Santas and other Seasonal Stuff for Sunday

I have another 2 Santas to show this Sunday - Viking Santa and Old Man Santa - I know they aren't clever names but its the best I can do at the moment.


I was going for an Eric the Red vibe with this one - bushy red beard and I used bits of a metallic leather to "lace" up his boots. I think the little tree and red bird are a nice touch.



Old Man Santa got a full helping of decorative stitches - long stitch in mohair for the beard, sheared stitch for the fur trim, scotch stitch in 3 different fibers for his robe.



On Friday night I was quite optimistic with my sewing plans and some of them came to fruition. I got the binding on my Flurry quilt and I got the Mary Engelbreit Schnibble quilted but I didn't get any pictures of them yet. And I even got a table runner made for the table in my front foyer. It was a simple disappearing nine patch done with a Christmas line of Basic Grey from a couple of years ago.



I should have taken the picture before I put it on the table but you can see it beneath my Nativity set which is another needlepoint project from years ago.



I stitched this Nativity set when my oldest son was about 1 year old. I wanted a set that wouldn't break if he "played" with it and I loved the look of these figures. They were designed by Polly Carbonari- she did a lot of cross stitch designs too. They have a very simple folk art appearance that looks like a child might have drawn them.



I stitched these up using wool, perle cotton and metallic threads with everything outlined in a black perle cotton. Joseph has a dimensional beard. Mary and the baby Jesus are done very simply.



Here are the shepherds and the camel that the three wise men brought.



And these are the three wise men with the donkey that Mary rode.

Now there is one thing about this set that makes me shake my head every year when I put it out -how come the camel is pointing in the opposite direction of the wise men? I always want to put the camel near the wise men but somehow it never looks right. Oh well, I just chalk it up to the charm of the set.

Friday night I was quite productive, followed by Saturday where I got nothing done! Is that cosmic payback? I didn't feel well all day and just vegged. Today I did get a few things done - grocery shopping and I worked on my Christmas cards. I can't believe how fast Christmas is approaching. December really should have more days in it.

Here's hoping we all have a very productive week ahead!
Happy stitching-
carol fun

A belated Santas for Sunday... and gushing about White Christmas

I fully intended to post this yesterday but instead I fell asleep in my recliner right after dinner and that's the last thing I remember till this morning. I must have gone upstairs to bed since that is where I woke up - boy was I tired! So better late than never, more Santas!



I call the one on the left the rustic Santa and the one on the right is my White Christmas Santa. White Christmas is my favorite Christmas movie - heck it is my all-around, any time favorite movie. The costumes, the music, the dance numbers.... more about that in a minute.



Again in true Liberace fashion this guy has a lot going on. The fur on the cap and the edge of the robe is an angora that I roughed up with a little wire brush. I used an overdyed wool for the coat. The ribbon on the wreath is a metallic that I couched to give it a 3-D effect. You can just barely see the metallic shoe laces tied in a bow - boy I had some pretty good fine motor skills back then.



I can't believe I did that many french knots for his beard. I must have been nuts (oh wait, I am - LOL)



This is my favorite Santa - not because he is the most elaborate by any means, but because he reminds me of Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye in the finale of White Christmas.



I don't remember what they called the fiber I used for the beard but it is like cellophane twisted on a cotton core.


The fur trim was a looped stitch that I sheared and the suit is backstitched in a red metallic thread. Simple, yet festive!



Getting back to White Christmas the movie - oh how I LOVE LOVE LOVE it! Saturday morning I had the opportunity to see the movie at a theater on a big screen. I've never seen it this way before. It has always been a staple of my Christmas traditions. The first time I saw it was a Saturday night in my teens when I was babysitting for the triplets from Hell - ok maybe not Hell, but somewhere in that vicinity. These boys wore me out and the parents forgot to tell me that one of them was prone to sleep walk -- he scared the bejesus out of me. My reward for this night along with the 50 cents an hour they were paying me was to watch White Christmas.

Seeing it on the big screen was an eye opener in many ways. First the colors were waaay more intense than it is on TV or a DVD. In one of the early scenes, Rosemary Clooney is wearing a blue dress with a wonderful tulle wrap - it looks blue on my computer- on the screen it was a stunning periwinkle. Gorgeous! Later in the movie she is wearing a velvet dress that I always thought was black, in reality it is a dark forest green.

Edith Head was the costume designer for this film and she did a fantastic job. I always loved that the shoes matched the outfit in all the scenes. Danny Kaye has the most beautiful grey suede shoes that match his suit. I read somewhere that it was his idea to do this so that there was a seamless line when he danced. And there is a rehearsal scene where Vera-Ellen is dancing in a yummy chartreuse little outfit with a turtleneck, a twirly skirt and velvet banding around the waist and her dance shoes are chartreuse too! Perfect!!

This film is also dear to my heart because it has lots of Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky connections which is where I grew up and now live. Rosemary Clooney (George's aunt and the mother of Miguel Ferrer) is from Maysville, KY, just down the river a piece. She retired there and is buried there. Vera-Ellen was from Norwood, OH a suburb of Cincinnati. Norwood is close to my heart too. My oldest son did a internship there and loved it. George Chakiris is also from Norwood and is going to be in town tomorrow to honor the movie and the Rosemary Clooney museum down in Augusta, KY. Lots of hometown pride here!

After the film ended on Saturday I said to my niece, if the started it over right now I'd sit and watch it again. Instead I went home and watched it on DVD. This time I watched the version with commentary overlayed by Rosemary Clooney. It was so good - nice, light, little asides and stories - and at then end she says "I just LOVE it, can we watch it again?" - a woman after my own heart.

May your days be merry and bright, and may all your Christmases be white!

carol fun

Santas for Sunday

December??? How did it get to be December already? So far, the only Christmas decorations I've put out are the sorry looking wreaths on my front door. I need to redo them this week. However I did want to bring a little holiday spirit to my blog so for this month I will be showing some needlework from long long ago-- my needlepoint period of 20 years ago. I stitched these up for a needlepoint shop I taught at back in the late 80's. I did about a dozen of these little guys, sort of in the style of the Prairie Schooler Santas,



I think the one on the left is St. Nicholas and the one of the right is a bit of an old fashioned Santa. Each of these Santas stands about 6" high and is about 2" around at the base. A professional seamstress did the cording and the finishing and her
work is beautiful. I chose different decorative stitches and fibers for each one along with a different darning stitch pattern for the background of each Santa. The background stitches are done in ecru perle cotton.



All the sparkly shiny fibers are hard to photograph along with the fact that these are curved figures that stand. I took a couple of close up shots that let you see the stitches more clearly.



I used a ton of different fibers - wools, DMC, perle cotton, metallic braid and fibers that I can't remember what they are called.



These were stitched on 18 count needlepoint canvas. Oh I just remember what the shiny stuff was called - Marlitt. I still have a huge box of these fibers in my storage room.



I also used seed beads and the fur is wool that was stitched in loops and then I cut and shaped it. My oldest son refers to these guys as my Liberace Santas and he has a point. At the time the shop wanted me to use as many different fibers as I could and boy did I. I put together graphs with the stitches and fibers and taught it as a class. Needlepoint has gotten outrageously expensive these days. I looked at prices of hand painted canvas and was stunned. Some are going for hundreds of dollars. Along with teaching the classes I use to paint canvas for the shop too, and I never got a lot of money for it. I would paint names on stockings for stitchers - graphing it out so it was perfectly centered and picking alphabets that were in the same style as the stocking. I got paid about 50 cents a letter - oh those were the days.

Well I hope to get some Christmas decorations out this week, but first I need to put away the Fall stuff. I could use somee minions to do the heavy lifting - LOL!

Have a great week-
carol fun