Week Forty-Two: Not a Creature Was Stirring

Hello everyone! I was a bit tired of stitching with black and orange so I returned to some Christmas stitching this week. "Not a Creature Was Stirring" by Crossed Wing Collection (featured in the 1998 JCS Ornament issue) was stitched on 32-ct. Putty Jobelan with DMC floss and a bit of DMC gold thread on the ornament top. The mouse, the border, and lettering are all stitched over one. This little mouse is definitely stirring as he hungrily makes his way toward the popcorn and cranberry garland. He obviously hasn't read Clement C. Moore's poem The Night Before Christmas!

My two older sons come over for dinner every Sunday and afterward we sit down to watch old home videos and the latest episode of "The Amazing Race." Last Sunday, the guys and my youngest son, who was home from college for Fall Break, settled down in the family room to watch TV while I stitched on this week's ornament. All of a sudden, my youngest son exclaimed--"There's a mouse behind you, mom!" Thinking he was teasing about my little mouse stitching, I reluctantly turned and glimpsed something brown scurrying back into our sunroom. It had been right behind my stitching chair--not more than two feet away from me!! Of course I shrieked and the guys all acted like guys do when mom acts like a little girl--they laughed at me and tried to calm me with such platitudes as "He's a lot more afraid of you than you are of him" and "Mom, you're a lot bigger than he is." I suggested, in between my periods of freaking out, that they try to get him to run out through the kitchen door. So, with perfect teamwork, we came up behind the cowering thing and clapped and stomped to get him to move forward into the kitchen. My middle son had lined up all of their shoes to form a sort of low wall that headed right out the door. The poor mouse thought he was in a maze and just followed his instincts and headed through the doorway and into freedom! I know that as Christmases come and go, every time I look at this ornament I'll remember that tiny brown mouse who came to inspect my stitching...

Anyway, here is the finished ornament, ready for our Christmas tree in December! I used the cranberry-colored fabric on the back of the ornament, surrounded it with a hunter green braid, and added a simple ribbon in the corner. What do you think? As always thanks so much for visiting my blog and for taking the time to comment... See you next weekend!