Dolls and Holidays Cross Stitch

Earlier this year I found a copy of "The Vein of Gold" by Julia Cameron and worked through it. I worked through "The Artist's Way" about ten years ago and found myself really enriched by it. "The Vein of Gold" delves into the deeper aspects of finding creativity and has many hands-on exercises. One of the exercises is to make a creativity doll out of whatever materials you want, not caring what it looks like in the end but focusing on letting your creative insticts work. This is my little doll with the yarn hair, beads and she is made of fabric. I drew on her little face and made her a little necklace with beads I had - there is a lavender fish, a pink elephant, a pink heart and some other filler beads. She sits by some of my other dolls now.

As I was photographing my hand made doll (I need to name her) my angels needed to be photographed too. I have the spring angel and the celebrate angel.

I have been thinking about a new Christmas cross stitch design and my favorite, snowmen, came to mind so that is what I am planning. I will be using some Gloriana silk floss, which I've never used before and am really excited to try it. Also, a new color of hand dyed linen from Weeks Dye Works - light khaki. Fun to use new materials.

This is a design I have been working on this summer using Valdani flosses. They are new for me too and they are really nice flosses, plus they are colorfast. No worries if you like to wash your project when you are finished.