Winners and a Scarlet Letter Year

First of all, the announcement of the winners of my 300 Followers Giveaway.  I offered a choice of charts and kits all from the UK magazines I subscribe from.  I asked each person to choose their 3 favourites and leave a comment with the numbers 3 or 300 in it.

First out of the pack was:

Tadamama aka Katy who chose prizes 1, 2 and 9

Next out was:

Bengal Cat Lover aka Linda who chose prizes 3, 4 and 5

Then it was:

Kerry P who liked 8, 10 and 12

So that left prizes 6, 7 and  11.

Rosey175 will be getting number 6 and Linda SUch is Life will get number 11.  Sadly no-one asked for poor little Boofle so he goes back in the box for another time.

I've got the addresses of everyone now so prizes will be sent out once I get some A5 envelopes.  I have discovered my Post Office treats padded envelopes as "Small Packages" and charges a minimum fee of £3.30 international instead of calling them "Letters" and charging much less.  So I need to make sure these are letters instead if possible!

Stitching news now, not much been going on, my daytime project is a cat and pumpkin from Silver Cute Dwarf's blog and here's the progress:

I took it to Preschool with me but ended up writing the labels for their Santa presents, making a King and his camel from coloured paper and reading the Nativity Play for the rehearsal instead of stitching!!

My evening project is very boring.  It's the borders for the Large Mira RR starting January.  I'll post when I've done.  Imagine long rows of 3042 and you've got the idea.

On Tuesday I got a very intriguing email from Nicola of Stitching by the Cornish Coastline.  Could I help her with a new project please?  We chatted and I agreed to help out with the admin of a new blog for her Challenge.  In a nutshell, Nicola is celebrating a special Birthday next year and plans to make it a real Red Letter Day, or rather a Scarlet Letter Year.

Scarlet Letter design reproduction samplers available either as charts or fully kitted in DMC or silks.  There are over 300 to choose from in varying degrees of difficulty.  There is a nice range of small designs too, ideal as starters for people short of time or experience!  Nicola has highlighted a few of her favourites on her blog.  I set up the bare bones of the blog on Thursday and Nicola announced it the same day.  To our utter amazement over 40 people have signed already!  To join in the Challenge you must complete a Scarlet Letter Sampler by 1st February 2014, so you have over 14 months to get stitching.  Each month Nicola will do a draw of everyone who posted that month so there's the chance to win prizes throughout the year too.

The samplers are available direct from Scarlet Letter in the USA, various LNS and some websites listed on this Scarlet Letter page.  Luckily for us UK stitchers the Wye Needlecraft store is one of the places.  Their website shows prices for kits but if you email or phone they will supply the charts only if you prefer.

So if you want to join in with the challenge, just click on the following Scarlet Letter Logo, read the challenge rules and email me for an invitation.

Finally, my own Advent Calendar will be starting soon.  I have just one place left if you're interested drop me an email.  Hubby gave me the devastating news that the computer will be unavailable for 24 hours from midday 3rd December but that's ok I'll cope as long as I can get to it on the 4th!!