Sign up for a Spooky Blog Hop!

Yes, it is that time of year again, we are counting down to the Spookiest Hop on the Blog.  All you have to do is leave a comment here saying you would like to take part.  I will assign each person a letter of the alphabet.  On 31st October you make a post featuring your letter and a stitched piece relating to Hallowe'en.  The stitched piece does NOT have to begin with your letter.  I will post the blogs in order and we hop around visiting them, collecting the letters which will spell out a Mystery Phrase.  Return to my blog and leave a comment with the Phrase to be in with a chance to win a prize!

Quite a few people signing up already but always room for more, we just have a longer mystery phrase!

If Hallowe'en is not your thing, the one after will be the Advent Calendar Blog Hop.  Everyone gets a "door" to open and posts on their day.  I've been Christmas stitching this weekend, the next cube from The Primitive Hare's Christmas Cubes and wow, is this one taking it's time?  There are big blocks of colour in this which is not very interesting stitching but will look lovely when it's done.

stitched on 35 count Country Mocha linen

I've also been persevering with the Hallowe'en Town from Frosted Pumpkins:

stitched on 28 count Moondust from Crafty Kitten

Only three colours left; green for the pumpkin stalk, yellow for the birds' beaks and feet and then some black.  It's about half the whole design and will make a nice little scene as it is.

I never showed you the awesome dolls from the crafty fayre I went to on my Big Birthday, here are just a selection of my favourites:

remind you of anyone?

I am sure she was called The Crafty Aardvark but I can't find her online at all which is a shame.

We also saw this picture in an Art Gallery in the city:

The canvas is 3D so the beach huts come out from the main frame and as you walk past it they appear to move.  Very clever.  And a price tag to match!

Finally, back to the subject of Hallowe'en; I will be asking for suggestions for themes for next year's Hallowe'en Ornie SAL Blog soon.  So get your thinking caps on.  You can see the current choices on the blog here

On With October

With the Obligation (Alphabet Club is contagious) of the Sugar Skulls Over I am now free to return to my WIPs list.  I have done so well with that this year, finishing more of the WIPocalypse list than ever before.  Out of the remaining four projects, three are BAPs.  I have done quite a bit on two of them (Gathering Honey and Little Snapdragon) already this year and very little on the other two.  So this month I am focusing on the smallest WIP because I know I can get this one finished.

Before:

After:

And another one too: 

stitched on 32 count Light Mocha linen

The design is She Tends by Shepherd's Bush and there are four smaller designs which can be stitched individually or as one long piece.  I have gone for individual.  There are four charms specifically designed to go in the gaps but I haven't got them and doubt you can get them here.  I do have some nice little flowers and can get some sheep so they will fit nicely.

I got my rotation in a muddle last week.  Because the First Saturday was the 1st I had it in my head that it was Hallowe'en stitching weekend and started Ghastly, Ghostly Ghouls by Just Nan.

stitched on 28 count lilac linen

However, when I came to do my entry on the Friday Frolics blog I realised Friday 30th had actually been a Fifth Friday and I could have started another Teresa Wentzler Byzantine Ornament.  Never mind, we'll have an extra Friday this month instead!

My evening stitching is a WIP I last worked on for the Longest Day SAL.  I said at the time it wasn't appealing to me and it still isn't.  So the plan is to finish this part and make it into a small.  I loved the house but the rest of the colours are sludgy and dull.  I also don't like the coverage on the 28 count evenweave.  It's a lovely soft fabric but better suited for over one stitching I think.

stitched on 28 count Moondust from Crafty Kitten

Meanwhile, the Birthday gifts keep coming in!  Two more packages for me this week:

Dragon Dreams Dragon from Kerry the Rambling Biscornu Addict

The dragon sits atop a tiny jar full of button soup

Button and charm soup spilled: 

Those spooky charms will be going on my Enchanted Alphabet sampler, they are perfect!

 From Heather of Fantasy Cross Stitch

Stacy Nash chart and some 32 count Belfast linen (a favourite fabric of mine)

Doing the Stacy Nash (to the tune of the Monster Mash) leads me nicely onto the next topic - The Hallowe'en Trick or Treat Blog Hop!

Yes, it is that time of year again, we are counting down to the Spookiest Hop on the Blog.  All you have to do is leave a comment here saying you would like to take part.  I will assign each person a letter of the alphabet.  On 31st October you make a post featuring your letter and a stitched piece relating to Hallowe'en.  The stitched piece does NOT have to begin with your letter.  I will post the blogs in order and we hop around visiting them, collecting the letters which will spell out a Mystery Phrase.  Return here and leave a comment with the Phrase to be in with a chance to win a prize!

Hoppit to the Hop!

Finally, my niece and her fiance loved her Sugar Skulls when I gave them to her last week and they are gracing her fridge already.  We had a lovely afternoon tea with her and the female members of both families, playing games such as "How Well Do You Know Helen?" and Consequences making stories about her and her soon-to-be husband.  The official Hen Night will be Pub Golf with costumes.  I'm quite glad to have gone to the afternon tea instead LOL.

The Outstandingly Opulent Alphabet Organisation and Added TUSAL ORTs

It's the first Saturday of the month so it's time for detention!

"They only met online, but it changed their lives forever"

I think most of you know the lovely enigmatic Chiara who blogs at The Grey Tail?  We were chatting via email a while back and between us came up with the idea of an A-Z language challenge.  We batted some ideas around and are calling it the The Alphabet Club.  Chiara has the full details on that link but basically she will post a link-up post on the first Saturday of each month (Saturday being detention day in the film) reminding us of the month's letter and we will all link up with themed things, from stitching to designers and local customs.

O is for Occult from A Dark Alphabet designed by Julie and Becky's Note of Friendship blog.  Those are Octagon stitches there.  I will be covering the Occult side of the Alphabet Club for the Hallowe'en Ornie entry.

O is also for Over-dyed thread as shown in the Brooke's Book's Stitcher's Alphabet piece I am stitching for the Alphabet Club SAL:

I am stitching this on a 28 count afghan fabric in blocks of four to make a little soft book at the end.  Here's the latest page finish:

I do use over-dyed threads but I tend to call them "variegated" threads so I'll save that one for "V".

O is for Owls, here are some cute ones and one BAP:

Left - Cross Stitcher magazine, Blackberry Lane, Jacquie,

Centre - June Rose

Right - Knotted Tree NeedleArt, Blue Ribbon Designs, Blackbird Designs

O is for Orange, a great colour for a fabric, especially for Hallowe'en designs:

I don't have anything for designers beginning with O but I do have one in my stash from "Xs and Ohs" in collaboration with Dragon Dreams so I'm counting that one.

There are a few SALs with Ornament in the title:

The Hallowe'en Ornie SAL Blog

The Christmas Ornie SAL Blog

Stitching Lotus Smalls SAL

(this started out as the Ornament SAL so that's how I label it to keep all the posts together)

On to the Blog Roll:

Oubliette

(which is one of my favourite words as well as blogs!)

Obsessive Cross Stitcher

Oh Sew Crafty

Orts, Splinters & Mulch

Finally that last blog brings me nicely to another O and another SAL or TU-SAL to be correct!  It's time to show your ORTs to Daffycat!

New start - Ghastly, Ghostly Ghouls by Just Nan

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! 

More Gifted Gorgeousness!

The gifts have been coming in thick and fast this week so I thought I'd dedicate a post to them.

First of all - a huge THANK YOU to everyone who posted for the Big Birthday Blog Hop on the 17th.  It was incredible to hop around all the blogs reading everyone's anecdotes and seeing what stitching they had chosen.  Not surprisingly there were a lot of spooky Hallowe'en designs, some dragons and some samplers.  People had obviously taken the time and trouble to look through my blog and see what I liked.

The first gift to arrive was from Margaret in New Zealand, she was worried about the international post so sent it early and it arrived very quickly!
Margaret does gorgeous hardanger work and this is just exquisite!

Cheryl made me a lovely card inspired by an alphabet design she's been stitching.  You can get the chart from her if you'd like to stitch me a card for next year.  Or for the Jo in your life!

Mini also made me a card, aren't the strips of fabric beautiful?  She also made a little stitched pouch which is so pretty.

Mouse sent some threads for my Chatelaine and a lovely piece of Polstitches fabric.  I haven't started my Chatelaine yet, I need to order the fabric for it using my Birthday money.  There's also a "friendship" needleminder hiding in the bag!

Julie sent me these lovely satin threads, they are perfect for adding a little bit of luxury when you're stitching fabrics.

Tiff also sent some threads for my Chatelaine and some Nora Corbett charts she scored in a  thrift store for extremely cheap bargain prices!

The extremely creative Jocondine excelled herself this year.  She sent me this beautiful vintage embroidery pamphlet, some dragon bookplates and a stitched gift-tag:

Look at the date on the pamphlet!

The piece de resistance is my board game!  Click on this photo and admire the details!

Close-up:

Jocondine has included all my blog hops (go forward 3 squares) and penalties if you miss them!  There are stitchy pictures, free charts and some of Jocondine's favourite characters from her blog.  When we were children my sister and I were always making games like this so it fitted into the theme of the blog hop perfectly!

And then there was this little wooden spool with a stitched message:

I unwound the fabric to read the message:

And then when I held it up to show hubby, I saw the reverse!

How adorable is that?

Nicola sent me a beautiful card featuring one of the samplers she has charted for Hands Across The Sea Samplers and this lovely kit to make a beaded scissor case and fob:

Preeti sent me an awesome hanging featuring the Superhero Unstoppable Jo!  She also included a gorgeous silk zipper bag with some buttons and charms and some pretty fabric which I thought was just the small plain turquoise flowers until I opened it out for the photo. Isn't it lovely?

Close-up of the hanger:

Bea sent me these three spooky needleminders from No More Lost Needles, I really need a metal board to display them when not in use:

Phew!  And Leonore sent me a Crafty Kitten voucher!

That's enough of the goodies from other people, what did I get for myself?

It was well-packaged!

There's approximately 20 feet of bubblewrap there!

A lockable display case for all the goodies I have been sent!

Kim's beautiful porcelain pencil tray inspired me to finally sort out some display space for the many lovely things I have been sent.  I needed something secure and with a glass top to protect things from prying fingers and dust.  This case is made by a company who make cases for antiques and collectors fairs and is lovely, very good quality and quick, safe delivery too.

We spent the day of my Birthday in Norwich which is our closest city.  I wanted to go to a craft fayre where my friend had a stall.  Unfortunately she was ill!  So I had to spend some pennies on other people instead.  

I bought a "cactus-you-cannot-kill".  Apparently crocheted cacti are a "thing", two stalls were selling them but this was the nicest.

I also bought some cards, a notebook, some wire ornie hooks and a lucky dip parcel.

Close-up of the lucky dip (chosen by my son)

How appropriate was that?

I had to tell the stall holder all about my Blog Hop!

The charms are all Alice in Wonderland themed which is perfect too.

Finally, one of the requests made to participants of the Big Birthday Blog Hop was to include a photo pof something stitched I would like.  Here they all are!

ps my Birthday Blog Hop post also saw my 12,000th comment!  From the lovely Rhona.  What great timing.  How serendipitous!