Today, I took my Christmas rug off the blocking board and completed the hemming of it.  I was able to do the hemming very easily and the projects I stitched on the extra gauze around it are now cut off, ready for me to complete. I have been taking several pictures along the way so that I can write a new tutorial about the way I completed all of the projects on this piece of gauze. 

​Above, you will see a photo of the completed rug and two of it in place in my Santa's Cottage.  The cottage is a 1/12th scale work-in-progress.  Each year, I will be adding more to it until I am satisfied that it is complete.  Are our miniature scenes ever truly complete though?  I am hoping to stitch another chair (for Mrs. Claus) but also have many ideas to put into the cottage as well.  I will see what I get done this year...

About a week ago one of the members of the Petitpoint group that I belong to posted a photo of a counting device that she had found.  It was such an interesting idea that I decided to make my own.  It is made up of either two or three needles that were secured on a long piece of thread and held together with some cute beads.  I decided to make mine with 3 needles because I wanted the first needle to stay in the first line of squares on my gauze.  In this way I could tell where I started counting.

To make it I used some number 28 tapestry needles then cut some floss double the finished length that I wished.  I used 3 strands of each color and threaded them through each of the 3 needles until the needles were at the halfway point of the thread. Once I had all 3 needles threaded, I then folded the threads in half, tied them all together with a small knot and threaded them through some beads. Once I had the beads threaded, I secured them with another knot.
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I use it to count 10 squares at a time and "leap-frog" the 2 needles across the gauze, first to determine the count of the gauze if I am unsure, and second to count across to see where the second corner of my rug will be. In the past I had to keep re-counting to make sure I had the right number of stitches so I think this will make my life easier.  I can also use it to count the stitches I have done already or mark the correct number of stitches that I need to make before changing to another color in a row that I am stitching.

remove everything from the frame and begin blocking.  At the moment I am itching to begin my next petit point rug but am restraining myself until I can begin blocking this set of projects. That way I won't be delaying finishing this one in favor of beginning another.  Until next time, happy stitching!

space for one more pillow around the outside of my Christmas rug then will switch to designing a small purse or two before removing the gauze from the frame and blocking everything. At that time I will find out if I have enough gauze to finish the rug and the pillows.  If I do not have enough to stitch the pillows and only the edge on the rug, I will sacrifice the pillows or possibly make a little frame for them and mount them as wall hangings.  When it is time to finish the rug, I will take photos of each stage and post them on this blog to show you how I did everything. Fingers crossed that my plans work!