Finally Fully Finished Fun for November

    

Hosted by Rachel the Ten Hour Stitcher

This SAL is designed to motivate us all to do something with that box of Finished pieces instead of just storing them under the bed.  We will all be linking up on Rachel's blog on or after the 10th of each month (10 Hour Stitcher - 10th of the month).

I've got two FFO's to share this month, both Halloween themed.

The first is the Couer de Sorciere from TraLaLa which I finished into a primitive heart shaped pillow:

Here's the back, which is a piece of fabric from a sample book I was given.  It's expensive stuff - £75 a metre!

Slightly cheaper was this pumpkin shape from The Works!  It was raw wood which I painted using some watered down acrylic paints.  Start with bright orange and add black until it looks right then brush it on as a wash:

The designs are the Halloween Trifles from Shepherd's Bush with my own charms added.

I seem to have run out of spiders so used this web charm instead.

I just mounted each piece around card and used double sided tape to stick them to the wooden pumpkin.

Finally, I finished little Miguel le Camelion but not FFO'd him so you'll see him for GG and then FFO'd in December.

September WIPocalypse Learning to Stitch

            

WIPocalypse is hosted by Measi's Musings

Each month we have to share the projects we want to complete before the End Of The World. Since 2011 I have chosen a number of projects to focus on that year, starting with my "11 in '11" and increasing to "24 in '24" for this year. This month I stitched on 5 of them and had four finishes.

2. Shepherd's Bush Halloween Trifles

11. Hands on Designs [never.more]

12. Living on the Rainbow Haunted House

16. Tra La La Couer de Sorciere

24. Cottage Garden Samplings Halloween Sampler

Finally, Measi always gives us a topic to discuss:

September – How did you learn to stitch?

I actually stitched my very first piece in Year 2 in Primary School.

After that, there was a long break until I saw a friend cross stitching a design for her baby son in 1993.  I was intrigued and thought it looked easier than sewing or embroidery because of the squares on the fabric.

I bought a small kit and started immediately, following the instructions in the kit:

After I'd got the basics I moved on to stitching with metallics, stitching on black, stitching on linen etc.  In the pre-internet days there was no-one telling you that something was supposed to be difficult!  You just tried it out to see how you got on.

Some of my techniques remain from the original kits - I'm a centre starter and much prefer to start that way.  Some developed from my own habits, I stitch using "secured needle" because it's practical when travelling and with cats or small children around.

The main change I have made is from stitching ////// then \\\\\\\ for rows to stitching each X individually.  I realised I prefer the tension and the look of the stitches when I do them individually.

September Gifted Gorgeousness Link-up Post

        

Welcome to the September Gifted Gorgeousness link-up. The link-up date continues to be the 15th and I will keep the link-up open until the end of each month so you have plenty of time if you are late posting.

The format remains exactly the same, there is a list of rules on the main sign-up page if you want to check what is required but basically anything connected to the word "gift" is allowed, whether it was a gift TO you or is a gift FROM you.

Last month, my evening piece was a chart I gave to a friend as a Birthday present and then she gave it back to me to stitch for myself!  I'm using the offcut of Sparklies' Tigerlily Murano for these.

Shepherd's Bush - Halloween Trifles

stitched on 32 count Tigerlily Murano from Sparklies

My focus piece for last month was Joan Elliott's Faces SAL, stitched on gifted fabric:

stitched on 28 count Snapdragon Jazlyn from Crafty Kitten

This month, both my focus pieces are also gifts!  The charts were sent to me by a lovely friend who was clearing some of her older stash.  During the day I am stitching on Couer de Sorciere by TraLaLa:

stitched on 32 count Taupe evenweave

In the evening it's this little repeating design from Hands on Design, [never.more]

stitched on 32 count Khaki linen

Continuing progress on this one as we cool down to Lime again:

Steady Thread - Tree of Life Temperature SAL

.

stitched on 28 count Meadow Mist linen from Silkweavers

I record the temperature each day and then stitch the leaves on the Sunday morning.

I've caught up at last!

My Dark 13 design is stitched on gifted fabric, a beautiful 40 count linen called Witch's Brew from Zweigart.  My plan is to stitch one letter per month until we reach October and then complete it during Dark October.

stitched on 40 count linen called Witch's Brew from Zweigart

Finally, it is your turn to show us your Gifted Gorgeousness for the month.  Please use your name or your blog name in the field and 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.

*

*

September Plans

At the start of the year I made a list of 24 projects I want to stitch this year for my "24 in '24".  The order I stitch them in is going to be determined by the WIPGO Board.  Jessie-Marie calls two numbers each month and those will be the two projects I stitch that month.  One small and one medium.

In August, the numbers were 12 and 15.  These related to Joan Elliott's Faces SAL and Shepherd's Bush Halloween Trifles.

A very successful month saw both of these finished, including all three of the Trifles.

stitched on 28 count Snapdragon Jazlyn from Crafty Kitten

Boo

Eek

Halloween

all stitched on 32 count Tigerlily Murano from Sparklies

In September, the numbers are 4 and 11.  These relate to TraLaLa Couer de Sorciere and Hands on Design [never.more].

stitched on 32 count Taupe evenweave

I'm making really good progress on this one as I started early!  Once I finished the Faces SAL I thought I would start this one immediately rather than wait until 1st September.  I have quite a bit of FFO'ing to do and some larger projects it would be nice to work on.  Plus people keep releasing gorgeous Halloween designs I want to squeeze in!

stitched on 32 count Khaki linen

This one is my evening stitch.  I don't have the button but I will probably add a spider charm to the middle instead.

Finally, I am way behind in my blogging so you may see older posts suddenly appear out of date order.  I have made a start on four posts from August that need finishing and publishing.  So far, I'm up to date with September though!

September TUSAL

  

It's TUSAL time!  

Here is my TUSAL jar with my current projects:

On the left we have Couer de Sorciere from TraLaLa:

stitched on 32 count Taupe evenweave

On the right is my evening project - [never.more] from Hands On Design:

stitched on 32 count Khaki linen

Finally, you'll see more of these on my Plans post coming up soon.

A Plethora of Small Finishes

You may recall back in March I made several small starts as part of March Madness?  Well, I have now made several small finishes!

In no particular order here they are:

This is my own design of a Union flag in a heart shaped stitched especially for Sarah-Beth.  She won one of my Epiphany Giveaways and we decided to do a little "local" exchange.  I sent her some local-to-me things and she will do the same.  As well as the local items I sent some Jubilee goodies too and thought a card would be nice.  I didn't feel like rummaging through all my mags to find designs which weren't quite right so it was actually easier to jot this down on graph paper and stitch it up!

I only stitched the red and blue, the white is the fabric.  Purists will realise there should be white spaces between the diagonal red stripes and the horizontal/vertical stripes.

If you'd like to see what else I sent her, then pop over to Sarah-Beth's Cross Stitch Blog and see for yourselves.  I was particularly pleased to get her the woven badge she wanted.  The company that makes them went out of business some time ago and my local gift shop was selling off the old stock, this was the last one in the shop!

The next finish is the Spring Heart by Gazette 94 to go with the Autumn previously stitched:

This was a very cheap frame from QD, the hearts are printed on the glass, clever isn't it?

I've just started another Band Sampler Round Robin on the Yuku Board.  My theme is "Purple with an Accent".  I am asking each stitcher to use DMC 333 as their main colour plus one other.  They also have to stitch with a fake British accent.  Not really, but it would be fun!  Here's my band:

This is stitched on Sparklies' Purpleberry Spludge, a great name for a great colour.  Last year's band sampler was amazing and alot of the same stitchers are doing this year's so I'm really looking forward to it.

The final pictures are actually 2011 finishes but I couldn't show them until now.  Dawn from Crafty Kitten found out she was expecting a baby due in January.  As she would be on maternity leave in January I decided to order my fabric just before Christmas so she could dye it over the holiday period.  I got an email on Boxing Day from her hospital bed saying "Baby came early, don't worry about your fabric, hubby is getting it ready to send to you"  That is the sort of customer service you get from Crafty Kitten, beautiful fabrics come Hell, High Water and Newborn Babies!

Anway, Nic, Hannah and myself collaborated on a Round Robin afghan for baby Sam.  Here are my two blocks in close-up:

This cute little dragon comes from here - Free Cross Stitch Charts

And this is the Tralala cat I have stitched before, available free from Socreastitch

I changed the colour of the dragon to blue and simplified the colours used ALOT.  There were 26 different colours used originally which I reduced to about 10!

Here is the whole piece in all it's glory:

This was a lovely afghan from Sewandso,  reasonably priced and very soft.  It specified "18 count evenweave" on the website so my brain said "that mean 36count which is equivalent to 18count aida".  When it arrived it really was 18count evenweave and a very loose evenweave too.  So the choice was to stitch over 2 and get 9count equivalent or stitch over 1.  Which I did.  Moral - read and believe the website.

Dawn was thrilled to bits with the present which arrived this week.  She sent us a lovely photo of Sam with it, I forgot to ask permission to post it here, so I won't just yet.  But his expression is priceless - he's got his arms stretched out wide going "how big is my blanket?"!!

BTW, Hannah is taking a break from blogging as she has one of those job-things which takes up alot of time at the moment.  She's in touch via FB and email and is keeping well in case you were concerned!

The other 2012 finishes can't be shown yet as they are all gifts.  If Parcelforce had got a move on I could've shown Christine's but they haven't so you will have to be patient along with her!

Finally, only three more followers until my 250 Giveaway!

Round Robin and some smalls

I have some new stitching pics today!

The first is for the Round Robin I'm in on the WWRR Yuku Board.  This is Sophia's RR, she has sent it round the world once in 2008 and now it's travelling again.  The theme is the great Teresa Wentzler and I was very excited to be stitching on this piece as I love TW's designs.

I chose a floral band from The English Cottage Sampler partly because there is one other UK stitcher on this piece and she chose from The English Garden Sampler and I thought they made a nice pair.  It is a more freeform band than some of the others but happily fitted into the 80 squares wide allowed in this sampler.  I stitched it exactly as the pattern except for the top 4 rows which I mirrored the bottom four for symmetry.  I also changed the edge leaves to single stitches where they would have gone over the edge.

This is my band with the previous one:

I've been super-careful with this one.  It only comes out in the evening when the small one is in bed and I haven't been wearing my usual eye makeup.  Why on earth not? you may well ask.  Well, when it's getting late and you have "just one more row"itis and rub your eyes there is a risk that you will get black eyeshadow on the fabric!  A risk I was not prepared to take!

I had to frog the parts of the beige background crosses at least twice as they kept jumping one square over.  Then the palest leaves (504) didn't look much different to the 503 so I looked at the thread in a better light and realised I had two skeins of 504 and one is lighter than the other.  So I frogged them and redid them in the new skein.  This is the woman who never frogs but recharts instead!

This is a little piece I mailed off to Rachael to help raise money for the Cats Protection League.  Hopefully it will be added to a quilt or cushion.  The design is by Tralala from SoCreaStitch and I stitched it in DMC 4215 a lovely variegated blue/lilac and pink.

And for those who like a more artistic photo -

The two cats were bought with the money I got for serving 15 years with my old company.  I also got my stash chest and a jacket (total spend £250) plus a party at the pub shared with a fellow "lifer" for 50 people.  We were supposed to have a nice genteel buffet in the boardroom for 30 but the senior management wanted it too and as we refused to change our date they had no choice but to give us the money and send us to the pub instead!

(note from proof-reader mode - I spelt Genteel as Gentile originally, not what I meant at all!)

The final pic is a small freebie from   The Stitcherhood blog which I found via the Needlecraft Haven Forum in their February challenge.  I stitched it twice with a subtle difference.  Now all I need to do is find some black ribbon with hearts or maybe some thick lace and decide how to frame it.

That's all folks!