Smalls SAL and Theme-a-licious April Updates

The Smalls SAL is hosted by Stitching Lotus

I chose three different monthly themes to follow this year:

Hallowe'en Ornie SAL - 12 different themes
Little Stitcher Fairy Tale 12 Days of Christmas - one per month
Primitive Hare Spooky Countdown - one per week starting 31st January

This is my choice for April's Owl theme, not quite finished.  I used the DMC conversion which said 327 for the alphabet but I really didn't like it on this blue fabric I'm using.  So I asked advice and Mouse suggested 930.  I'd looked at 939 (too dark) and the high 700s (too Royal Blue) and this was perfect.  So I'm frogging and restitching as I go:

You can see how much better the blue looks.

Here's my Little Stitcher for April, Day of Trees:

And here are the latest 6 blocks on Spooky Countdown:

Theme-a-licious is hosted by Heather of It's Geek to Me

Each month Heather thinks up a theme for us to stitch to, or in my case, a theme to somehow shoe-horn my existing stitching into, no matter how tenuous the link! 

April Showers

What pieces can you find in your flood of WIPs that include water? Rivers, lakes, oceans, or rain (and anything that lives within).

This was a really tricky one, until Heather pointed out that snow is frozen water (so I could have The Little Stitcher 12 Days of Christmas included (see above for picture).

I also decided to include a piece which may not feature water but did produce water - tears!

Here it is:

This is the sampler I stitched for my friend's wedding last weekend.  The motifs come from various places.  The hearts are from Carton-Marie (I stitched the whole piece for my cousin's wedding last year).  "Love" is from Happiness is Cross Stitching.  M and D (their initials) are from iStitch's Mystery SAL and the butterfly is from a random download I've had in the file for ages (sadly no originating website on it).

This is the process to making something like this:

Remove the mount and cut out the blocks.

Use this as the template to place your stitching,

Finished stitching.

Lay the mount over the finished stitching.

Lay the frame over the mount and finished stitching.

Realise that the mount is so much smaller than the frame that it moves around and it is almost impossible to get all seven pictures centred and straight.  Cut the fabric up into smaller individual piece and mount each one separately.  Wonder why you didn't do that the first time!

ps the frame comes from QD - well-known discount homeware store in the UK.

Finally, here is something else which caused water this month, more tears of happiness:

I entered Justine's Giveaway because one of the prizes was a cute ladybird pillow she had stitched.  She sent me a parcel of silvery wrapped goodies.

The card is silver-grey too.  The booklet has some nice designs and I don't have this one because it came out after I stopped subscribing.  But look at the chart - Nora Corbett's Jo is for Jo (and Justine!).  I love this design and it was on my wish-list too.  So now to choose a fabric.  I asked my friends on FB whether I should go for a green or lilac colour.

One person said "contrast"

One person said "how about lilac & green (& a bit of blue)"

One person said "a solid colour"

One person said "a neutral cream"

and one person said "a pale blue or lilac"

Can you see why this is hard? LOL  I think an entire evening with The Viewer is called for.

Close-up of my lovely Ladybird pillow.