July Smalls SAL

The Smalls SAL is hosted by Heather from Stitching Lotus

This year I am going to have two monthly challenges:

1. The Primitive Hare Hallowe'en Cubes SAL

2. The Hallowe'en Ornie SAL themed blog.

Here is my W block which is not quite finished:

Stitched on 32 count Vintage Grain linen

The theme for July on the Hallowe'en Blog was Haunted Houses.  There have been some great finishes this month and here is mine:

This is A Little Hallowe'en House from the JCS 2013 Hallowe'en Special designed by Jamie Kile of Knotted Tree NeedleArt.  I choose a nice muddy green for the fabric.  It's a 32count linen called Dark Reed Green from Willow Fabrics.  I used the recommended DMC conversion with a couple of minor changes.  I blended two shades of purple for the house rather than use a variegated thread.

I don't enjoy stitching plain borders and this had a double row of plain stitches.  So I changed them to extra large Xs stitched over four threads instead of two.  Then I changed the corner blocks to twelve-legged eyelets instead of plain Xs.  They look a little web-ish to me.

I have just realised that I haven't added the chimney pots!  Oops, back to the needles for me.

Another Little project I've been stitching every Tuesday is Pretty Little London by Satsuma Street.  I am plodding away around the London Eye at the moment:

Stitched on 32 count Antique White linen.

Linda likes these partial shots because it looks like we are the same stage as each other LOL.

Heather did suggest we might like to stitch a "Christmas in July" small which I thought was a great idea what with the launch of Kaye's new Christmas Ornie Blog and Claire's Joy Ornie Collection too.  Unfortunately I just ran out of time!  So we will just have to have Christmas in August instead.

Another word for Small is Mini.  Lynn B from Happiness is Cross Stitching has been designing several Mini Cats for some time now and this year has been posting a free monthly themed Mini Cat each month.  They have been so popular that she has set up a special blog just for them.  So if you like Mini Cats why not pop over to The Mini Cat Blog and admire Peggie's 27 finishes!  I've posted my one and only finish which is the Valentine Cat:

Finally, the Summer Postcard Blog Hop.  Five cards have been sent and posted online so far with another one due to go out this week.  You can see them all here:

First postcard from Cheryl goes to Noni at Fireflies and Cats in the Garden

Second postcard from Vickie goes to Katie at Jeremiah's Mom

Third postcard from Noni goes to Julie at Julie's Stitchyknitter Journal

Fourth postcard from Katie goes to Anna at Stitch Bitch

Fifth postcard from Julie goes to Bea at Thoughts and Musings

First Week of the Summer Holidays

and of course, we have had steady and heavy rain since yesterday lunchtime!

The Large Boy is at High School (age 11+ here) and they broke up at 1pm last Friday while the Small Boy lucked out and didn't finish until Wednesday afternoon.  So we took advantage of the time together and went on a Dragon Hunt!  Norwich is our nearest city and one I know well as I worked there for 17 years pre-children.  They have had a couple of these hunts before (Elephants and Gorillas) and this year it was Dragons.  More information can be found here but essentially there are 84 large dragon sculptures dotted around the city.  Each one is decorated by a different person to a different theme.  You visit each one and collect a letter or symbol which then spells out a message.  Sounds rather like my Hallowe'en and Easter Blog Hops!

They are also selling postcards and here is a collection of our favourites:

The bottom left was made by the staff at John Lewis (department store) and is lots of small fabric pieces embellished with buttons.  I'm going to go back and take some decent photos of it later in the holiday.  The bottom right is entirely covered in 2p coins, plus a few 5p and pennies.

It was a good thing that the Small Boy finished later in the week because I was still beading the final teacher gift on Tuesday evening!  Hope was beset with a plague of frogs.  At times it felt like Pandora's Box where I had to fight through all the winged nasties until I found Hope at the bottom!  Here it is all framed to match Believe:

Hope by Joan Elliot - from the Bewitching book

stitched on 28 count Robin's Egg Opalescent by Silkweavers

The Small Boy's school is a little unusual in that the children don't change teacher every year, quite often they do two years with the same teacher.  So I didn't realise last year that he would be moving up a class until it was too late to stitch anything!  So this year I was more prepared.  Believe is for his current teacher and Hope is for the teacher he had in Nursery and Reception.  I didn't see them because Hubby does the school run but he said both teachers were incredibly touched by their gifts.

I did see the teachers at his other school though, the Kingfisher Class.  They had a little leaving ceremony for him which was lovely.  All the children in the class had made a huge card with drawings of each of them and they let him choose his favourite song for them all to sing.  Then I gave them the Kingfisher picture.  One child was nominated to open it and they all craned over - "It's a picture of you", "it's a bird", "it's a kingfisher"  "IT'S US, WE'RE KINGFISHERS".  You can imagine how excited this made a bunch of five year olds!

The Headmaster had been watching all this and then the Chair of the PTA appeared with gifts for me!  A framed photo of the class (including the Small Boy) and a lovely engraved pen to thank me for all my hard work over the last 9 years.  That was unexpected!  We don't usually make a lot of fuss when people leave because it happens regularly as children grow up so it was nice to be appreciated.  I think she's keeping me sweet in case she needs to pick my brain in future LOL

So, end of an era there.

With all the busyness, I didn't stitch much of Pretty Little London, just some blue in the London Eye:

stitched on 32 count antique white linen

The last two days have been dedicated to Hallowe'en Ornie SAL blog's July theme which was Haunted Houses:

This is a Knotted Tree design from JCS Ornie Special 2013

I'll show a close-up and more details when I finish it, which won't be long now.

Many of you know that I have been very involved with the Scarlet Letter Year blog set up to celebrate Nicola's special birthday a couple of year ago.  Later this Summer a group of the stitchers are meeting up at the Cotswold Manor House which houses the Fellers' collection of samplers.  There is still room for a couple more people.  The trip is on Wednesday 26th August and costs £30 including a lovely buffet lunch.  If you are interested then send me and email and I'll pass your details on to Nicola.  More information about the collection can be found on Needleprint's blog.

Finally, the Summer Postcard Blog Hop.  Four cards have been sent and posted online so far with a fifth today.  You can see them all here:

First postcard from Cheryl goes to Noni at Fireflies and Cats in the Garden

Second postcard from Vickie goes to Katie at Jeremiah's Mom

Third postcard from Noni goes to Julie at Julie's Stitchyknitter Journal

Fourth postcard from Katie goes to Anna at Stitch Bitch

Fifth postcard from Julie goes to Bea at Thoughts and Musings