The Stitch Book: Week 50 (December 8-14)

Can you believe we're at Week 50 of this year's project!?! There are only two more weeks left for the 2024 stitch journal. Where has the time gone? 

This week I decided to try a technique I've seen online a few times: reverse applique. Reverse applique is a sewing technique where you cut the top layer of fabric to reveal the design rather than stitching fabric on top of another layer of fabric in more traditional applique. I thought it would be fun to try this with a design featuring ornaments. In theory, I was right. In practice, this was harder than I expected when it came time to cut the fabric. 

I did all the stitching over the course of the week and saved the cutting for today. I used my small scissors to cut and I would recommend that technique even if you're working with a larger area of fabric. If my design had been larger, this would have worked out fine, but because it's smaller, the fabric cutaway is smaller. It was harder to maneuver and looks a little messier than I would like. 

Regardless, I love it. I love that Ornament 3 looks like an onion, and even more so after the fabric was cut away. I used more fabric from other upholstery sample books for the second fabric layer. They're so pretty and shiny! I'm definitely going to try this technique again on a larger design. 

Here's this week's piece:

December 8 (with and without the fabric peeking out)

December 9

December 10

December 11

The back of the first two ornaments (December 11)

December 12

December 13 - yes, Ornament 3 looks like an onion.

December 14 - stitching complete

December 14 - before the cutting

Ornament 1

Ornament 2

Ornament 3 - it looks even more like an onion now.

Week 50

Weeks 1-50

Week 51's color is windsurf.

WIPs & Other Projects: Rosehill Cottage, Woodlawn, Advent Puzzle & Random Things from the Week

Last weekend I did some holiday shopping and decided to stitch the adorable mini Rosehill Cottage pattern from Laine Irene Designs while watching The Holiday, one of my favorite Christmas movies and the inspiration for the pattern. I wasn't able to finish it during the movie, but I was able to finish it on Sunday. It looks so cute on the tree!

Other new ornaments include a spite house ornament painted by the amazing Kellie Sansone (I bought the ornament at Made in ALX) and a Bowie cat I found at Penny Post. 

I've also started working on my pieces for the Woodlawn show. I'm going to do a test piece featuring my grandmother's handwriting before I try it on the flour sack towel. This is my Sunday project. I need some better photos of both china patterns I'm using as the recipe card border, but that will have to wait until I'm at my parents' house for Christmas. 

This is the sample piece on some cotton fabric. It's the actual size of the handwritten recipe. I'm going to try it at the original size first. I can always enlarge it if the handwriting is too small.

My mom's china is a retired pattern from Noritake called Larue. I've been able to find out a little bit about it on the Noritake website. 

This china belonged to my great-grandmother (I think) but my grandmother used it. It's from Edwin Knowles China. I'm still trying to find out information about the pattern. 

This week was also super social work holiday event week for me. We had a team dinner on Wednesday night. I went out for drinks on Monday and we had the office holiday happy hour on Thursday. I'm on the planning team for the office party, so it was a busy week. I was happy to have a reason to wear my new earrings from Saffron Creations, and won some fancy bourbon at the holiday party. 

I'm taking my mom to Middleburg this coming week to stay at the fancy Salamander Resort. I won a gift card for the resort at last year's holiday party and we're finally going for our stay (it was originally supposed to be in April). My mom loves fancy hotels decorated at Christmas time so the delay actually worked out for the best. 

I've also been working on the 2025 stitch journal design. More to come in a future post, but I'm getting more and more excited for it. I'm almost to 80 fortunes, which is my goal for the project.

The 79th fortune.

I've really enjoyed working on the Advent puzzle my friend got me. This week included the most delightful chonky, grey cat wearing a bow tie, and getting into mischief. So very adorable.