A New Year's finish and a start

 I spent this afternoon stitching and watching movies.  I finished this ornament while watching Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland in The Adventures of Robin Hood.  The movie is a lot of fun but the costumes are horrible, the styles are not as bad as the colors and fabrics.  The bright, brash technicolor highlights the use of colors that could only be achieved using modern chemical dyes (or digital retouching of the original print) and the lavish use of lame makes every scene sparkle.   The ornament is Angels Sent by Susan Greening Davis from the 2010 Just CrossStitch Christmas Ornament Issue.  I used the suggested Gentle Art color on a greenish linen and had to cut out darker sections for the lettering.

I also decided to participate in the 15 starts in 15 days challenge.  I am not making any commitments to finishing these projects in 2011 but I plan to have fun getting them out and starting them.  The first one is the Ann Marsh Sewing Roll Kit but Joanne Harvey for The Exemplarery.  I have had my kit for 4 or 5 years and I have just never gotten started.  I started it today and completed all of the basting, which you can't see, and started the tent stitch outlines of the lower part of the outside of the needle roll.  I was able to watch American Dreamz and most of Funny Lady while I worked on it.