Old MacDonald

There is a whole Old Mac Donald set that Carolyn DeAngelis did with the farmer and all the animals.  I'm doing a collection of assorted boys for my friend's son and he's kind of into farmers right now.  Because I'm not doing the whole set, I wanted the farmer to be a little more special, so I did the dog and attached him.  I asked Rachel what color muck boots Reid has and that's why I did these boots black with green bottoms.  

Llamas

For some reason, my kids have a fascination with llamas.  Not real llamas . . . just llamas they see on stuff.  I saw this cute pattern  on Etsy and decided to make them a matching set.  The pom-poms are just circles of felt cut with a hole punch.  I don't know if I've ever talked about that before, but a good-quality Fiskar hole punch -- the kind with the rubber coated handles -- does a really nice job punching felt.  I use a 1/4" one for this size and a 1/8" one for my eyes.

These were super fast to put together and they're really cute on the tree!

PLEASE NOTE:  I have never personally communicated with the pattern designer other than to order the pattern.  I didn't receive a free pattern for this post and I'm sure she doesn't even know this blog exists.  

Gabe

I suppose this pattern is supposed to be a boy since it's named Gabe.  I just threw some flowers on the dress and turned it into a girl.  That works -- right?  I have no idea why I took the photo before I put the halo on.  I always use a silver pipe cleaner for the halo.  This is part of the angel collection for Audrey, my friend's daughter.  She gets a new angel every year.

This one was quick and easy and just adding a few details at the bottom made a huge difference.  

Ornaments from Ouida

I'm not the only one who's been busy stitching.  Ouida sent me pics of some ornaments she's made and they're beautiful  I wish you could see hers up close because you would die of envy if you could see the precision of her stitches.  I love when other people make patterns that I designed.  Here's Ouida's take on my Fisher Price Little People. I'm actually working on a set of these for myself as we speak.   

She also worked up some classic DeAngelis patterns.

Here's Kola Koala.  This one turned out great! 

Betsy Bubbles 

Della from Delft 

This is NOT a DeAngelis, but I'm pretty sure I have this pattern, too.

Janet -- is this one of yours??

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!   

Richmond

I make mice ornaments each year for Allyson and my mom.  I don't always do it this way, but this year I did a double.  Here's the thing about doing doubles . . . . it seems like such a good idea in terms of efficiency.  If you have a short attention span like me, though, this gets maddening quick.  The cutting-out phase goes well.  That's my least favorite part of the process and doing two at the same time always makes me feel like I've really accomplished something.  (It doesn't take much.)  Then I start stitching them side-by-side.  Head on this one . . . head on that one . . . ears on this one . . . ears on that one . . . you get the picture.  About halfway through, I get impatient and completely finish one and then go back and completely finish the other one.  Every time.  I'm nothing if not predictable.

This was another one of Carolyn DeAngelis' bear patterns that I put a mouse head on.  It turned out really cute.  I gave my mother hers at Thanksgiving and she loved it!

 

Star Bright

This is Audrey's 9th angel ornament.  I have to keep a photo folder going just for hers so I can remember what I've already made.  This is Carolyn DeAngelis' Star Bright pattern.  If I had to do it over again, I'd enlarge it just a little as it's sort of on the small side.  Still cute, though!