A Different Dragon

This year I have been stitching Dragon Dreams 12 Dragonlets of Christmas one each month.  We are in the final month, only the little Dragonlet Drumming to go.  But there are more than just Christmas Dragonlets on the FB page.  For example, there is this cute little Birthday Dragonlet:

The chart comes with all the numbers so you can personalise it for the Dragon Fan in your life.  It is my friend's Birthday today so we went out for a little drinkie last night.  We went to the old faithful pub we all used to drink in our teens and twenties.  We have all been back periodically since then and the place stays the same.  Although it is lighter now since the smoking ban - you can see the other side of the bar!  It's always been a real ale pub for bikers and alternative people and it still is.  You can guarantee you'll always see someone you know in there.  You can go dressed up to the nines in full Goth regalia or just a jumper and holey jeans and not feel out of place.  One of my favourite stories which sums up my town perfectly is this:-

A friend had gone away to university as a mature student.  She lived away for three years rarely returning.  At the end of her course she arrived back in town and went into the pub with her luggage to meet the people she was going to be lodging with.  Someone turned to her and said "Oh hi, are you off somewhere?"  She thought - Thanks for missing me, I've only been away for three years!!

Back to stitching - I have finished one of my Hallowe'en Blog Hop prizes so that will be off in the post soon.  I have also been working on the LOTR Challenge for this Spanish Blog Crochettes.  Reveal Day for that one is Friday 13th December, the day the latest Hobbit film is to be released.

I do have two little finishes from a while back to show you - Shebafudge won my 400th Follower Giveaway a million years ago back in June!  I was stitching this La D Da rose design for the Needlecraft Haven Challenge and thought it would make a nice prize.  I then decided to make it into a little bag and put some rose flavoured goodies inside.  Except I couldn't find any!  So eventually I decided on Turkish Delight because that can be rose flavoured and it is at least pink!  Amazingly Sharon loves Turkish Delight so it turns out it was a good choice.  I also sent her a huge piece of pale blue aida she wanted for a Parade of Penguins designs which is 60 inches wide - WOW.

Here is the little Rose bag:

The other giveaway was for spotting the altered word in my Just Nan Autumn Typography finish and the Southpaw Stitcher won that one for noticing one of the Autumns said Awesome instead.  I wanted an Autumn themed piece and fell in love with the Owl by Blackberry Lanes Designs from the JCS Hallowe'en Ornie Special.  I made him into a little bag too:

That's a chocolate spider poking out of the top!

This is the owl with his backing fabric prior to making up.

I stitched the owl over 1 on 28 count black jobelan but stitched the chequerboard border over 2 because it was so much quicker that way!  The variegated sky is DMC 92.

Finally, the Advent Calender Blog Hop is proceeding nicely, everyone is remembering to post on their day a and sharing their foodie traditions.  I hope you are finding some "new-to-you" blogs and leaving comments.  Because that's what this is really all about; meeting new friends.