of the staff at County General to go down to my sewing room in search of some.  The thread I used was a little darker and, as you can see, you can really see those stitches.  I don't think it looks bad, but it ups the ante in terms of being pretty precise with stitch uniformity because it's not very forgiving!