Solo September, Pie and Spends

Justine has hosted a series of OAAT months this year and we have just finished Solo September.  This was quite a success for me.  I spend exactly half the month stitching my Focus for a Finish project plus two days of finish-finishing.

Here they are:

The lovely couple are Brooke's Books Senor and Senorita Skull.  I stitched them on black perforated paper with the flowers on white perforated paper.  I simplified the finishing a little.  There are ribbons and things stuck out of his hat which I felt were unnecessary.  Her flower has three layers which I stitched but they looked bulky and top heavy so I only used two layers to make the flower.  The middle layer covered up most of the stitching on the bottom layer anyway.

When I finished stitching them, I attached the moustache and cheeks to the skulls by stitching them on.  Then I backed them with black felt which I attached by stitching all the way around the outline of the skulls.  Then I stitched the flower and the hat onto the skulls through the felt.  Finally I glued them onto two large square magnets I had from an old notebook which used to be attached to the fridge.  The magnets are slightly larger than the skulls which is why I have left the corners of the perforated paper attached, to cover the magnet.

Here they are on my fridge as they may look in my niece's home, assuming she has fridge magnets and likes to spell out her name and that of her fiance!

Last night I had another small finish; the top portion of the Cherished Stitches design from this year's JCS Hallowe'en Ornie Special:

stitched on 28 count Moondust from Crafty Kitten

The 26th of September was the Now I Know my ABCs SAL in the Cross Stitch Finish Line FB group and we have reached D.  I am stitching my spooky conversion of Lavender & Lace's Enchanted Alphabet:

Stitched on 32 count Tiger Lily Murano from Sparklies

I have continued to monitor my spending:

September
50 x DMC	£20.50
CSC Subs	£8.72
Backing Fabric	£3.00
Chatelaine fabric	£31.68
Chatelaine threads	£35.83
Total	£99.73

 That's a high total, but £50 of that was Birthday money from my MIL and £15 was a voucher from Leonore.  So I actually spent £35.  Remember the Stitch from Stash SAL which started all the monitoring?  Well, Stephanie has resurrected it on FB!  Similar rules where you set your budget and try to stick to it, existing subscriptions are exempt, as is postage.  She is also doing the "earn budget with your finishes" which I don't bother doing.  I want to save real money not spend imaginery LOL

My spending appears to be higher this year because I've been including all my subscriptions and finishing materials which will be exempt, so I am sure I can stick to £20 a month.  I will have my Christmas money to kickstart the year and my Chatelaine already kitted up too.

Finally, time for Pie!

September 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 we had Bad Fairies which was a very tricky subject to find!  In the end I converted a Lucie Heaton fairy to be a Bad Bat Fairy:

Here's the original design so you can see the changes:

I used the silks from Counting Bats for her dress, tights, shoes, hair and hat.  DMC for her bat wings and Kreinik for her wand.  I sketched her on graph paper to get the wings right.

For the Christmas blog we had Festive Food for the theme, lots of yummy stitching going on there.  I am stitching the Primitive Hare Cubes for this blog and here is "I":

This is exactly as charted apart from the substitution of B5200 for Blanc.

Here are all seven so far:

stitched on 35 count Country Mocha from Willow Fabrics

You can tell "I" was photographed at a different time to the rest!

My other Smalls are two Sugar Skulls by Brookes Books which may be small in size but certainly take a lot of stitching!  Here they are nearly completed:

That photo was taken on Monday, I have actually finished all the stitching now but forget to take a photo before I started cutting them up.  So you'll have to wait until I have finished-finished them to see what they look like!

This is my current evening project; an extract of Potions and Brews by Cherished Stitches from the JCS Hallowe'en Ornie special 2016:

I'm stitching it on a 28 count evenweave which is far too big for a small!  If/when I stitch the whole thing I will definitely go for a 36 as recommended.  This is what I had in my stash and I wanted to stitch the top part right away.  It's called Moondust from Crafty Kitten.

Finally, I received another Birthday present which I will show you soon AND I ordered my fabric and threads for my Chatelaine taking advantage of the Birthday discount Crafty Kitten gives you.  I have some of the special threads as gifts, I have ordered the Rainbow Gallery and one Waterlily which didn't convert to DMC.  The rest will be the DMC conversion or a Jodyri thread substitute as some of those threads might be more suitable.  Exciting times ahead! 

July 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.  July was Witches' Accessories and I stitched this band which has The Amazing Candy Corn Producing Cauldron:

And here is the whole piece:

stitched on 32 count lilac linen

The dancing skeleton will be attached when I finish the piece.

For the Christmas Ornie Blog SAL I returned to my Christmas Cubes by The Primitive Hare and stitched A which was for the Free Choice in July:

And the whole set so far:

Stitched on 35 count Country Mocha from Willow Fabrics

I completed the third Just Nan Small; Big Bee, Little Bee and found some bee charms in my stash.  To be fair, it should be called Two Big Bees because they are the same size!

Then I got the scrapbook papers out and mounted it on a page from a Monet Waterlilies Calendar along with Beehive Violets:

Remember the sampler I showed you from Just Cross Stitch Hallowe'en Special?  Christine suggested that the top part would make a great ornie on it's own.  So I started it!  Partly to test some WDW that Tiffany sent me.  I like it!  The corner is WDW and the rest is 3799 to contrast.

stitched on 28 count Moondust evenweave from Crafty Kitten

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That's it for Smalls this month, now for some Bigs!

First up is Gathering Honey, continued progress on this design where the confetti leaves are preferable to the backstitch in the plants!

Loads of fractionals in those leaves

And you can see where I got bored with backstitch and stopped:

Don't worry, I will complete it at some point, it does make a difference.

And here is the full piece: 

stitched on 30 count linen

Finally, the continued progress on Ghostly Mandala by Ink Circles.  I have been stitching this one for 22 days, doing approximately 1/2 an hour each evening:

Stitched on 32 count Autumnal Woodland from Crafty Kitten