More Christmas stitching

Last Saturday was my EGA chapter's Christmas party so now I can show some more of my Christmas stitching and show off some of the lovelies I received.  Let's see .... where should I begin??

I think I'll start with the things I received.  This first ornament is from our Guild ornament exchange and was stitched by Becky.  Isn't that the cutest finish?  And she rusted the jingle bells herself.  I'm definitely going to give that a try.

We have a secret sister exchange also (don't you just love exchanges??)  This jolly old elf was stitched by my secret sister (Becky, of the rusted jingle bell ornie above).  When you pull the bottom string, his arms and legs move.  How cool is that!?!  I, myself, will probably never, ever, ever attempt this finish.  I hung him on my frig so I can pull his string often and giggle at his jig.  I hope I don't wear him out.

The lovely Mistress Jessie made everyone in the guild one of these wool trees.  Don't you just love the little button ornaments?  I certainly do.

Here's another of Jessie's handiwork.  I love Blackbird Designs and pink.  Needless to say, I love this needle book.

Now on to what I stitched for the big event.  My secret sister was Jessie, a big fan of everything French, pink and Blackbird Design.  Sooo, I stitched her a small pillow that covered them all.
 

 And then I stitched this for my friend Becky

 And this for the ornament exchange

And now I want to tell you the saga of the scissor keeps.  For last year's secret sister I stitched this ornament:

I loved this little stitching lady so much that I decided I would stitch scissor keeps for the officers of my guild for next year's Christmas party. 

And here the saga begins!  I started them immediately in January and finished stitching them in January -- all 4 of them.  I set them aside and forgot about them for a few months.  Fast forward to June or July and I remembered I needed to assemble them into scissor keeps.  Hmmmm, where did I put them?  I searched high and wide in my house but never found the little buggers.  Come October, I thought I better get going and stitch them again since they obviously have disappeared, not to be found again (at least until I restitch them -- you know how that goes).  So I buckled down and restitched 3 of them, assembled them into fobs, bought cute scissors and little Christmas tins to put them in.  Have you noticed a problem with the numbers here?  I couldn't for the life of me remember why I stitched 4 the first time -- after all, I only needed 1 for each officer -- VP, Treasurer and Secretary (I was the President so I didn't need to make one there).

Sigh -- the best laid plans of mice and men . . . I forgot our region rep.  Duh!  Honestly, if my head wasn't attached, I would probably either lose it somewhere or forget to put it back on when it fell off.  What do you think the chances are that the original 4 will turn up now??  I'm guessing zip.  So I need to stitch another one.  Hmmm, I can probably stitch her from memory at this point since it'll be the 9th time.

What did I learn from this -- don't stitch things too far in advance.  Heaven forbid I should just get organized!

Have a good week.