October WIPocalypse and early Theme-a-licious Looking Backward and Forward X

Here's the round-up for the progress since the last Full Moon.

Part 1 - My 12 in '12

12. Prairie Moon, Thine is the Trick and the Treat:

Great progress on this one.

I've reached the top right hand corner, there's a big old Jack O'Lantern next and I've nearly done two pages.  There are 6 pages in total.  I'm going to stitch until the 31st then put it into my New Year rotation.

Part 2 - Just Nan-a-thon

Yay, I stitched another Just Nan design at last.  This is my progress on Frightful:

I have a neat trick for the black coverage.  Stitch the lines of crosses as usual.  If you can see too much fabric between them then run a thread underneath the whole line just coming up at one end and going down at the other.  If you enlarge the photo you'll see the bottom left box is just crosses (and some half crosses I'm about to complete) and the top two boxes have the extra thread under the black crosses.  The bat and pumpkin details are stitched with three strands which I'll use for the rest of the motifs

Part 3 - Theme-a-licious

October is Obligation October.  I stitched a number of cards and two Round Robins for this theme.  You've seen them all before but here they are again:

Stephanie's Joan Elliott Round Robin

 Autumn for Cat's Seasons Round Robin

Chiara's Birthday card

Shirlee's Birthday card

Zombie Kitty 1 made into a card

Zombie Kitty 2 made into a card

November's Theme is Nail It November - What's lying around that's so close to being finished you can't stand it anymore? Get to it and finish it!

This is a not such a good one for me!  I'm not going to finish any of my four main WIPS as I have Round Robins which must take precedence over all other projects.  I also have my own project to start for the Large Mira RR starting in 2013.  I could always do some "finishing" finishing and sew up an ornie or two I suppose.  I could also "nail" my list for my "13 in '13".

Finally, the emails have been sent to the participants of the Hallowe'en Blog Hop, if you signed up and haven't got one then let me know.  Everyone else can enter the Mystery Phrase Competition starting the 31st October.  I'm putting a little prize together, it will feature a skein of Glow-in-the-Dark thread and other stuff!

      

IHSW

That's International Hermit and Stitch Weekend or as Kate calls it, NDSW - Numb Derriere Syndrome Weekend

Here's what gave me a numb bum this weekend.  First of all Cat's lovely Four Seasons Round Robin.  She stitched four boxes with a central diagonal band across each then we could choose a section to complete.  I chose Autumn because I'm an Autumn baby and I loved the colours.

What I did not love is the frog that hid under the leaves!  I really like satin stitch as a rule but this was a PITA.  First of all I stitched one segment using the charted 3 strands.  That was lumpy, bumpy and not smooth.  So I frogged it.  Then I used 2 strands which was smooth and lovely to behold.  Until I'd stitched all five segments and found they didn't reach the top.  When I looked again and counted and double checked I realised that  you need seven stitches to cover six threads on the fabric, the seventh stitch being the outside edge of the block (make sense?).  So out it all came again!  I re-stitched and now it looks lovely again.

The frog has been unceremoniously dumped outside the back door before I mailed the parcel to Sophia a day early.  This is worth noting as this RR has been dogged by delays, both postal and personal to the contributors!

Next up was my day time project, the cutest little thing you ever saw:

Yes, it's Glow-in-the-Dark Ghostie Kitty!  Stitched with Kreinik Glow-in-the-Dark thread.  I tried to get the much cheaper DMC version but it was sold out.  What a surprise, why didn't I think of buying it not in October?  ps do you know how hard it is to photograph in darkness?  Answer - very, then you have to photoshop to see the pic at all!

Here is Kitty in the light:

I stitched Ghostie Kitty for my son because I'd already stitched these two for someone else and didn't want to stitch a third one.

Aren't they just amazing?  They have glow-in-the-dark eyes too.

Carolyn has charted them from another person's little animation thingies and she's done a great job.  Here's a link to her blog, the previous Freaky Freebie post gave the link to her Deviant Art page where you can also find the charts.

Finally, there's still time to sign up for the Hallowe'en Blog Hop.  Click on the tab at the top that says "Hallowe'en Blog Hop" not surprisingly!  Sign-ups close this Friday.