It's Ornament-Making Time!

This weekend I'm going to the Marin Golden Threads EGA group to visit my stitching friends and teach one of my HOLIDAY ORNAMENTS, SERIES 1 designs. In preparation I've been finishing up my ornament models and this is how I've finished the first set:

As you can see, I've finished two of them as squares and turned two of them "on point". I was going to make my own twisted cable trim out of #5 pearl cottons, but found some ready-made trim at a local garage sale (I suspect it originally came from Costco) that matched perfectly, so I used that instead - how easy is that?

(And in case you're wondering... On the back of the ornaments, I've laced up the canvases over a cut piece of mat board and then hot-glued a piece of cut felt to cover the kaka mess underneath.)

And just because I wanted to see what the "shining star" design would look like in different colors, I stitched it up in fall colors (using a variegated thread I dyed myself):

It has a totally different look, doesn't it? (It reminds me of a harlequin fabric, for some reason.... ) And I found this gold braided trim sold by the yard at Joann's Fabrics. This particular design is very fun and fast to stitch up, so it didn't take any time at all to finish.

[DESIGNER ASIDE: I had so much fun finishing these ornaments, I decided to design another set of holiday ornaments for this year. Stay tuned as I reveal the next set of ornaments on my blog next week!!]