A Few Happy Steps on my Way to a Happy Dance

These are both part-works so I can't claim a full Happy Dance but they are both steps on the way to one.  So that's reason enough to celebrate.

The first project is Spooky Countdown by Primitive Hare.  I am stitching one of these per week alongside Giovanna, we will finish in plenty of time for Hallowe'en.  Gio is stitching her's as a full sampler, I am stitching mine to mount as tombstone markers for my Hallowe'en Countdown Tree this year.

Here are Days 25 and 26:

Love that Haunted House!

The next project is the Joan Elliott Faces SAL, a FB exclusive.  The first month we received the border, the second month the first face.  This is an adaptation of an earlier release called Festive Angel, for the SAL she is in purple and called Guardian Angel.

It's a lovely friendly group of stitchers, everyone is keen to help and give advice and praise where needed.  We have the full range of experience from a lady who appears to have never cross-stitched before through the aida-only stitchers to the evenweave newbies right up to those people mad enough to stitch the skin over one!

Can you guess where I come?  I also changed the hair to a brown version included in the file section.  The only other change (apart from recharting the face to smooth the "steps" out) was to stitch her wings with one strand of thread instead of two.  I thought they would look a little transluscent that way and fabric would show through.  I did beads for the Kreinik french knots in her headband too.  Those are three words which should NOT go together - Kreinik and french knots LOL.  The beads look a little squashed because this is a scan of the piece, not a photo.

Finally, I mentioned Giovanna at the start of the post, she lives in Italy as most of you know and loves to attend the shows there.  Particularly the Fili Senza Tempo at Formigine.  She very kindly offered to send me the charity chart booklet they issue to raise funds for the Childrens Therapy Centre in Modena (the website is in Italian and English).

And here are the contents of the parcel:

The charts, an Italian alphabet card, a chic notebook, some ribbon from a friend of Gio's and a delightful pillow with my initial on.

Close-up of the pillow.  Isn't Gio's stitching so neat and perfect?

The reverse of the pillow.  

Gio tells me that she smiles because our names are pronounced almost the same although they are spelled so differently.  Our middle names are the same too in our own language.  Mine is Mary and Gio's is Maria.