Spreading Some Hallowe'en Happiness

I hope you all enjoyed the Spooky Hallowe'en Trick or Treat Blog Hop this year and found the mystery phrase.  I made it quite tricky this year so no-one would guess half-way through.  The correct answer was not Honeysuckle & Hollyhocks as Rosey suggested but

Hemlock Root & Henbane

which Christine thought sounded like a Heston Blumenthal soup.  They are both used in spells to steal a witch's power.  And poison her too!

I asked everyone to pick their favourite chart from the three on offer and put all the names on a spreadsheet.  If you were a picture poster you got an extra chance in the draw.

The most popular chart was Hallowe'en Happiness by Imaginating and the winner of this one is:

Ariadne from Greece

Ariadne said "As Halloween is not celebrated here I haven't got any stitched pieces. I only show some Halloween things (pumpkin, carving tools, a little witch and stickers) to my pupils and we draw a haunted house. Well who knows till next year I might have my own stitched piece and might take part in the blog hop you will organize next year too!"
So I am holding her to that, next October I shall expect to see a start at the very least!

The second most popular chart was Shepherd's Bush Spooky Night and the winner is:

Jeremiah's Mom Katie

The final chart was Stacy Nash's Cast Your Spell and the winner is:

Beadgirl Janalyn

A lot of people did not specify a chart so I put all the names back in and drew one more.  I already have this person's address so they will get a small surprise some time before Christmas!  I don't have addresses for the other three winners, so please email them to me.

Since Dark October finished I have returned to my usual rotation, starting with the Zodiac stitching for the SAL.  I am so pleased that everyone is enjoying this SAL so far and we've had a couple of people link up too.  I was enjoying the Satsuma Street Virgo so much that I decided to do a few more days on her and try complete the top half of the chart.

stitched on 28 count black evenweave

I did better than that, the half way point is the bottom of her left arm so the zigzag coming down and the end of the sheaf is all the second part of the chart.  I just love those colours although they are hard to photograph while still getting the fabric to look black.

I put her down yesterday and today picked up Dragon of the Winter Moon by Dragon Dreams which is so close to a finish.  I have been stitching sparkle this afternoon:

stitched on 32 count Moondust evenweave by Crafty Kitten

There is a bit more Pearl Kreinik, a crescent moon in Kreinik and then some beads and we will have a finish this month!  

I am undecided what to stitch after that, it should really be something from my WIPocalypse list or maybe a smaller design to try get another finish?  We shall see.

Regular followers will know what that door means - it's time to sign up for the Advent Calendar  Blog Hop!  For this hop, each participant is allocated a day in December to make their post on.  They will show something they have stitched on a Christmas theme and answer the topic question I set.  I then copy their photo onto my blog post in the style of an Advent Calendar.

So if you'd like to join in, please leave a comment or send me an email.  Let me know if there is a date you would particularly like or one you'd like to avoid.  I will be in touch towards the end of the month!

Here is a link to last year's so you can see how it works:

2016-online-advent-calendar

Finally, I track my comments and I recently received my 15,000th comment from MsOhSewCrafty!  No, she didn't make all 15,000, that's the cumulative total from you all.  Thank you so much for commenting on each post.  I try to reply to all even those tricky no-reply people!  I do appreciate that you take the time to visit, read and comment.  Thank you.