Ornament SAL February Update

This is the Ornament SAL hosted by Stitching Lotus

I have three different ornament challenges running this year, the JBW Alphabet Cat stitched in a different colour scheme each month, the Dragon Dreams 12 Dragonlets of Christmas, a FB exclusive and the Hallowe'en SAL blog.

Here is my February cat, stitched on fruit tea dyed evenweave with a little heart charm added:

This is the Second Dragonlet ofChristmas with his two Turtle Doves, literally, little turtles with wings!

And for the Hallowe'en SAL I stitched Fence Cat, a freebie from Jaunty Fox Designs.  To save stitching the background I used my favourite orange jazlyn, 1 over 1 on 28 count.  The black is Anchor as I was experimenting trying to find a better covering black.  Anchor is no worse than DMC for coverage but not a whole lot better either!

Finally, I've been stitching Joan Elliott's February design for the 2013 Diary SAL but I'm saving that for tomorrow's Theme-a-licious update or there'll be nothing to see.  Yes, it's been a Theme-a-lessous month rather than Theme-a-licious (hahaha).

Some New Starts

I think I have Startitis!  The first start this week was for the Hallowe'en Ornie SAL Blog.  This is a Jaunty Fox freebie called Fence Cat.  Actually it's just a fence so far!!

Then my friend told me that her daughter-in-law had given birth and decided on the baby's name so I could start her Birth Sampler.  I downloaded the characters from the Nursery theme they are using and charted them and also found a nice font to convert to cross stitch for the name.  It's Slavic.  They are English and have no connection but liked the name and the meaning.  I liked the meaning too so I had to include it.  I think it's nice when a name has a special meaning.  Started stitching this week too.

 Then Sophia's Round Robin finally arrived!  She's designed a beautiful Celtic themed Rainbow for us to stitch.  I'm the last one so I have 2 shades of yellow.  This is one evening's stitching, it's really important to carefully count the first couple of pieces because if you make a mistake here and copy it through the whole thing goes to pot:

Not a start, but a progress picture on my Scarlet Letter Sampler for Nicola's Scarlet Letter Year Challenge. I'm stitching an English Transitional Sampler on 35count linen using AVAS for the first time.  I thought the coverage was lovely but the thread wasn't lasting very well.  Then I re-read the instructions - "on 35count use 2 strands" (so far so good) "of cotton".   oops.  Last sentence "use one strand of silk throughout".

Luckily this is all the outline for the band.  I've stitched those little circles in one strand to see how they look.  There will be other little circles in different colours then lots of satin stitch and stem stitch to fill in.

But I do have a finish to show you:

Another Red Letter, this time a freebie from this French website Broderie.  They offer 2 charts a week free then they can be purchased for 1Euro.  It's worth checking the site once a week to grab the freebies.  I have the whole alphabet, a lovely calendar and a set of 12 Zodiac Signs.  The N is stitched over 1 on 32 count evenweave.  I sent Nicola a little parcel of redness!  Various red things including some cute scissors and a JBW Monogram chart, all wrapped in some red fabric with a red ribbon.

Finally, I'll be hosting an Easter Treasure Hunt again this year.  For this Blog Hop you need to sign up and agree to post a Spring or Easter themed picture on your blog on Easter Sunday along with the letter of the alphabet I will give you.  The letters will spell out a seasonal phrase.  So if you'd like to be a Picture Poster then please leave a comment or email me if you're a "no-reply" person.