November D.E.S.I.G.N. SAL

The idea of this Blog Hop is to choose a different designer each month and do a post focusing on a piece of their work you have stitched on during the month.  The hosts of D.E.S.I.G.N ask us to answer a few questions on our chosen designer.

1. What designer are you talking about this month?

Glendon Place.  Now technically I haven't actually stitched this designer this month, it was all last month but I couldn't show the finish because it was a gift for someone.

Friendship Compass

FB freebie

2. Have you stitched a project by this designer before?

No, this was my first time!

3. Would you buy/stitch a design by this designer again?  Why/Why not?

Yes, I have The ABC of Fall in my stash.  I believe I have a suitable fabric for it too.  It an impulse buy because it was less than £5 from SewandSo!

I am also tempted to stitch the Compass again for myself using rainbow colours.

4. What made you choose this particular design/designer?

I was looking for the perfect design for Mouse's Birthday quilt and had changed my mind several times already when I spotted the Glendon Place SAL on their FB page.  Instantly I wanted to stitch it and thought it would be just right for the quilt.  Especially with the name Friendship and the Compass being Mouse's friends from all points of the globe.  That is why I put my initials next to the East Point where I live!

I used various shades of purple because it is Mouse's favourite colour (and one of mine too!).  I substituted the beads for bright pink eyelets just in case beads weren't suitable for the quilt finish.

I only stitched the central compass because I thought the entire square might be a bit overpowering for the project.

5. Did you notice anything that distinguished this designer from others?

Glendon Place are an American company and I first became aware of them through my love of Hallowe'en stitching.  Their two best known designs must be Sleepy Hollow and The Witches Wheel:

Sleepy Hollow

The Witches Wheel

They also do the most delicious range of mandala designs named after various desserts!  Who could resist a design called Plum Pudding or Fudgy Mint Mousse?

One nice thing I like about their website is that they list all the materials needed to stitch the design, including the fabric size and quantities needed for each thread skein or bead packet. 

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Finally, talking of desserts made me think of my monthly pie chart!  You can see this month has been very much A Tale of Two Designs - the Blue Ribbon Design Hallowe'en Blocks and The Plum Street Sampler 12 Days of Christmas:

500th Post!

That's a real cause for celebration!  I have been blogging for over four years and seven months now and love every minute of it.  I've made some great friends and stitched an enormous amount of little x's.

Here's a look back at some milestones posts:

100th post - 8th March 2012

WIPocalypse catch-up and a rant about "touchers"

The Dark Alphabet letter T

200th post - 15th February 2013

Theme-a-licious progress

Joan Elliott Cherub

(finished some time later, I frogged the heart as I didn't like the colour contrast)

300th post - 20th January 2014

Stitch From Stash SAL

Just Nan Lady Scarlet's Christmas

400th post - 24th December 2014

Advent Calendar Blog Hop

Well, isn't that just the most serendipitous co-incidence?  I really had no idea that was my 400th post until I just looked!  Of course I am now taking sign-ups for this year's Advent Calendar.  I really do need more people this year.  Last year we had so many we did double-up Sundays, this year we are a little short!  So please sign up now.

So much for past stitching, what about the current projects?  I have just spent the weekend with Elizabeth Shephard from Scarlet Letter.  Here she is now:

stitched on 30 count linen

I've been working on that floral motif to the left hand side this week.

I'll save my Plum Street Samplers for the Smalls SAL this Wednesday and show you two pieces which I've had to keep secret up until now.  The first is an ornie for Clare AKA Aimetu:

Earlier this year Clare told us she is decorating a tree for her church's Christmas Tree Festival and her theme is Joy to the World.  She invited us to send in Joy ornies.  The little Jeanette Douglas design came from JCS back in 2010 and has now been received by Clare.  I changed the colours to make it a little brighter.

I made a beaded hanger for it.

I am rather pleased with it and will do that again.

The second donated stitch is for my dear friend Mouse who will be celebrating a zero themed Birthday at the start of next year.  She has decided to make a quilt using squares stitched by all her friends.  Well honestly, I changed my mind four times on what to stitch!  The obvious thing is a little mouse but then I thought "everyone will do mice" so I thought of a monogram and downloaded a few.  Then I found my Michael Powell book and a lovely cake (who doesn't love cake on a Birthday?).  But then Glendon Place went and released this SAL design and I really wanted to stitch it.  There wasn't time to stitch this AND a square for Mouse so I thought "I will stitch this FOR Mouse, it has the perfect title too!"  More serendipity, you can see why I named my blog, can't you?

Friendship Compass by Glendon Place

I only stitched the centre because I felt the whole square might overpower the quilt a little plus it looks more compass-like.  I added my initials to the East point because I live in the most easterly point in the country.  I also subbed the beads for eyelets in bright pink. 

So, a big Thank You to everyone who follows and reads my blog; if you haven't already clicked the Followers Button on the right, please do.  It's how I track my followers and find their blogs too.

Finally I am also celebrating a big zero Birthday next year (the same one as Mouse, it was a good year!).  Any suggestions for a project I/we could do to celebrate?  I have a few ideas but they are very much in the draft phase at the moment! 

Friday Frolics and Other Days Too

Friday Frolics is a reference to one of Kaye's new blogs; Kitten Stitching and the Friday Frolics, where we each pull out a WIP or UFO and have a little frolic with it on a Friday, or into the weekend if you so desire.

My current Friday Frolic is Trixie the Hallowe'en Witch from Brooke's Books.  I had an issue with the metallic black DMC last week.  It just didn't cover well at all.  Then I saw the same design on FB where the stitcher had used Kreinik and the coverage looked great.  So this week I used the other two DMC metallics I had planned to discover how they covered.  They both look fine so I only need to buy one spool of Kreinik and some perforated paper for the accessories.  I frogged the black metallic in preparation for next week and here she is:

Stitched on 28 count tan evenweave

Don't her metallic purple boots look great?

I've been continuing with the current "Must Stitch" SAL which has grabbed the stitching world by the needles and demanded they drop everything to stitch this - Plum Street Sampler's 12 Days of Christmas.  Paulette is releasing one chart per week from tomorrow to follow on from the three she released last week.

I have decided to stitch them individually and scrapbook them in two pages of six.  But how to distinguish them from everyone else's versions?  I had decided to use a lovely red Splendor silk which was gifted to me from Ruth a while back.  The other charted colour was a yellowy green colour.  But I wanted a real pear colour for Day One and found it in DMC 3045.  However this wouldn't work for the other designs so well.  Then inspiration struck - use a different accent colour for each design!  Some will be obvious choices, others may need a little shoe horn but I have worked them all out now.  Second Day was easy, Turtle Doves are traditionally blue.  This is another Splendor silk from Ruth.  I've changed the parts which are stitched in the accent so the birds and the flowers will be blue and the rest will be red:

stitched over 1 on 25 count linen

The next project is also a Jumping on the Bandwagon SAL!  Funny how the best laid plans are often led astray by seeing what other people are stitching.  This one was a FB freebie called Friendship Compass released by Glendon Place to celebrate the large number of "likes" they had.  I'm using purples as you can see:

stitched on 28 count white evenweave

I am a subscriber to Cross Stitch Collection magazine and one of the enjoyable features is the Blogger of the Month column where they interview one of my friends each month and showcase her stitching.  I don't actually think being my friend is the reason they choose the person but it does seem that way!  It is rare I don't know the person LOL.  Recently it was the turn of Lisa The Inspired Stitcher.

As soon as I saw the article, I emailed her to let her know it was printed.  Unfortunately CSC is hard to get in the States so I offered to send her a copy.  In exchange she said she'd send me some threads as they are so expensive here!  And look what arrived!  A lovely frog covered project bag hand made by Lisa's own fair hands.  Hopefully all the frogs will stay firmly attached to the material and not infest my stitching!  She also included not one, but two packs of the DMC 4000 series of variegated threads, my very favourites.  They come in a card pack with a free chart too which is nice.

I am already using the bag to keep my Plum Street project in!

Finally, Hallowe'en is fast approaching which means it's nearly time for the Hallowe'en Trick or Treat Blog Hop.  Regular followers will know the format.  Leave a comment here saying you would like to take part in the hop as a Picture Poster.  When I have everyone signed up I will choose a Mystery Phrase and allocate each Picture Poster a letter of the alphabet.  On 31st October they must make a blog post showing their letter and a photo of something they have stitched on a Hallowe'en theme.  On my blog there will be a list of all the contributors so people can hop around and collect the letters to work out the Mystery Phrase.  You don't have to be a Picture Poster to collect the letters and join in with the competition but all Picture Posters do get an extra entry in the competition.

October TUSAL

It's TUSAL time again!  For those of you new to blogging, the TUSAL is a project run by Daffycat, click on the button on the right hand bar for more details.

Here is my ORTS jar posing with the current stitching project:

The design is Glendon Place's Friendship Compass, a FB exclusive freebie.  You can download the chart and choose your own colours.  I have gone for purples in the blue spectrum just to make it really difficult to photograph!

This is a scan of the design which is much more true to colour.  The pinkier purple on the right is 3042.

stitched on 32 count white evenweave.

And a Happy Dance too!  This next design was started in August for the Black Cats theme on the Hallowe'en Ornie SAL blog and then continued in September for Kaye's Friday Frolics.  This is Just Nan's Ghoulies and Ghosties, stitched using the recommended DMC on 28 count tan evenweave:

I do love Nan's Hallowe'en designs, they use the same basic colours so they all look good together and feature her cute spiders and ghosts.

And speaking of ghosts, I am now taking sign-ups for my Hallowe'en Trick and Treat Blog Hop.  Everyone enjoys this hop and we need some more people to make a nice long one or the mystery word will be CAT.  (Just so Christine can guess BAT or CAW depending on who has posted).  So why not drop me an email and sign up.  There's a list of spooky freebies on my freebie page and even if you don't finish by the 31st you will have a WIP to show!

Finally, most of you know the lovely Jacquie and her equally lovely daughter Hannah (and her just as lovely hubby Jon but he's not relevant to this bit).  Han has designed some cushions to enter into a competition.  You have share your favourite on FB or Twitter and she gets votes!  Click here to read all about it.

And a Morris Dance for Pretty Little London

Which is the larger of the two London designs, the other one being Pretty Mini London.

Pretty Little London is a Satsuma Street design I have been stitching every Tuesday along with Linda and Kate.

Scanned picture to show the colours

Close up of the cloud.  

I added the silver metallic because "every cloud has a silver lining"!

Framed for my scrapbook to co-ordinate with Pretty Mini London

Closer photo:

The curved top is to give the effect of a snowglobe.  Rainglobe?

And here is a nice collage of all the iconic sights in the design:

Top - The Rain, Coldstream Guardsman, Houses of Parliament Clock Tower, Tower Bridge

Middle - A Black Taxi, The Gherkin, A Red Bus, The Shard

Bottom - St. Paul's Cathedral, Buckingham Palace, Railway Arches, London Eye

I stitched Pretty Little London on 32count antique white linen because it was the only white I had at the time and "Stitch from Stash" but with hindsight, it was not the right fabric for this design.  I have some 32 count white evenweave I will probably use that for the next "Little" design.  But for the rest of this year, Tuesdays are going to be WIPocalypse days in an effort to make progress on my list for that SAL.  Satsuma Street will recommence in January!

I did have new start this week, to celebrate two finishes (London and the Mail Art Exchange which I can't show yet).  The new start is one of those designs getting great publicity on FB.  Glendon Place decided to give a free chart when they got 500 members of their FB group.  It must have worked because they now have over 1100!  The chart is great, a mandala design called Friendship Compass.  They aren't giving a colour key, you have a completely free choice.  There are some lovely schemes appearing on the FB page so far.  I have gone with purples, starting with  my favourite 333 and working down the shade chart from there.

Here is my progress so far:

Stitched on 32 count white evenweave

Finally, Hallowe'en is fast approaching so it must be time to launch the Hallowe'en Trick or Treat Blog Hop.  Regular followers will know the format.  Leave a comment here saying you would like to take part in the hop as a Picture Poster.  When I have everyone signed up I will choose a Mystery Phrase and allocate each Picture Poster a letter of the alphabet.  On 31st October they must make a blog post showing their letter and a photo of something they have stitched on a Hallowe'en theme.  On my blog there will be a list of all the contributors so people can hop around and collect the letters to work out the Mystery Phrase.  You don't have to be a Picture Poster to collect the letters and join in with the competition but all Picture Posters do get an extra entry in the competition.

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