A Non-Scheduled Post

More and more of my posts seem to be for one SAL or Activity or another these days.  Maybe it's because I sign up for so many?

Anyway, this is a little catch-up post on some things which don't fit into any of the SALs.

The first thing to show you is Finish Number 12 this year which was a gift for a blogging friend.  At the beginning of the year she posted her goals and hopes for 2014, one of which was "start a family". Immediately I thought "what can I stitch for that?" and started Googling fertility symbols. As well as alot of Earth Goddess, squatting women type stone carvings I found the Kokopelli

Isn't he cute?  He's a Native American fertility deity also associated with music (hence the pipe) and "an important conveyor of information and trinkets from afar, a Story Teller, par excellence".

Now doesn't he sound perfect for one blogger to stitch for another as a gift from overseas?  I found a lovely chart from Southwest Designs by Jenny Rasmussen.  It seems to be an old page and I can't find any other information or contact details for her.  Anyway, this is what I stitched up:

I stitched him on 32 count evenweave over 1 using a Jodyri Variegated thread called Peacock Feathers.

There are jellybabies wrapped in the bag.

The backing fabric is a velvet furnishing fabric sample.

The main focus of this month's stitching has been the Round Robin Band Sampler and my friend's Wedding Sampler but I also spent a week stitching on this design which was practically jumping out of the bag and yelling "Stitch Me!":

This is April Wordplay by With Thy Needle & Thread's Brenda Gervais.  I was sent this by Jenny from One Stitch Closer to Nirvana.  Jenny doesn't stitch or blog much at the moment because she has two adorable twin girls toddling around.  The best excuse for not stitching!

In the spirit of both Stitch from Stash and my WIPocalypse choices, I used a fabric sent to me by another blogger (Dulcinella, who also doesn't blog at the moment but I don't know why).  This is a 32 count lemon yellow fabric, stitched over one.  I converted the charted GAST to DMC but the colours were rather muddy (unlike the original GAST) so I just made my own colours up instead!  I used some nice 3000 greens for the lettering and a brighter red for the little trailer.  I also changed the word peeps to cheep because we don't have peeps here (I understand they are a type of sweet?).

The fabric isn't striped, they show through from the mount, but it's a good effect I am pleased with.

This is how I mounted the picture for my scrapbook using a nice piece of (recycled) Easter Egg ribbon round the edge:

I wondered if anyone would like to swap this chart for any of the other Wordplay series?  I have got January's Wordplay in my stash already but I would be happy to have any of the other months in exchange.  I figure if I get them one at a time they are more likely to actually get stitched!

Finally, there is still time to enter the Easter Treasure Hunt Blog Hop (closes 27th April) and also the Scarlet Letter Years Bunny Hunt (also closes 27th April).