Ornament of the Month 2021 - February

Welcome to the second Ornament of the Month for 2021! The Birthstone for February is amethyst, so that's what this month's colours reflect. I still had some real amethysts left over from the batch I bought back in 2015 for the first Ornament of the month patterns, so I dug them out and used three as part of my finish of this month's ornament.

Ornament of the Month 2021 - January

Welcome to the first Ornament of the Month for 2021! As you may have seen in the FB group, I was too exhausted yesterday to also finish stitching the ornament as well as write the blog post. I have done the stitching today — at a slower pace that I was trying to do yesterday. I'm still very tired, but I also want to get this done, so you aren't waiting any longer. Things have not been fully finished yet, and I still need to write the tutorial for the finishing of the main shape, but I'm afraid that will have to wait till I have a bit more energy — it will be done before the end of the month. There is a LOT of information in this post — it should answer many questions you may have.

Ornament of the Month 2020 - December

Welcome to the twelfth and final Ornament of the Month for 2020! I hope you have had fun stitching these this year and can't wait to see yours! The good news is that this SAL will be returning in 2020 - with a new shape and an option for another one if you prefer. No dangly bits next year - unless you add a tassel! This month's colours of the month are Indigo, Green, and greenish-blue. As I've already done four shades of blue this year I decided not to go with Indigo and greenish-blue (aka teal) but instead I chose a nice dark Christmassy green.

Ornament of the Month 2021 SAL Announcement Post

When I first started this SAL back in 2015 I wanted to make an ornament a month for an entire year so at the end of it I'd have twelve ornaments for my Christmas tree. I chose birthstones as my theme and then discovered that which stones they are depends on where you live. So instead of just picking one and leaving it at that for every month that had more stones, I made more patterns! In the end I'd made nineteen patterns which I tried to stitch twice every month - I didn't always manage.

Ornament of the Month 2020 - November

Welcome to the eleventh Ornament of the Month for 2020! I'm running a little late - I'd hoped to be able to finish the ornament in time but alas the arm that was inflicted with the flu jab a few days ago wasn't feeling very cooperative - but at least I'm no longer feeling so horrid. I always get ill for a day or two after the jab while my body deals with the invaders - this year worse than others - joy. What you will see is a mostly finished ornament - but fully stitched. This month's colours of the month are dark blue, red and yellow. I used yellow last month and don't have a second red Kreinik so went with the blue as I did have a second dark blue thread.

Ornament of the Month 2020 - October

Welcome to the tenth Ornament of the Month for 2020! I'm running a little late - both the thread and the beads were contrary today and it didn't help that I'd cut my left index finger while cooking dinner today - it's not a fan of being used, so I had to hold the ornament without it. This month's colours of the month are white, yellow and variegated. As I don't want to stitch with white this year and all of the other ornaments are/will be solids I don't want to use the variegated option. In addition I've already done a yellow I decided to go with gold, which is kind of a yellow.

Ornament of the Month 2020 - September

Welcome to the ninth Ornament of the Month for 2020! I'm running a little late unfortunately - I was so close to fully finishing the ornament I decided to finish first, post second. This month's colours of the month are brown and deep blue. As I've already done a dark blue I decided to go with the brown. It won't look out of place in my tree as last year's April Ornament of the Month was the same brown.

Ornament of the Month 2020 - August

Welcome to the eighth Ornament of the Month for 2020! This month's colours of the month are orange, red and light green so I went for the orange and ended up more towards burnt orange than true orange which kind of makes it russet but... the Kreinik is actually an orange so kept it for this month rather than last month.

Ornament of the Month 2020 - July

Welcome to the seventh Ornament of the Month for 2020! This month I used a few beads - they are all fixed in place using a full cross stitch going through the bead twice - some X's are bigger than others, so please look carefully before doing the stitching. This month's colours of the month are green, russet, and red. I had already used red and green so decided to use russet, except I didn't have anything on hand that was orangey red enough so I went with copper instead as that too is more orangey than brown - though sometimes it's a bit more pink. Mine of course had to go more towards pink hehehe.

Ornament of the Month 2020 - June

Welcome to the sixth Ornament of the Month for 2020! This month I again didn't use any beads for the pattern - and most of the backstitches are actually straight stitches, so it stitches up quite quickly. This month's colours of the month are light blue, white and cream. I didn't fancy stitching in white or cream so chose the light blue. I leant a bit more towards the teal as I wanted it to be different from the March light blue ornament.

Ornament of the Month 2020 - May

Welcome to the fifth Ornament of the Month for 2020! This month I didn't use any beads for the pattern - and most of the backstitches are actually straight stitches, so it stitches up quite quickly.

Ornament of the Month 2020 - April

Welcome to the fourth Ornament of the Month for 2020! I had a lot of fun with this month's pattern! If you don't want to use beads you could just do a square of red stitches instead in the spots that are empty as of course some beads are on red squares so you don't need to do them again.

Ornament of the Month 2020 - March

Welcome to the third Ornament of the Month for 2020! This month I not only had time to do the finishing for February but I also completely stitched and finished March! So I'll first show pictures of February and then I'll show you what I created for March.

Ornament of the Month 2020 - February

Welcome to the second Ornament of the month for 2020! I'm sorry this is late but as you may remember I was ill and couldn't post it at the time. I had planned to sit down and write this last night but I fell asleep on the sofa and didn't wake till gone 1 am so decided it was best to leave it for today.

Tutorial: Double Ornament of the Month Construction and Options

I thought that this year I would get the tutorial on how to construct this year's ornament shape up at about the same time as the first pattern so that you can see what's possible and decide how you want your ornament to be. I'll show you how I made mine and what else you might be able to do with yours.

Ornament of the Month 2020 - January

Welcome to the first Ornament of the month for 2020! I'm sure you are wondering what shape this year's ornament will be! The good news is, as already mentioned in the overview post: no holes! The second bit of good news is that there is a tutorial for this year's shape too! It's here. But first some other things...

Friday Freebie: Ornament of the Month - December

Welcome to the twelfth and last Ornament of the Month for 2019! I hope you  have enjoyed this year's patterns, even if the construction was a bit of a challenge if you chose to make it with the hole. I'm sorry this is late but I really wanted the ornament to be fully finished and I was so close to making it that I pushed on, then stuff happened and now here it is... a bit more than an hour late but still here on a Friday! This month the theme is snow and ice very fitting colours for people in the northern hemisphere this close to Christmas and hopefully a cooling thought for those who are down south suffering from heat and bush fires (if only I could send you our rain!). If you aren't in an area that's on fire I'm very glad you are not and hope it stays that way!

Ornament of the Month 2020 SAL Announcement Post

When I first started this SAL back in 2015 I wanted to make an ornament a month for an entire year so at the end of it I'd have twelve ornaments for my Christmas tree. I chose birthstones as my theme and then discovered that which stones they are depends on where you live. So instead of just picking one and leaving it at that for every month that had more stones, I made more patterns! In the end I'd made 19 patterns which I tried to stitch twice every month - which I didn't always manage.

Friday Freebie: Ornament of the Month - November

Welcome to the eleventh Ornament of the Month for 2019! This month's colour is Amethyst, although I know I did an amethyst back in 2015 this one is a very different colour, and especially a different pattern so I decided it would be ok. Just one more pattern left for this year, I wonder if you can guess what it will be?

Friday Freebie: Ornament of the Month - October

Welcome to the slightly late (but still on Friday for me) tenth Ornament of the Month for 2019! This month's colour is pumpkin - October really called for a nice orange and the one used in the pattern reminds me the most of pumpkins. Today's post is, as mentioned slightly late. I was trying to get the ornament finish finished before making the post but oldest came home early and wanted to get the apple jam made this evening rather than waiting till tomorrow. Since he rarely wants to do stuff with me I decided not to say no as its good time spent together and it's nice to just chop apples together and talk. We got 3 and 3/4 jars of jam from this batch - and we will be making strawberry apple jam tomorrow!