December Smalls SAL

The Smalls SAL is hosted by Stitching Lotus

I completed three large part-work pieces for the Smalls SAL this year plus a number of actual smalls.  I decided to start the series of Just Nan small free designs as part of Kerry's Theme-tas-Stitch March Madness and then stitch 30 stitches per day to see how many I could finish.

Here's where the first 13 were in March:

And in the same positions so you can see which one is which, here are the ten I have finished:

The eleventh one is very close to a finish too!  While I was putting this collage together I realised that I hadn't even shown you the tenth finish - Holiday in Ice.

stitched on 32 count Ocean's Kiss Permin linen

This is a beautiful design and I loved the colours but it was plagued by frogs!  Back in March I stitched the centre and one of the flower petals.  When I picked it back up in November I used a different skein of the red and there was a dyelot issue.  So the first flower had to be frogged.  Then I noticed that the third flower was in the wrong position so that got frogged.  Then there were more issues getting the white and green in the right position.

Heather has confirmed that she will be running the Smalls SAL once again next year, for the sixth year, I believe.  Click on the photo below to find out more:

Finally, I received a belated Christmas gift thanks to the Post Office who decided to hang on to it over Christmas.  A lovely hand-made card, a wooden tree ornament and a mysterious bottle not labelled "Drink Me".

I opened the bottle and this was what spilled out:

Inside that sweet bundle was this gorgeous dragon pendant:

If you squint at the ribbon you can see who sent this to me.  Thanks Jocondine!   I always love your hand-made cards and everyone knows dragons are my favourite creatures.