I like to pick a fish-related pattern for Ray as he has some beautiful saltwater tanks in their home. I couldn’t find a quilt block that worked with that theme, nor could I find a small cross stitch. Instead I picked a nautical theme. Ray is an exceptionally hard worker and he is seldom idle. One of my best memories of the time he spent in Powell River was him walking the beach and finding and sharing shells with the kids.

Once the cross stitch was finished I had to come up with a way to make the piece into a card. I trimmed the cross-stitch and then added a few more stitches so the water line would come right to the binding. I spray-basted the cross stitch to the batting and then used a honeycomb stitch to quilt the two pieces together. I used a piece of fabric and fusible interfacing to attach the backing to the sandwich. I’ll definitely use that method again!

Since the Thomas’s will be heading to Disneyland later this winter I wanted to make something Disney-ish as a card. I had lots of Disney Princess patterns but I had to pull this Pinocchio pattern from a Christmas in Disneyland booklet. It was the least Christmassy pattern I could find (and I left half of it off).

It seems by the time my Christmas sewing is done I’m ready for something different. This is the second year in a row that Kathryn has received a cross-stitched card for her birthday.

The bookmark kit was a gift from Diane – she knew how much I loved pansies. It was Pat’s idea to add her initials to the top.