Final Teacher gift

This is the final teacher end of term gift.  The large boy has had this teacher on Fridays for the last two years.  Last year she got a sampler with a Celtic dog (she loves dogs and is quite "celticy" in her dress) and the school name and dates like the other two I stitched this year.  I decided not to do another in the same format but did have a little plastic coaster from SewandSo in my basket.  The design is a Joan Elliot from her card book and fits perfectly.  I used the same mint green pearlescent aida I stitched First Snow on and swapped the beads for petite beads so they fit under the coaster better.   The large boy will be making a back with her name and the dates on.  He will.  I have told him he will!

I'm developing a slight obsession with SALs in part works.  Since I made a resolution not to start any large projects which weren't on my 11 in '11 list I've had to find different excuses.  A SAL in parts is clearly not a large project, it is a number of smalls all added together.  There is no rule about smalls in my resolutions therefore I can start as many SALs in parts as I want!

So, as well as the Castles in the Air, which requires ALOT of thought and decision-making I have started on this one - Periphaeria  It is a lovely Scandinavian themed sampler by a Finnish designer.  They are upto part 6 already and just over half way through.  Luckily I prefer to start stitching in the middle of a project so it suits me fine.  I have decided to go for a purple theme.  I got a lovely piece of Purpleberry Spludge from Sparklies website.  To keep costs and size down I decided to stitch it over 1 (I love the delicate look of over 1 and it's not really alot of bother unless there are large, dense areas of stitching (eg C is for Coven!))

The colours I've chosen are 333 purple and 973 yellow.  The purple was easy but I couldn't decide on an accent colour at all, pink, turquoise, lime green or silver all went through my mind.  In the end I asked the large boy and he decided on the yellow.  So yellow it is.  Aren't children useful?

My first ever RR piece arrived, it's a gorgeous Teresa Wentzler Band Sampler, it's been round the world once and is off on a new adventure.  I can't wait to get stitching on it, it's a little daunting as I've never stitched for other stitchers before (except my Mum!) so I want to make it extra lovely and carefully stitched.  I think I have decided which band I want to stitch, Sophia has kindly included loads of samples of TW bands to choose from.

As usual there are lots of giveaways going on this week.  Unfortunately I haven't made a note of any of them to specifically mention them here.  Look down my bloglist and see who mentions Giveaways in their titles!!  Also GoS has a huge kit sale going on.

There aren't enough photos is this post, so here are the previous 3 teachers' samplers:

That one is all in metallics apart from the black outline.

She collects Rhinos, what can I say?

I also stitched a Vulture for the teacher who organised the "Culture Vulture" theatre activities but forgot to photograph it.  Hands up anyone else who has ever stitched a rhino, a vulture or an aardvark?