I’ve been stitching away like crazy lately!  The two most common questions people ask me is “Do you sleep?” and “How do you have time to stitch so much?”  I do in fact sleep quite a bit.  However, I do get up really early, usually around 5,  since my husband commutes into NYC and catches a 6:30 train.  My little guy gets on the bus at 7 so it’s early mornings in the Vallerie household.  But, I don’t mind.  I actually get a ton of stuff done early in the morning.

By the afternoon I’m pretty wiped when I get home at 2:30.  That’s when the little prince is delivered back to me. LOL!   So, that’s become my stitching time.  My favorite day to stitch is Sunday.  I’ll stitch for eight hours that day if I can.  Sounds pretty good, right?

I’ve been working on Melissa Prince’s 12 Days of Christmas Wreath.

I’ve made a lot of progress on the background.  I usually do my backgrounds first because it is so much easier to count a background stitch through open holes on a canvas.  I’ve made the mistake of leaving the background till the end one too many times.

The partridge and the pear are done. Well . . .minus the stem of the pear.  Gotta find a little Perle Coton and make a Bullion Knot.  That idea just came to me as I was typing.  I was just oging to do something boring like tack down a piece of 16 braid Kreinik.  No fun in that!

I love the French Hen!  Check out his beret and knitted sweater.  He’s looking very dapper if I do say so myself.

If you’d like to join in the fun and order a kit, you can sign up online or by calling the shop.

 203-210-5107The kits will ship in July.  So, if you want to be included in the first shipment you must sign up by May 15th.

This is really the best 12 Days piece out there because of the way Melissa designed it.  It may be a larger piece, about 14 inches in diameter.  But think of it this way.   If you stitched 12 4 inch round ornaments that’s approximately 12.5 square inches of stitching per ornament.  And each canvas would probably run about $55/$60.  So that’s over 144 square inches of stitching.  The wreath is about the same amount of stitching, 154 square inches to be exact, but you don’t have to stitch the center so take out about 20 inches.

So, you get a lot more bang for your buck with one larger piece to stitch.  AND . . .one finishing cost!  For 12 ornaments the finishing could be around $1000. I’m not sure what it will cost to finish this as an actual wreath.  But I can assure you it won’t be nearly that at all.