May Smalls SAL

The Smalls SAL is hosted by Heather from Stitching Lotus

This year I have two Small Challenges:

1. The Hallowe'en Ornie SAL Blog

2. The Christmas Ornie SAL Blog

For the Hallowe'en Blog I have done something a little different this year, I've chosen a band sampler by Just Nan called Counting Bats and each band corresponds to the monthly themes on the blog.  May's theme was Spiders and I stitched this band:

stitched on 32 count lilac linen

That is one giant spider!  I am not surprised the ghosts are fleeing.

Here is the whole piece with my special scissors and fob:

The theme on the Christmas Ornie SAL blog was Reindeer and I decided to stitch one of Daffycat's cute little reindeer freebies.  In the event, I stitched three of them!  Jinglebell, Holly and Mistletoe.

I also completed another Small, this time as part of the Stitch Maynia Colour-a-Day SAL, which was Red.

stitched on 28 count Platinum linen

This was a gift from Vickie so I will be sending it back out into the world as part of June's Gifted Gorgeousness post.  So keep your eyes open then!  I used the charted DMC 902 for the darker red and substituted 3722 for the charted 3726 which looked too brown to me.  I also used standard size beads instead of the charted petite.  The standard beads filled the spaces much better than the petites.  Plus I had them in my stash and didn't have the petites!

Having completed that piece I needed something simple to start straightaway and chose the second in a series called Winter Woods by The Little Stitcher.  Only a couple of evenings bathtime stitching and a lunchbreak at work and it was done:

stitched over one on 32 count Vintage Grain linen

Here is the previous piece in this series:

There is one more and I'll scrapbook them together.

I almost forgot my other Small! Inspired by our host Heather, I stitched on the Teresa Wentzler Byzantine Ornaments too.  I used burgundy fabric and changed the colours too:

more details in the post here

Finally, in my last post I showed a picture of Just Nan's Haunted Pumpkins Tree and said I couldn't remember what happened to it.  I found it!  In a sensible place, surprisingly.  I had put the finished piece into the bag with the chart and put them back into my Just Nan bag.  There are a LOT of charts in that bag.  Maybe I'll pull out a JN small to start tonight.