Fifth Friday Pie and Owls

Last Friday was the Fifth Friday in the month of July so as I'm working a four week rotation each Friday I get a bonus project!  I have chosen the Teresa Wentzler Byzantine Ornaments as my Fifth Friday projects and started work on the second one this weekend.

Here's my progress:

stitched on 28 count burgundy linen

This one is so much quicker than the first one, found here Byzantine Ornament I.  You can see I have totally changed the colour scheme again.  I'm using the charted gold colours but the accent colour is DMC 321.  I've added some extra splashes of red too.  And yes, I am aware that one satin stitch diamond is incomplete, I used the end of the length and I'm going to finish it when I use that colour in the outer diamonds next.

I'm making great progress on my evening project which is Ink Circles' Ghostly Mandala:

stitched on Autumnal Woodland by Crafty Kitten

It's symmetrical!  I reckon I am at least 40% of the way through.  Nothing more on Gathering Honey because it's the weekend but I will pick that one back up tomorrow.

Spending was much more sensible this month:

JCS Hallowe'en Special	£8.45
Dragon Boo Xs & Ohs	£3.33
Monthly Spend	£11.78

Obviously the JCS magazine is an essential and to justify postage I add to add a little chart!  This is actually a collaboration between Dragon Dreams and Xs & Ohs:

Cute, isn't it?

And now for Pie:

You can see what my two focus pieces for Justine's Just One July were - You Were Hatched (Finish!) and Gathering Honey.

The only thing you haven't seen before is a piece I started for a FB SAL called "Now I Know My ABCs".  Much like the Alphabet Club, you chose a design and stitch the relevant letter each month.  I spent a lot of time trying to decide what to stitch.  I wanted a project which would only take a couple of hours each month but didn't fancy spending two years stitching on a small alphabet either!  So I started this one:

Close-up: 

Stitched on 32 count Tiger Lily Murano from Sparklies

Would anyone like to guess what design this is?  The spider is my own addition, it does not feature on the original chart.  You can find the answer here.  My witch thread holder came from The Primitive Hare.

Finally, how often do you go into work and see an owl?  Only on Harry Potter's Birthday!

Yes, that is a real live owl in a real live bookshop!  We has all sorts of fun and games to celebrate the launch of the new play which is the eighth book in the Harry Potter series.  And an owl!  Which apparently made the other stores in our cluster quite envious because they didn't have owls and we did.  Haha.

He doesn't look happy!