I don't usually do this....

I don't usually post pictures of holiday things before they're gifted/go out in the mail but since I have nothing else to show I thought I'd show our Christmas cards in progress - there are two versions. I scanned them because I use the scanned image in miniature on the inside of the card with the greeting. These are machine embroidered on burlap. I worked on these yesterday, hoping to finish up today but need to pick up more deep red cardstock which I'll hopefully find here in town while I'm out doing errands.....then I'll be working on assembly of glueing burlap to cards, putting inserts inside.....then one thing can be marked off the long to-do list. 

I did find out yesterday that not all burlaps are created equal. I'm pulling from my stash and this was the quality burlap - the other is much more loosely woven but still looks great since it's supposed to look primitive and country like. But oh, the dust created from cutting the burlap. I've got the laptop sitting near the machine to run it and had to put a towel over the keyboard to keep the dust off of it even though I was doing the cutting in the other room, there was dust just from it moving in the machine while being stitched. I also used a cotton embroidery thread rather than my usual rayon, that created tons of red lint all over the machine, hoping the inside isn't looking too bad, may need to go in for a cleaning this winter if I can't get to it all.

Very often I weave our cards and I do have a drawing that I want to make into card inserts using my 40 harness AVL but, for me, at this point that is a lengthy process so I chose to not stress myself over it and go this route saving that design for next year.

Now on to thinking about holiday gifts - I'm feeling way behind for those I'm making....actually for those I'm buying too - haven't done a thing - need to work on that to-do list again and get myself organized.