Tree Ornaments

It was great to spend time with my parents, decorating their Christmas tree.  Our family tree has many ornaments on it, a large majority of which are handmade.  Some also come from trips that have been taken to various places, with the ornament having been purchased as a memory of that trip.  It is wonderful to get the ornaments out each year and remember their stories.  I thought I would share some of the ornaments (especially sheep themed ones!) for a post to share with the All Seasons meme hosted by Jesh in California.  Lots of pictures here, so sit back with a cup of tea and enjoy!

Here's a little cross-stitched ornament I made many years ago as part of a set of 4 farm-themed stockings.  There's a sheep, a chicken, a bird feeder, and a pig.  They're cute little ornaments that fit our mostly-handmade theme.  You can see a handmade straw ornament from Europe in this picture to the lower left.

Here's a little alpaca ornament that I love - so fluffy!  I crocheted the star on the right, and my mom needle-felted the owl on the left.  We do love fibre arts!

Here's another little woolly sheep with a scarf to keep her warm.

This sheep is one of a set of 3 ceramic ornaments - a sheep, a cow and a pig.  They are quite heavy so this one needs to go on a sturdy branch.  To the right, you'll see a wee nativity scene that is a very old wooden ornament, and in the background there's a wooden bird that I bought on a visit to Prague.

Here's a pear that I knitted for the tree (yes, there's a partridge, keep scrolling!) and next to it is a little felted hen sitting in a golden walnut shell nest.  My mom made a set of those cute hen ornaments!

Here's the partridge - but he's crocheted, not knitted.

This lovely woolly sheep is a Nova Scotian artist's ornament - such a neat design.  Behind it is a felt snowman couple that was made for me when I was a little child by my next door neighbor's grandmother.  She made several lovely ornaments for me then.  I think that was about 40 years ago.  There's also a star made from wood shavings under the sheep.

This is a silk hand-painted parrot ornament - very tropical!

Here's another sweet little hen on her walnut shell nest!  My mom does a great job on her needle-felted ornaments.

I don't recall where this ornament came from but it is so cute!  It's a little mouse and she's sitting inside a thimble, which you can't see in this picture.   Very detailed work, but so effective!

This is one of my mother's favourites - it's a little wooden tree with cut-out gingerbread men hanging on it.  We haven't seen any like this again - quite unusual.

 Yet another woolly felted sheep!

This little dog on a cushion is an ornament I made in my teens.  I made ornaments to sell one year, and this was one of the designs.  They sold really well!  We still have a couple of these on the tree.

Here's a traditional Christmas pudding that I crocheted.

Here's a sweet little felt mouse in a stocking, handmade and embroidered by my mom.  It's one of my favourite ornaments, too!

This owl was also made by my childhood friend's grandmother.  A simple but cute design!

My parents have a Welsh Terrier, Bella.  She's their third Welshie, and here's an ornament depicting a Welsh Terrier made out of felt.  You can also see a couple of ceramic mouse ornaments from an artist I like who has ornaments made of some of her paintings.

This pair of mice are also hand-made from felt by my mother, and she gave them very snazzy outfits for the holidays!

This mouse is another cute ornament, although I don't remember where it came from.  He's wearing a sweet little chef's hat and carrying a candy cane.

I hope you've enjoyed this little tree "tour" around some of my favourite ornaments, and maybe even have some ideas of some ornaments to make for yourself!

Friday's Hunt v 2.24

Today is Saturday, but I was visiting my parents yesterday, so I wasn't able to get to the blog post....as such, it's Friday's Hunt, a day late!  The prompts for this week are, Starts with X, Week's Favourite, and Lights.

Starts with X
This is a tricky letter, but I have a rather good solution for it!  This is my xylophone!

It is a very special xylophone, because it was made for me by my father.  I believe I was about 10 years old when he made it, although I could be wrong.  As you can see, it is made from two different woods.  The main body is pine (look at those lovely end joints!) and the keys are made from rosewood.  Each of the keys was carefully tuned by slowly carving wood out from the middle section on the underside of the key.  He had to test them frequently to be sure they were correctly tuned.

Then he made two sets of hammers for it - one set is solid wood and the set pictured is made from a long strip of tapered leather wrapped around the end of the dowel to make a softer-sounding hammer. When you run those hammers across the keys, it sounds like a babbling brook.  It is a really lovely instrument.  I played it for many years at home, and since then, other children have had the opportunity to play it when they visit my parents.  My Dad also made the table that the xylophone is sitting upon - he's a very talented woodworker!

Week's Favourite
I didn't take many pictures this week, so here's a favourite from a couple of weeks ago.  This is our adopted rabbit, Pippin, in one of his classic poses on the windowsill, where he likes to sit while I knit on the couch that backs onto this window.  He is very elegant bun!

Lights
I was able to help my parents decorate their (real) Christmas tree on my visit with them, which was a delight for me because I was able to look at all the ornaments that I know and love, some of which I made, and enjoy putting them up on the tree.  Most of the ornaments are handmade, or gifts, and some of them are from my parents' travels, or trips that I have been on.  Of course, the first stage of decorating the tree is adding the lights - which my Dad usually does with help from my Mom.  I had to be at a work reception in Halifax, so they worked on the lights while I was out.  Then we did the decorating when I was back, and we sat back to enjoy the fruits of our labour.  It really is a lovely tree, and the twinkling lights are perfect.