Being related has it perks ...

I hope that everyone had as lovely a Christmas, full of joy and cheer, as our family had this year!

Here is this years Christmas Tree. Unlike most other Christmas Trees, our Tree has a few, special "sparklers" on it than many other people's Trees don't.

While it looked better before the presents were opened, (but I didn't think to take a picture of it on Christmas Eve) it's not just our tree I'd like to share, but the beautiful Ornaments that adorn it, which are very special to me!

Here, I've hung my 4 Beaded Ornament Cover ornaments that Marie has given to me, for the past 4 Christmases.

I wanted them to hang all in one place, so that I could get them all into one picture. This way, you can see them all in one place.

You can click on the picture to get a better look at my ornaments, then click your BACK button to return to my Blog.

This is the Beaded Ornament Cover Marie gave me for Christmas this year! It is so very lovely.

No doubt, she saw me eyeing it one evening, while over at her house visiting a few months ago.

Some of you may recognize this ornament, or have one similar to it? The only place you could have gotten one of these beauties, is as a gift from Marie Alton.

That's right ... each of these lovelies are an original work of art made by, none other than, Marie Alton; SRE Deluxe Stitcher / Designer Extraordinaire (and Beaded Ornament Cover Maker as well)!

One ornament cover ... 3 different looks.


All I did was change the colour of the ball under my ornament cover, and voila!
A whole new look! Just look how this ornament cover changes with a different coloured ball underneath it!

The ornaments that adorn my tree get prettier every year. As the sister of their creator, I am blessed with an exquisite, new Beaded Ornament Cover to put on my tree, every year! I think this year's makes 4, so that's 4 years now that I've received a new ornament cover for my tree!

While Marie did not make the glass ball part of the ornament, she makes the awesome beaded cover that glorifies the plain glass ball, turning each into a work of art and wonderment.

These are the most beautiful Christmas Ornaments I have ever had the pleasure or honor of putting on my tree.

I look forward to dressing our tree with these exquisite creations because they are the most mesmerizing decorations I have. Everyone who comes into my home at Christmas time, notices them, and then everyone wants to own one for their own tree.

Knowing full well that my Christmas present from Marie will be, yet another gorgeous ornament cover to hang on my tree, I am giddy with anticipation, and can't wait to see which one she has selected to give me as my present!

"Did she give me the one I told her I liked the most, or did she even remember which one I liked the most because I couldn't decide which I wanted more! I couldn't choose, they were all so beautiful!"

What most of you don't know is that Marie shows me each one of her incredible creations, after she has finished it, and when I go over to her house to do stuff with her, I get to see each new ornament cover, as it hangs anew in her Studio, awaiting the next Christmas Season.

Marie gives me (what she considers to be) the prettiest Ornament Covers for my Christmas present, then she gives her friends the others that she's made!

See what happens with you're related to the person who makes these pretty things? And again, all I did was change the colour of ball underneath the ornament cover and it takes on a totally different look!

What Marie may not realize ... is that while she may consider some of her Beaded Ornament Covers to be prettier than others, each of these lovely innovations she has painstakingly beaded, is mesmerizing!

Each Beaded Cover is bewitching in their own way, and each is exceptional, in that each has captured the love and passion she puts into their creation, with endless hours upon hours of seemingly tedious work. Marie spends great deal of time crafting these endearing jewels, just to bring a little more light, a little more beauty, a little more happiness, and a little more joy in to someone else's life at Christmas time.


Someone else; someone like me ... her Sister, who you'd think would get the 'left-overs', she begifts her finest creations. I feel truly blessed to have such a wonderful sister!

While she may give me what she considers to be "the most lovely" of her adornments, I would be honored to own and display any of these endearing creations my sister has made!

I look forward to each year's Christmas present from Marie, just to see what new jewel she has bestowed upon me this year. Thank you for all of the beautiful things you've given me for Christmas, Marie! They will forever be cherished by me, and as the years pass ... my children, to hang on their trees to show their children what a wonderful artist their Auntie Marie is! I Love You!

Stitch <3

Christmas Stockings To Share ...

(You may click on any of the Photos to see more detail, then hit your BACK button to return to my Blog)

I've been having a hard time getting into the spirit of Christmas this year, as someone very near and dear to my heart, my beloved Aunt Bea, is very ill, and it pains me that I cannot be with her right now.

But ... I think I am finally starting to get that Happy Holiday Feeling!

Some magic must have happened last night, or a Pixie came into my house and sprinkled Angel Dust on my head while I was sleeping, because today . . .

I just feel like Christmas itself!!! Isn't that just so special!?

Anywayz, I just thought I would share our family Christmas Stockings with all of you out there.

December of 2002 was our first, official Canadian Winter, away from the 27C temperatures of Christmas in Phoenix, Arizona. Come to find out, this was the worst Winter Haliburton had seen in the past 35 years!

Figures, eh? The year we move from the dry, balmy climate of Phoenix, to the humid, bone-chilling temperatures of -40C in Haliburton, our first Winter back in Canada; can you get more extreme than that? Nope. I don't think so.
I thought it would be nice to celebrate our being safe, back home in Canada, away from the threat of terrorism & War in the United States, by making new Stockings for the whole family.

While doing a little Christmas shopping in town, I thought it would be nice to have Stockings for the kids with their names on them, so I thought I'd see how much it would be to buy them, and then just embellish the their names on the front with gold or silver glitter glue.
I picked up one of the beautifully appliqued Stockings that were piled high on a display table, thinking that when I turned over the price tag, it would cost about 10 bucks. NOT!

I was floored to discover that (although wonderfully embellished, detailed with beads, jewels and gold thread) each Stocking cost from $19.99 to $24.99 each! Knowing these lovely Stockings would totally blow my Christmas Budget, I decided right there on the spot that I would make my own Christmas Stockings this year! After all, it's what I did for a living ... make pretty, embroidered and embellished lovely things of all sorts, shapes and sizes.

Even if it meant staying awake, sewing at my machines until Santa came and went ... everyone would have their own Christmas Stocking that Christmas!

Business at "The Stitchery" was booming by the time Christmas came around, and my workload had literally doubled over night, when the townsfolk discovered that I had the ability to embroider anything I could create on my computer screen.
My Business Card from
'The Stitchery'

As with every festive Season that comes upon a Seamstress, people were coming out of the woodwork to have the names of their loved ones embroidered on items of every kind. Whatever surface my customers could find to have a name embroidered on, I embroidered on it.

Everything from Jackets, Shirts, Back-packs, Hats, Scarves, Baby Blankets, and Tote-All's, right down to a Family Heirloom 100% Cotton Throw, which had been turned into a Named Heart Keepsake Wall-Hanging, with all their Grand children's names embroidered on it!
Back to my story ... I lucked out and found one Stocking that was reduced as it was last year's stock, marked down to $6.99, but there was ONLY ONE. But, since I was making the Stockings myself, all I needed was one - as an example, and at least I now had a patten to cut the rest of the Stockings from. Knowing I had plenty of colourful, sparkly, festive fabric at home with which to make a great many Stockings, I took my one 'Stocking' home, and began to create.


My Embroidery machine is also my Sewing machine, so I decided to embroider all of the names on the Stockings, like an assembly line, before I'd assembled them so that once I had finished embroidering all the names, I could switch my machine back over to the sewing machine, and assemble all of the Stockings at once, without having to switch back and forth between the two machine functions. Certainly did save some time.
 I started with the kids' Christmas Stockings, because if I didn't get all of the Stockings finished before Santa arrived, at least the kids would have theirs' hanging for Santa to fill Christmas morning.

There was a great deal more applique work on the kids' Stockings than I had counted on, after I'd completed the first Stocking.
There was all of the outlining of the Holly leaves and Holly berries, with gold metallic embroidery thread, two leaves on the foot of the Stocking, and 3 leaves on the Stocking topper, embellishing them, and appliqueing all around the edge of each leaf, sort of in a way to join the two pieces together, to enhance the top of the Stocking and to hide the seam as well. I had also used a piece of flat, gold ribbon to divide the white felt from the burgundy Velour of the bottom piece of the Stocking.I used burgundy, cotton Velour for the front of the Stocking, and almost the same colour of doubled cotton flannel. I made sure to wash all of my fabrics to ensure that in the event they had to be laundered (for some unforseen reason in the future) they would not shrink and twist out of shape. I used white felt, embellished with gold sparkle dots in a grid pattern, for the top of the Stocking, finishing off the top of each Stocking with winter-white, polar fleece, to give the illusion of snow sitting on top of the Stocking.


Although I tried to make the Stockings as uniform as I could, each is just a little different in some way, so each Stocking is 'an Original' work of art, made my Mummy/Aunt Cathy. I hope our daughters, and my niece and nephew, will keep and cherish these Christmas Stockings, and hang them up in their homes, when they're older and have children of their own.
I decided to stitch our names in white because the names stitched in red (see Stocking at Right), just didn't give it enough of a contrast. I thought the white stitching would pick up the white from the top, and show off the bright red of the Poinsettias. Next, I used a band of winter-white polar fleece to finish the tops, and to make it look like there was snow on top of the Stocking.
It just seemed the perfect thing to finish off the top with. I also made the loop with which to hang the Stocking from the polar fleece, as it was quite durable and strong.

I cut each of the Poinsettias petals from bright red felt, then I appliqued them on using a solid red rayon embroidery thread line, all around the outer edges of each petal. I then used metallic gold embroidery thread to make and embellish the veins of each petal, and make the sepals as well. I found some festive cording (that I have no idea where it came from), to divide the white stocking topper, from the green sock body, covering the seam that joined the two pieces of fabric together.

No more strap!

My daughter was so pleased with this light cotton, jersey print Cami I'd made for her, she just HAD to wear it to school for 'picture day'.

To think that my daughter would rather wear a top that I made, than any of the gazillions of new little tops she's purchased over the summer months at 'Stitches' or 'The Mall' ... Well, it just makes a Mom proud!
The Photographer who took her picture neglected to tell her that her bra strap was showing, and took the picture anyway, without correcting the situation, the Dumb Head!

When the $56.00 worth of pictures finally arrived, my daughter burst into tears upon pulling them out of the envelope when she spotted the dreaded blue bra strap sticking out from beneath the pink, stretch lace strap of her new top!

Well, because her bra strap was showing, her "pictures were ruined!"

Drama, Drama, Drama! Why does there always have to be so much Drama with Girls?!

Mom to the rescue!!!

Armed with my handy, dandy, photo-manipulating programs, I was able to correct this faux pas, and remove said pesky blue bra strap from the photograph. Becky was so pleased with the results, all tears have completely subsided, she loves her pictures, and there is peace in the land once again.

Now that I've corrected them, all I have to do is print them out! Good thing I just got some new ink cartridges for my printer! Looks like I'm going to need them.

A thought just crossed my mind . . . What the hell am I going to do with all the lovely, but bra-strap offensive prints from the photographer? They clearly show said bra strap, so they won't be going out to family members with the Christmas Cards! Thank God for Paper Shredders, is all I can say!

I got my Paper Shredder for Christmas 3 years ago, and it is still my most favorite Christmas present, evar! Except maybe for the present I just busted Santa trying to sneak into the house this evening!

Just as I hit the top step from the basement, Santa was bringing a giant box through the front door, and in plain view for me to see, as the door closed behind him, was a brand new MASSAGE TABLE!!!

But, THAT'S another Blog! Suffice it to say that this latest Christmas present is right up there with my paper shredder, on my list of best evar Christmas presents from Santa!

Anywayz, back to the pictures ... what made this job easier was that we bought the 'Full package' which comes with a CD containing a jpeg. of all the pictures taken, as well as those they'd cropped, turned to Black & White or Sepia'd, and of course, the original shot.

Since I am able to alter the photograph into Black & White, Sepia and a great many other effects with the programs I have, all I really have to do is correct the two colour originals, then apply the photographic effect that strikes me at the time.

So, here is a picture of one of the little tops I've made in the past while. Man, I'd like to kiss the person who invented the Serger!

Who'd a thunk it?

Hello to all of you out there in Blog land! Sorry it has been a while since I've been, but I'd been quite ill for a number of weeks, then both my daughters got it as well! While we still have remnants of the heavy chest cough, we are pretty much back to our normal selves.

Well, in not having been here for a while, I just thought I'd share something that came about while spending some quality time with my two darling daughters early this afternoon over a cup of tea.

Would you believe that this picture was actually taken today? Oh, yes!

It is not a picture from someones Gramma's photo album, but one fresh off the camera today!

And, the 'Gown' this young lady is wearing ... is really just two lace shower curtains creatively draped and tucked to resemble the kind of gown my youngest wants me to make her for Graduation this Spring!

Well! Who'd a thunk it, eh? While my darling daughter, Becky, was playing dress up, trying to show me the type of dress she wants me to make her, I started taking pictures so that I could remember, and make a dress that would please her once it was completed.

I downloaded the image from the camera, switched the colour version to 'Sepia', and Voila! Picture of a young woman in a lace gown from 150 years ago!
And to our right, is the original shot that I took, minus the background as I didn't think that anyone really needed to see the bookcase behind her, piled high with things that don't yet have a home, and the mounds of winter footwear at her feet, so I cut them out of the picture, to keep the eye on the main subject of the shot, 'The Gown'.

It is actually quite funny that she chose to play with these lace curtains as I had just laundered them to turn them into a long, beaded, lace jacket to be worn over an ivory, stretch satin gown I had just fashioned.

No one has seen this Gown yet, nor even knows of it's existence; it is to be a Christmas present for someone, and I was hoping to have the lace coverlet finished in time to package the two as a set for Christmas, but with 3 weeks to go to the big day, and very little of my holiday shopping done, it's going to be a close one!

I hope to cut and serge the basic jacket tomorrow, so I will give you visual updates of the project as it is coming along. As for the train? The train will be on the jacket, not on the dress. I have designed the lace jacket in such a way that when you place a hook in a hidden eye near the empire waist at the back, the train actually becomes a bustle at the back of the gown, that can be worn either long and flowing gracefully along the ground, (depending on the weather, of course) or pulled up into a bustle at the back, for a 'period' type of look.

I hope the vision I have in my mind's eye, is what will result after I've stitched this baby together tomorrow!
All prayers are welcome!

Until next time ...

Be Well & Happy Holidays!
Cathy <3