Friday Frolics and Other Days Too

Friday Frolics is a reference to one of Kaye's new blogs; Kitten Stitching and the Friday Frolics, where we each pull out a WIP or UFO and have a little frolic with it on a Friday, or into the weekend if you so desire.

My current Friday Frolic is Trixie the Hallowe'en Witch from Brooke's Books.  I had an issue with the metallic black DMC last week.  It just didn't cover well at all.  Then I saw the same design on FB where the stitcher had used Kreinik and the coverage looked great.  So this week I used the other two DMC metallics I had planned to discover how they covered.  They both look fine so I only need to buy one spool of Kreinik and some perforated paper for the accessories.  I frogged the black metallic in preparation for next week and here she is:

Stitched on 28 count tan evenweave

Don't her metallic purple boots look great?

I've been continuing with the current "Must Stitch" SAL which has grabbed the stitching world by the needles and demanded they drop everything to stitch this - Plum Street Sampler's 12 Days of Christmas.  Paulette is releasing one chart per week from tomorrow to follow on from the three she released last week.

I have decided to stitch them individually and scrapbook them in two pages of six.  But how to distinguish them from everyone else's versions?  I had decided to use a lovely red Splendor silk which was gifted to me from Ruth a while back.  The other charted colour was a yellowy green colour.  But I wanted a real pear colour for Day One and found it in DMC 3045.  However this wouldn't work for the other designs so well.  Then inspiration struck - use a different accent colour for each design!  Some will be obvious choices, others may need a little shoe horn but I have worked them all out now.  Second Day was easy, Turtle Doves are traditionally blue.  This is another Splendor silk from Ruth.  I've changed the parts which are stitched in the accent so the birds and the flowers will be blue and the rest will be red:

stitched over 1 on 25 count linen

The next project is also a Jumping on the Bandwagon SAL!  Funny how the best laid plans are often led astray by seeing what other people are stitching.  This one was a FB freebie called Friendship Compass released by Glendon Place to celebrate the large number of "likes" they had.  I'm using purples as you can see:

stitched on 28 count white evenweave

I am a subscriber to Cross Stitch Collection magazine and one of the enjoyable features is the Blogger of the Month column where they interview one of my friends each month and showcase her stitching.  I don't actually think being my friend is the reason they choose the person but it does seem that way!  It is rare I don't know the person LOL.  Recently it was the turn of Lisa The Inspired Stitcher.

As soon as I saw the article, I emailed her to let her know it was printed.  Unfortunately CSC is hard to get in the States so I offered to send her a copy.  In exchange she said she'd send me some threads as they are so expensive here!  And look what arrived!  A lovely frog covered project bag hand made by Lisa's own fair hands.  Hopefully all the frogs will stay firmly attached to the material and not infest my stitching!  She also included not one, but two packs of the DMC 4000 series of variegated threads, my very favourites.  They come in a card pack with a free chart too which is nice.

I am already using the bag to keep my Plum Street project in!

Finally, Hallowe'en is fast approaching which means it's nearly time for the Hallowe'en Trick or Treat Blog Hop.  Regular followers will know the format.  Leave a comment here saying you would like to take part in the hop as a Picture Poster.  When I have everyone signed up I will choose a Mystery Phrase and allocate each Picture Poster a letter of the alphabet.  On 31st October they must make a blog post showing their letter and a photo of something they have stitched on a Hallowe'en theme.  On my blog there will be a list of all the contributors so people can hop around and collect the letters to work out the Mystery Phrase.  You don't have to be a Picture Poster to collect the letters and join in with the competition but all Picture Posters do get an extra entry in the competition.