At Play

The Playground

Having just finished one BAP, I am giving myself a short respite before diving into the next one.  I dug up the silver perforated paper that I bought five years ago [how time flies].  And I have pulled all my Kreinik Very Fine braids and Rainbow Gallery braids from stash.  I have settled in to play with the Sue Donnelly's Merry Mystic ornament charts.  These charts were included in the swag bags of the 2007 Mystic Stitcher's Hideaway.  For more information about Sue's great retreats, see her website.  I will, of course, add some variations of my own: using rice stitches and Brick stitches as well as the charted Smyrna Crosses, substituting colors, finishing the edges with a blanket stitch and affixing some beaded hangers.  I must say these little ornaments are a lot of fun and very quick and easy stitches.  I will probably use them as package trim this Christmas.  But that is in the future and really quite irrelevant at the moment.  For now, it is enough to enjoy playing with shiny threads and paper, a variety of specialty stitches and a palette of jewel tones.  Sometimes, I think we stitchers get so caught up in the art of our craft that we forget its simpler joys.  Today, I feel like a very young child who has just opened a fresh 64 ct box of Crayola crayons and flipped over the cover of a thick new pad of pure white paper!

One of the larger ornaments

Since the only adhesive felt I had in my stash was orange [purchased for some long-forgotten Halloween project, no doubt], I stitched one of the ornaments using a rust and gold colorway with just a few stripes of green and blue for contrast.  I should have removed the rather distracting magnet from view before taking the shot but you get the idea.  I used cross stitches, rice stitches and Smyrna crosses in this particular ornament and used only Kreinik Very Fine Braids.

This photo of a few of the stitched but not yet trimmed and finished ornaments came out darker then I expected.  But if you click on it to enlarge it you will get a better idea of the true colors.  The smaller uncut and trimmed ornament was stitched using a combination of Rainbow Gallery Gold Rush and Treasure Braid and some Kreinik braid  all in a colorway of blue and green.  I used all of the same stitches noted above but added the tent stitch [aka, half cross] since some of the Rainbow Gallery fibers were thicker, offering greater coverage.   


I think I'll try an orange, gold and red colorway next: all the colors of flame, appropriate enough on a day with temps predicted in the 90s.  I may even try my hand at designing one of my own shapes next. I'll have to e-mail Sue and let her know how much fun I am having with these clever designs of hers.