Merry X'mas & a Wonderful 2K9

That's my Christmas tree and the cross stitched ornaments on it. I'm going out of town and will be back in the first week of 2K9. Wish all of you a warm joyful Christmas and a happy, healthy and peaceful new year.

Did you know ?

I thought this one was real cool. came by it at Monster Munch. One more fact - this is my 100th post. Woohoo!!!

Another post about ATC's

I began this blog last year around this time.Its been an eventful year full of learning thanks tothe various interactions blogging affords you .
One such was the world of ATC's and the first opportunity to participate was Cyber Fyber .
Susan Lenz is a fiber artist and the brain behind the Cyber Fyber exhibition - an intenational event which focuses on the influence of internet access for fiber artists today.
I exchanged a postcard and an ATC with Susan. See them here. Susan has videos of the ATC's and postcards she has recieved if you'd like to see how varied they can be.
On Stitchin Fingers I joined the Fiber ATC group and did a couple of swaps, adding to my modest but growing collection of fiber ATC's.
Here's one I swapped with Anna. in the UK. I call this one "My Hippy Heart".

This one which I call "Heart of Gold" I sent to Gina in Australia who organised the first swap on Stitchin Fingers.Apologies for the blurry pic. I've joined the ATC trading group on Yahoo which has trades of cards in all sorts of media but I'm lurking for the moment because those trades are pretty elaborate ones but I'm learning new things there too - Steampunk for one.I wasn't aware of it as a genre until a couple of months back!

Now if you'd like to get started and trade ATC's there's The International Random ATC Swap which is a part of the Cyber Fyber event. Read about it here.

November - TIF

I've completed the Take it Further challenge for November. The theme was typography.

In India you need to travel from one state to another and the language changes, most have their own distinct alphabet.Most people will grow up learning Hindi ,English and the language of the state they live in .Now if you happen to be native of another state then you'll probably be speaking some other language at home and should you move to work in another part of the country you'll atleast pick up a smattering of the language in that state too! Fascinating wouldn't you say and did I mention dialects? The mind boggles.

For the page on the left I chose to look for typography of Indian languages, I got these from food packaging.I've stitched it - a la crazy quilting style onto a piece of card paper cut out from a cereal box.The top looks kind of bare and is calling out for something with a bit of punch and colour. I'm hoping I'll get lucky in a day or two when I go grocery shopping.

This is the little sampler embroidered on the page on the right. Its all of 4 inches x 6 inches.

I'd hoped to be efficient and have the challenge completed by the end of the year but life in general does have other plans as we all know. So, the challenge for December will be tackled in January and The Take it Further book will be completed early in 2009 and featured right here. I hope you'll keep visiting though.

I'm going to be putting up our Christmas tree this weekend, very exciting considering its done every alternate year and I have some new ornaments to put on the tree. Have a great weekend.

TAST - Palestrina Stitch

I'm working simultaneously on about four different projects and haven't had an opportunity to post anything this past week.

Did manage to finish the sample of Palestrina stitch and get a photograph this morning.

Is that picture a bit blurry? Probably going cross eyed finishing up some last minute cross stitch X'mas tree ornaments. The pictures of said ornaments will be spectacular I promise once I decorate the tree this coming weekend.

I'm going to put TAST on the back burner until February which will mean close to twelve stitches to catch up with but there are projects with deadlines looming large on the horizon.It's a decision I've had to make if I have to retain my sanity!