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Saturday 6 October 2018

The People Chose Hallowe'en

Regular followers will be aware that for over 3 years now I have run a themed SAL on the first Saturday of each month.  First we spent 26 months doing The Alphabet Club and then 12 months of the Zodiac.  Now I have decided to listen to the People and post about your choice of theme.  In September I asked for suggestions on the blog and then made a poll in the IHSW Facebook Group from those suggestions.

The top three choices were:

Hallowe'en
Birthstones
Dragons

So I will do one for the next three months.  At the end of this post I will ask again for your suggestions and one of those will become the theme for January.  In November, we choose February's theme and so on.  I will post the results in my sidebar so you have plenty of time to decide what to show.


Hallowe'en

Obviously this post could be twenty pages long and I could still be typing but I will try to keep it to less than that!

Hallowe'en is one of my favourites themes to stitch.  I always have a spooky project (or three) in my WIPs and several more in my stash and on my wish list.

This is the first ever Hallowe'en projects I stitched:

stitched on 14 count aida

Back in 1996 I stitched this alphabet from a Better Homes and Gardens book.  It is now framed and lives in my son's room.

The witch motif seems to feature most often and here's a collage of my own Coven:


You might think of Hallowe'en as Dark stitching, I'm doing Dark October right now but it can be very bright and Orange:


The majority of my pieces are framed, like this sampler by Prairie Moon:


But I have also made cubes, boxes, 3D models and scrapbook pages:





You can see all my Hallowe'en Finishes on my Happy Dance Blog if you click on the Hallowe'en label at the side - Come Happy Dance With Me - Hallowe'en


I mentioned Dark October earlier; that is where I abandon my usual rotation and just stitch on spooky projects.  This year I am using the Tiny Decisions App to chose the daily project.  So far, Jardin Prive and Nora Corbett's Raven have come out twice and 2 other projects once each.  Here's what I've been stitching:

Days 1 and 4 - Jardin Prive Happy Hallowe'en Night
(I also stitched some bats at the other of the piece)

Days 2 and 6 - Nora Corbett Raven (on Nebula fabric)

Day 3 - Just Nan Autumn House (for a Mouse)

Day 5 - JBW Smiling Jack O' Lantern

It's been fun seeing what the wheel chooses for me each day.  I do hope to get a couple of finishes this month.

In future months I plan to go through my stash and show you the pieces I hope to stitch in the future but again, 20 pages of designs to share!  There are 15 Just Nan designs for a start, including 3 of her mice.  Apart from the mice, my top two choices of starts are The Hallowe'en Sampler by Cottage Garden Samplings:

acquired in August 2018

and the Trick or Treat Fairy by Nora Corbett

Image result for nora corbett trick or treat fairy
I have the magazine but you can download it direct from Herrschners now.



What's on my Wishlist?  Everything!  But this is my main objective:


Hallowe'en at Hawk Run Hollow by Carriage House Samplings.  I even have a piece of fabric for it but not the chart.  This will be a BAP to be started only after I finish my Discworld Mappe.

I've been following this Mystery SAL this month - Stitchonomy.  It's part of the Drawlloween project which is a drawing challenge.  I've been incorporating this challenge into my rock painting.  Here are the first six days:



If you want even more Hallowe'en goodness then do visit the Hallowe'en Ornie SAL Blog and view the list of Spooky Freebies there.

Now it's over to you!  All you have to do is make a post on the theme of Hallowe'en, mention The People's Choice SAL (you can copy the picture I used at the top of this post and in my side bar) and my blog.  Please link up using the URL of the actual blog post, not the home page of your blog.  I look forward to seeing what you all post.

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Finally, I need your suggestions for the next poll.  Any thing, no matter how obscure, weird or random will go into the poll.  Keep the theme suggestions to a single word or two - so you could have Dragons, or Cats, or Blue, or Spring, or Holidays, or Warmth etc.  Really anything which could be illustrated in cross stitch.

Looking forward to reading them all!





27 comments:

Kaisievic said...

Jo, another fabulous SAL - I really like the idea behind this one, although I must admit that I am low on ideas for the next theme - Birthstones. I love your gorgeous Hallowe'en stitching - you really are the Queen of Hallowe'en and of SALs and of Just Nan, of everything really! I am going to go look in my stash - I know that I have The Hallowe'en Sampler by Cottage Garden Samplings and I think that I have Hallowe'en at Hawk Run Hollow by Carriage House Samplings - if I have one or both, I would love to SAL them with you. Let me know if you would like to as well. Now, for my favourite of your Hallowe'en offerings in this post I think it might be the Prairie Moon sampler, although I do love everything. I have a couple of suggestions for upcoming themes: Americana/patriotic, Christmas (natch), favourite designer (almost like a free choice for everyone), cat/pets, hearts, nature. Hoping that all is well with you and yours. hugs, Kaye

Kaisievic said...

oooh, just thought of another theme - houses/cottages.

Rachel said...

Fantastic idea, Jo, and so many wonderful projects you've stitched over the years, both big and small, not to mention so much orange and black! The Nebula fabric for Raven is awesome, as are the finished cubes. But only 20 pages of stash? Shame on you!!! :)

Pamela said...

Wow! What a great collection of Halloween stitching! I especially like the treats box.

Beth in IL said...

Posted on my blog. You do have a lot of Halloween....I am thinking that February should be HEARTS. I have quite a few so I could do a long blog post! Spring. Bunnies. Butterflies.

Barb said...

This was a fabulous post. It was full of eye candy for me , a Halloween lover!!!

karamino said...

Hope İ will have enought time for to take part in your SAL!

Christine said...

Great post Jo, you really have done A LOT of Hallowe'en stitching.
Possible future themes - I still vote for penguins, or geeky stuff, I could find a lot of geeky stuff...

Whalehugger said...

Gorgeous stitching! My theme suggestion is Scarecrows. I love Scarecrows

Bethan said...

You really do love Hallowe'en. I love how orange most of your fabric is; Nebula is amazing fabric. What does BAP stand for? I can see why Hallowe'en at Hawk Run Hollow is on your wishlist! Maybe new starts as a theme for January? x

Sherry said...

I love the Halloween HRH. I look forward to watching your progress as you stitch it.

jocondine said...

Love all your Halloween displays. Cubes are great and I love all the witches especially the buzzed one! (themes ideas : numbers, food, muses). xxx

Linda said...

What a wonderful collection of Halloween pieces Jo. Love them all.

Linda

Julie said...

The box and Drac are stunning, I loved watching them grow waiting for the final finish. HRH would be stunning to watch grow, I enjoyed stitching my HRH one that now hangs in my brothers office.

rosey175 said...

I have never seen that Dracula popup?!??? omg I love that! I must Google this! Your Halloween stitching is always so inspiring and I see something I've had in my saved patterns for a while now. I need to find the right fabric for it for sure!

Whew that Hawk Run piece is huge! That'll be fun to watch grow, like Discworld.

Looooove the little cat and pumpkin rock! Hey, rocks could be a theme? I can only think of only a very few patterns that contain rocks (pebbles, boulders, Cliffs of Dover, other synonymous things would be A-OK) so it would be interesting to see what people could come up with.

Clare-Aimetu said...

What a superb collection of spooky stitching, I only stitch Halloween stuff for exchanges so can never share until November. People's Choice is always a good idea, I was recently a judge on People's Choice Wine Awards- here if you want a read https://aimetus.blogspot.com/2018/10/peoples-choice-wine-awards-i-was-judge.html?m=0

With so many birthdays to have stitched for and so many holidays yet again I have lost track of the Blog hope and postings - do you have a year listnofnwhat happens when so I can add it in my diary - I might keep up better that way

ricketyjo said...

I love October, it's so fun to see all the halloween stitching on the internet! There are some beautiful pieces in your post, I will have to dig through mine and see if I have a little something I could find time to do before the end of the month and after my xmas baubles... I really need to get more organised next year and start my halloween stitching in January or something!

D1-D2 said...

I love the octagonal box

Rhona said...

So many wonderful pieces! Love the dracula one....that's amazing!

Katie said...

Love all your Halloween projects. I seen the Halloween Hawk Run Hollow piece at the retreat and almost bought it. I like some of the blocks but not all of them. I pictured them as individual blocks on my display shelf. Like I need more projects haha. Thanks for hosting another fun thing to participate in. Some themes....leaves, snow, water, and colors like purple some random things that popped in my mind.

Astrids dragon said...

I LOVE THEM ALL! Such fun, hopefully this will keep me busy and on track. I can see there's going to be lots of suggestions and plenty of things to choose from!

Brigitte said...

This just a wonderful monthly project again. I love your ideas very much as there is always a lot of interesting things to see on the participants' blogs. As I don't have a blog any longer I can't show anything but only look and see. But I still remember the 26 months of the Alphabet Club which was so much fun.
I love both your mosaics, the orange one and the darker one. You have stitched a lot of Halloween designs throughout your stitching career.

Ariadne said...

I was keeping the Happy Halloween reveal for the Halloween secret word search at the end of the month but decided to show it simultaneously in one blog post with the GG if that's ok with you tomorrow. Also could you tell me what you mean by birthstones for next month or suggest a pattern?I have no idea.AriadnefromGreece.

Leonore Winterer said...

Wow, you really do love your Halloween stitching! The combination of orange and black is something I really enjoy myself.
My own post will be online a little later...not too late, though, I am hoping for this weekend!

The Crafty Princess said...

I am still in love with your Draci pop up box. I have the magazine but I don't know if I'm brave enough to give it a go. So I'll just admire yours. Love love love your future Halloween BAP. My eyes just dart everywhere looking at that one. I've never seem the Trick or Treat Fairy (weird for me!?) and love it.

You've got some amazingly wicked Halloween stitching Jo. LOVE IT ALLLLLLLL!
xo Alicia

Mary - Lecoeurceltique said...

An amazing range of Halloween stitching. You are converting me to this theme :)

Leonore Winterer said...

Apparently I am unable to check into this 'not too late'...this really is becoming a running gag, isn't it?