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! 

Gifted Gorgeousness September Link-Up Post

Welcome to the Gifted Gorgeousness link-up post!  The link-up date will continue to be the 15th of each month but I will keep the linky open until the end of each month so you have plenty of time to join in.

The format remains EXACTLY the same as last year so I'm sure you are all aware of what can be included - gifts to and from you; charts, fabric or threads; shoe-horns welcome!

Since my last GG post I have worked on a few gifted pieces:

Beaded Trumpet by Mill Hill - a gift from Kim:

Gathering Honey by Jannlynn - a gift to and from my friend Sam:

Counting Bats by Just Nan - a gift from Epic Mel and a Happy Dance this month:

stitched on 32 count lavender linen

Ghostly Mandala by Ink Circles - fabric was a gift from Rachel:

this is literally how to close to finishing I am!

Sugar Skulls by Brooke's Books - a gift for my niece and her fiance:

Yes, my B5200 arrived!

Black Kreinik is still AWOL

Last month I hosted a GGG for one person to win some Tibetan Silver charms, chosen from these packets:

The winner is

Jocondine!

Congratulations to Jocondine, I shall be mailing a selection of the charms to you, some time before the end of the month!

You may remember back in the Summer I hosted my first Tenuous Shoe Horn Blog Party on the theme Summer?  Well, I used the Random Number Generator to chose one of the participants to win a little Summer-themed something.

The winner is

Jeremiah's Mom!

Congratulations to Katie, I shall be mailing something to you too, some time before the end of the month!

Here is the place for you to link up so we can see what Gifted Gorgeousness you have been stitching so far this year.  Please use your name or your blog name in the field NOT the words "September Update" so I can easily see who has linked up this month.

And link to the actual post, not just your blog.  It is easier if you copy and paste the link, rather than typing freehand.

Thank you.  I can amend links if you make a boo-boo though.

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🎂🎂🎂🎂🎂🎂🎂🎂🎂🎂

Finally, we are nearly here!  There will be another blog post tomorrow for the WIPocalypse and then it's the BIG DAY and time for the BIG BIRTHDAY BLOG HOP!   BYOC - Bring your own cake.

Solo September - Sort Of

Justine has hosted a series of OAAT months this year and we are currently in Solo September.  Because of my rotation I can't truly OAAT but I can do Focus on a Finish instead.  This month's focus is the Sugar Skulls by Brooke's Books.  I am stitching these on the recommended perforated paper as a wedding gift for my niece.

I've started on the Senorita Skull and have hit a snag.  I'm using 3 strands of B5200 which I'm also using for Ghostly Mandala and the Christmas Cubes.  And I have about three lengths left.  I ordered some during the week from a mega-cheap eBay shop and it duly arrived.  Except they sent 6 skeins of Blanc instead of 1 Blanc and 5 of B5200.  I rarely use Blanc and need the B5200!   The nice lady apologised and will send the replacements tomorrow.  So by Tuesday I can crack on with my white.

In the meantime I've started the flowers for her hair.  I would have stitched the black Kreinik too but it's playing Hide and Seek with my black PTB somewhere!  My list said I had some but it wasn't in the Kreinik box.  It wasn't in the bag with the DMC metallics and I couldn't remember when I had last used it.  Blog to the rescue!  A quick search for Black Kreinik and I discovered I had bought it for Trixie the Hallowe'en Witch.  Which means it may be with the charts and once I have time I can search for them.

I think this pink Kreinik may be glow-in-the dark?  055F

In the evenings I have been focusing hard on Ghostly Mandala by Ink Circles and now have only this corner to complete:

stitched on 32 count Autumnal Woodland by Crafty Kitten

This is the next Christmas Cube by Primitive Hare, excuse the blur, I didn't have the macro on.  I'll take a proper one when it's finished:

stitched on 35 count Country Mocha from Willow Fabrics

I did a little FFo'ing this afternoon and made another cube.  Four done, five to go and we've got seven weekends until Hallowe'en.

I'm using the same fabric in three different colourways for the backs and sides of the cubes.  Each one is 4 x 4 x 2 inches.

Matt LeB5200 as Dr. Drake Ramoray

Days of Jo's Life Blog Hop

AKA The Big Birthday Blog Hop

Finally, I spent this morning typing out my life story in segments and emailing it to the participants of my Big Birthday Blog Hop.  So if you signed up to take part and haven't had an email, please contact me ASAP so I can double check.  For the rest of you, the Blog Hop will take place on my Birthday which is next Saturday 17th September.  I will have a list of blogs and which year they have been allocated.  You just hop around and enjoy my life story!  Provide your own cake and balloons.