Better Late than Never . . . . A WINNER!

A big thank you to everyone who left such complimentary messages on my last post! ~ they all mean a great deal to me xxx

A very BIG apology for the delay in posting a winner of my 'Little Owl' kit but AOL very kindly decided to close our Intenet connection down on Monday without any reason or notification to us and after some very long and heated telephone conversations (steam literally coming out of DH's ears) and a 3-day duration of no internet we have now received an apology and normal service has been resumed so without any further ado . . . . .

Sixteen entries . . . . .

Tilly ~ please pick a winner . . . . .

Number 1 ~ Crystal ~ Midnight Stitcher

With no internet available on Monday my random generator AKA Tilly decided ticket number 1 was rather tasty so Twin II and I had fun and games trying to rescue the piece of paper before having to unfold the other 15 to see which one had nearly been eaten ~ success!

Crystal please let me know address info and I will get this in the mail to you as soon as I can.

Now, down to stitching.

  As I said in my last post, 4 spooky stitches have been waiting for completion and again with no internet

connection and time to spare I squeezed a fifth in!

First up is 'Fright Turn' by Lizzie*Kate from her Halloween Highway collection stitched on 28-ct Antique White evenweave fabric with my choice of Gentle Art threads.  The star is stitched in Madeira gold metallic thread and the pumpkin fabric was from my recent fabric stash addition with brown ric rac and bronze seed beads to finish:

Next is another Lizzie*Kate design ~ 'Hats Off To Halloween' which I stitched last month.

I stitched this on 28-ct Sand Minster linen again with my choice of Gentle Art threads and have used a spider fabric to finish as a pillow:

A small design next but really cute and love its smiley face!

This is 'Itty Bitty Pumpkin' by Twisted Threads which I stitched on 28-ct Natural Linen with the suggested DMC threads.  Sorry, but yet again I finished it as a small pillow with pumpkin coloured fabrics and a raffia decoration pinned at the bottom:

'Spooky Row' by Bent Creek was another piece stitched last month and due to its size I was a little unsure what to do as a finish so a wall hanging seemed to be the best idea and 'at long last' I hear you say it's something different from a pillow finish!

I found some nice black fabric with white spots which I used for both the back and front and added some tabs at the top for hanging but found it also looks good hanging from the mantlepiece over the fire with candles sitting on the tabs holding it in place.  I added some self-cover buttons to each corner with the orange fabric used in Itty Bitty Pumpkin and they match the stitched pumpkins in the design perfectly!

And finally (hope you're still there?) a small design using two patterns from cross stitch books ~ Boo and a Black Cat.  I coffee-stained some 28-ct white linen and stitched the design in just black DMC, frayed the edges, gave the kitty 2 silver seed beads for eyes, added 4 small purple buttons with matching ribbon at 2 corners and a loop to hang and finished ~ yep! you guessed! ~ as a pillow with the same fabric as Spooky Row above.

That's me done for Halloween!  I an now in knitting mode and have just started a chunky knit cushion cover which is done on 10mm needles so literally grows before your eyes.  Knitted cushion covers in natural colours are very much in fashion here at the moment but they can cost as much as £45 (ouch!) so with this pattern only needing 3 balls and costing only £12 this is a great saving but a great temptation for Tilly who's decided to move on from eating my Gentle Art threads and feels a balls of wool is much tastier!

Take care everyone, Happy Halloween to you all for the 31st and until next time:

HAPPY STITCHING

xxx

AUTUMNAL TRIO

After almost 4 weeks since my last post I'm finally back into full swing again and the troublesome tooth is behaving itself and the rotten cold long gone.

My stitching mojo has waivered a little recently and no large projects have seen light of day but a trio of Autumnal stitches, all quick and easy are now complete . . . .

The two owls, both the same, are the 'Little Owl' Blackwork design which I had in kit form.  I didn't fancy stitching them in the black thread provided or on the 14ct Aida so the top one is stitched in DMC chocolate brown on cream 28-ct linen and the bottom one in DMC autumn tones on natural 28-ct linen with wooden buttons for his eyes.

Both are pillow finishes with decorative braiding to match the thread/fabrics used.

This was my first attempt at blackwork stitching and I really enjoyed it which is why I stitched the same design twice, I'm tempted to stitch a third owl with White Whisper thread and give it a Snowy Owl effect, maybe save that idea for a Christmas finish!

If anyone fancies having a go at stitching this cute little owl then I have the unused kit to pass on, I always work from a photocopy (just in case of 'coffee' spillages ~ yep! it has happened!) so the kit is complete ~ just leave a comment on this post and I will draw a winner next Monday, 25th.

This little fellow is a Quaker Hedgehog freebie and I stitched him with Gentle Art Sampler 'Sable' on a piece of 14ct mottled AIDA fabric.  Again he is a pillow finish with a caramel wavy striped fabric which reminds me of woodgrain and has 4 little buttons to complete (pictures do enlarge if you click on them!)

Temperatures here in England now definitely tell us Autumn is here and I've finally given in and the central heating is on and doing its job!  The past few days have been lovely and bright and are perfect for stitching but the nights are really, really chilly and next weekend on Halloween night will see the clocks go back 1 hour and the evenings dark by 6pm.

Halloween already?  I have 4 completed stitches and none of them finished to hang up or display so guess that's my next job or they'll be sitting in 'that' draw until next year.

Thank you for stopping by, I'm well behind with reading your blogs but it's Half-Term next week so I hope to catch up with you all then.

HAPPY STITCHING . . . .