Count them! Two Finishes!

So technically one is completely finished while the other is just stitched but in my book that's finished!

First it's the class piece from the trip Jackie & I took to AZ. From Stacy Nash it's a pinkeep drum.

Peacock Pinkeep Drum
Stacy Nash Primatives

I have to say that I'm excited that I started this piece and completely finished it during January. What a way to start the year! We had so much fun putting this one together. It's stuffed with sawdust and then "antiqued" with walnut crystals. Plus I made my strawberry pretty mangy looking all for the sake of authenticity. See...

The companion piece is being worked on with the hope of completing the finishing late February. We'll see if that works out!

Then there's this unexpected finish. I didn't have it on my initial working list of 15 items for January but I was looking for something else and saw that there wasn't that much left to do on it. So the before looked like this...

Really, not that much left. And let's face it, any project that is that close to being finished that was started in 1996 should probably be worked on and finished. So, I pulled it out and worked on it Saturday when I went to Sampler Guild and then that evening and finally last night I finished!

Simple Elegence
Stoney Creek Designs

That's it all finished, with beads and everything. The funny blue spot is the light showing through the crystal bead. Tried to take the picture several times and still kept coming up. This is a piece from WAY back when I went to Spirit of Cross Stitch. This was the Sunday Sampler in 1996. It was taught as a "round robin" where you sat at a table and different teachers came to you to teach the specialty stitches. I was looking at my book and that year both Ginny and Ken Thompson taught a stitch. How lucky I was to meet and be taught by such great stitchers!

I'm not taking this to be framed, it's not that large so I thought I'd do a cube/standup/thing. Oh heck, Geeky Heather usually helps me make them, but I'm fairly certain I can manage on my own if I can just find the perfect fabric for the backing and what I want to decorate the top with. I need the board you use to "build" your box which I keep meaning to go and get scraps from my framer for but haven't yet and I should be in business. I'd like to get it finished since it has a spring feel to it and would look lovely out somewhere in the house.

I've made some progress on other pieces as well. I seem to be really in a stitching mood so that's getting a lot of attention. Hope everyone has had a great first month of stitching/knitting/or whatever makes you happy!