Spring Has Sprung, The Grass Has Riz

I wonder where the boidie is?

The Boidies is on the sampler!

Little Fat Blue Boid

Hiding Bunny Wappit and another Blue Boid

The whole piece!

Spring Typography by Just Nan is now a finished piece.  I stitched this on 32 count Dark Reed Green linen from Willow Fabrics using the recommended DMC and DMC conversions.  I recharted the animals to be over one as per the previous two Typography samplers.  I am particularly pleased with how the little fat birds came out compared to the over two versions.

I also followed the pattern of the previous two Typographys to change one of the words.  We had Awesome Autumn and Winter Wonder.  Can you spot the Spring change?

I'm currently painting a frame for this so I can get it on display while Spring is still here.

Everyone seemed to like my latest start, another Just Nan design but a spooky one this time.  Scream Girls is now a quick finish!

stitched on 32 count Mid Green linen

I'm going to pop this one in the printer and try scanning it to get a better picture.  The green from the previous photo was much more realistic.

I was smiling when I stitched this one because of the title - Scream Girls.  How do we know the ghosties are girls?  They look just like all of Nan's other ghosties apart from one thing - eyelashes!  Yes, in the world of cartoons, eyelashes signify female.  Male characters do not have eyelashes.  Don't believe me?  Check out the exhaustive investigation done by The Malcontented Mother.

And what do two finishes mean?  Time for another start!!  I did debate over this one, whether to have another start or continue on with Little Snowy Silver/Gray Cottage and then I thought "It's the Fifth Friday in my Four Weekly rotation so it's a bonus week, let's go for the new start."

stitched on 28 count burgundy linen

The photo is rather blurry because that was the only way to get the colour accurate!  Trust me to pick another hard-to-photograph fabric.  This is going to be Ornament Number One from Teresa Wentzler's Byzantine Ornaments Collection.   Heather Silver Lotus is stitching these for her smalls this year which was my inspiration to start them too.  Typical TW, there are two lots of blended colours in here already and a lot of fractionals too.  This is all the cross stitching, the rest will be speciality stitches.  I am also thinking of adding metallic backstitch to bling it up a little.

I did stitch on Little Snowy Gray Cottage earlier this week and here is where I am now:

stitched on 32 count Blue Hydrangea opalescent from Crafty Kitten

Little bit more hedge on the right and the same amount of hedge and wall on the left side.  Some Blue Rays as snowflakes and fallen snow and then the beading!

I have put together my usual Pie Chart for the month's stitching but realised that I hadn't included my Stitching Spend last month.  So here is March and April.

March
Just Cross Stitch subs	£ 30.73
April
365 motifs book	£   4.50
EBay Fabric	£ 13.71
Discworld Map	£ 37.00
Hallowe'en Happiness Dragon Alphabet	£   5.20 £   6.87
Mill Hill beads 32 Belfast Pink Fabric JN Hallow'en Chart	£   1.35 £ 12.95 £   5.39

Total for April - £ 86.97   Good job I am not doing Stitch from Stash this year!

The 365 motifs book, the eBay fabric and the first two charts were impulse buys because they were bargains!  The Imaginating Hallowe'en chart will do for the Hallowe'en Blog next year and the Dragon Alphabet for the Alphabet Club when I finish the Stitcher's Alphabet.  Nothing like planning ahead!

The Discworld Map was unmissable at 20% off introductory offer and is an investment! 

The beads I need for the Brooke's Book's Stitcher's Alphabet and the pink fabric is for Summer Typography which a little kookaburra tells me is my Birthday present this year.  All I needed from SewandSo was the beads but you can't waste postage on that so I thought I'd spend some of my overtime money on fabric and another JN chart for the collection! 

Finally - Time for Pie.  Fairly predictably Nora Corbett dominates the chart again with Just Nan coming second:

April 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.  April's theme was Ghosts and I stitched this band:

Here is the whole piece so far:

stitched on 32 count lilac linen

I have chosen another series for the Christmas Ornie Blog; The Primitive Hare's Christmas Cubes.   This month the theme was Ornaments and Decorations:

stitched on 35 count Country Mocha linen

Here are the four stitched so far:

Next month the theme is Reindeer and there isn't a cube with a reindeer so I shall be picking a different ornie for May, how exciting!

I also decided to do a second Small for the Hallowe'en SAL.  I've got so many lovely spooky designs I really want to stitch some of them too.  So here is my start on Just Nan's Scream Girls:

stitched on 32 count mid green linen

Finally, another mention of the Days of Jo's Life - Big Birthday Blog Hop.  To take part all you have to do is leave a comment or email me.  Nearer the date I will allocate you a Year of My Life and on the 17th September you do a blog post about that year or that life event in your life or what you were doing at that age (assuming you are that old!).  Also, post something you have stitched which you think I will like.  According to the number of people signed up I am now in my mid-thirties so if you want to take part and make me closer to my actual age, please leave a comment!