April Stitch from Stash and a Happy Dance

Month: April

Spent: £ 4.99

Earned: £ 0.00

Sneaky Peaky of Happy Dance!

Stitch from Stash is hosted by Mel from Epic Stitching

Essentially the idea behind Stitch from Stash is that we are limited to spending US$25 (or £15) per month. There are various exemptions (Birthday money, existing mag subs, clubs etc) but the idea is not to try and pervert the rules and to stitch some of that stash!  I will be posting on or around the 20th of each month because that is when I get paid!

January Budget	£ 15.00
January Spend	£   0.00
February Budget	£ 15.00
February Spend	£   5.50-
March Budget	£ 15.00
March Spend	£ 32.46-
April Budget	£ 15.00
Cross Stitch Crazy magazine	£   4.99-
Current Balance	£ 17.05

A good month.  I just bought one magazine which contained three charts I will definitely be stitching, the Satsuma Street Cities on black fabric,

On now for the main part of the blog, the part you've all been waiting for!  My Happy Dance on Prairie Moon's Thine is the Trick and the Treat.  I started this way back in October 2012:

and got this far in 2012:

I picked it up again in September 2013 and got this far by October:

And then nothing until December 2014 when I decided to focus on this project, stitching a minimum of one length of thread per evening.  This method works so well for monochrome samplers.

Here it is at the end of December 2014:

End of January 2015:

End of February 2015:

Mid March 2015:

Beginning of April 2015:

And now!

With my witch thread holder (from Primitive Hare)

With my cone of DMC! 

The fabric is a 40count hand dyed linen which was a gift from my friend Karen so I don't know who the dyer is.  The colour in the progress photos is more true to life than the finished photos.

I stitched using two strand of DMC 310 over 2 threads so the coverage is lovely and thick.  It made the fractional stitches a little lumpy so on some motifs I missed them out and on others I stitched them with one strand.

My favourite motifs were the cat and the witch.  I intend to stitch them again and make them into ornies for Hallowe'en.

Finally, this completion leaves a gap in my rotation!  I am going to be very disciplined and NOT make a new start.  I am going to continue on the black Hallowe'en theme and stitch this piece from my DUCJC challenge Day 10, Book of Spells by The Goode Huswif:

40 count Jewel Butterbeer from Under the Sea Fabrics