My first corded ornament

Thanks to Vonna's expert instructions (see her comment on my last post) I am now the proud possessor of a corded ornament made by my own hands. It's not perfect - close up you can see the join, but it's a lot better than I expected. It was even easy to glue the cording along the edges of the ornament - I thought I'd have to clamp it down or something, but it stuck on the first try. I love pinkeeps but I'm glad to add something new to my repertoire of finishes. I'm still working on my Sew Spooky pillow - in my continuing saga of mishaps, I misplaced the backing fabric I bought for it, and just uncovered it in a pile (my ornament is still among the missing). Hopefully I'll have something to show for it soon.
I have a thing for owls, and I found the most adorable freebie here. This designer has lots of free designs, and more are available at her Yahoo group. It's such fun to find new things to stitch!

A Spooky Scare

I have finished Sew Spooky and took it to Joann's to find a backing fabric for the pillow I'm planning to make with it. After I dragged my son away from all the Halloween paraphernalia he helped me pick out the perfect material. We were going to see Legend of the Guardians after our shopping jaunt, and the line to pay was so long I hid my planned purchase under some spider web packets, and went off to the movies, planning to return. On the way back to Joann's I realized that Sew Spooky was not in the car! I remembered putting it in the shopping cart but not taking it out. With my heart in my throat we rushed into the store and approached customer service to see if someone had found it. I am happy to report that some kind soul turned it in, and it is now safely back in my possession. Moral of the story - do not put plastic bags with important projects in a shopping cart and expect them to magically follow you out of the store.

I'm really happy with the way Sew Spooky turned out and I hope to have a picture of the finished pillow soon. I'm off to work on it - now, where did I put it?

Oh Stitching, Where Are You Stitching?

I'm in the midst of a mystery. I stitched an ornament, and I've lost it. I've looked everywhere and it's nowhere to be found. It's just a little unfinished ornament from the 2004 JCS Ornament issue, and I have no clue what I did with it. If I keep this up I'll have to attach little homing devices to my stitching, so I can keep track of it!

French Country Star
JBW Designs
2010 JCS Ornament Issue
Belgian 32 count linen/Crescent Colours Apple Fritter

Meanwhile, after the lost ornament I stitched this one from the current JCS Ornament issue. I love JBW's designs with the little motifs, and it was a quick and fun stitch. A word of warning - if you are going to stitch it, there is an error in the chart - the top right point of the star is one row off in two of the motifs. At least I think it's an error - the odd thing is that the model picture is stitched as it's charted, but it doesn't make sense since everything else is symmetrical.

So now I need to finish this, and that brings me to my Achilles heel - cording. I have never been able to figure out how to put cording around anything without it unraveling at the ends or the join showing. What is the secret to doing this? If you have any tips for me I would deeply appreciate them. Not knowing how to do this is really playing havoc with finishing what I've made, and I would love to be able to get past this.

Okay, back to looking for my little lost ornament...