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