October Smalls SAL report.....

Hello my dear fellow stitchers, as you will see, I have a few Smalls to show you this month:

First up is Liberty Starburst by Summer House Stitche works, this was stitched as part of my Americana SAL blog.

Now, I did make one change, if you look at the original pattern:

you can see that there is a piece of blue felt blanket stitched in the centre - well, do you think I could find that piece of blue felt when I was ready for it?  No way, Jose!  Nowhere to be seen, so I improvised:

... and made up my own centre, which I am actually really happy with.  I hope that you all like it, too.

Now, of course, as soon as I wasn't looking for it, I found it! lol!

Now, I have offered this pattern as a Giveaway on the American SAL blog and if you follow this link, you can find out who won!

Next, we have my Friday Frolics SAL/ FNSI/Prairie Schooler SAL finish from this post (love to double or triple dip! lol!)

Day 11 of PS's Santa's 12 Days of Christmas

I especially love Mr Fox in the bottom right hand corner.  Plus I have finished Day 12, as well, so now the set is complete:

... and lastly, I finished two Hallowe'en pieces:

Moon and Cider Apple Cider

Needlework Press

28 ct overdyed fabric

Floss: as per designer

My second Hallowe'en stitch is "Bump in the Night".  Again, when I saw this cute row of tipsy houses, I just knew that I had to stitch this one, too!

Bump in the Night

Tempting Tangles Designs

JCS Hallowe'en Ornie Mag 2015

28 ct overdyed blue fabric

Floss: I chose my own overdyed threads from my stash

I must admit that I am thrilled with both of these finished pieces - each have their own special brand of spookiness.

So, there you go, a very productive month of stitching.

If you want to see how everyone else went with their Smalls this month, you can check them out here:  Stitching Lotus

hugs, 

I did it!

I finally finished my Santa's 12 Days of Christmas!

Now, the earliest post I can find on this blog, Kitten Stitching, which features Santa's 12 Days of Christmas is on May 21, 2012 but I suspect that I started the SAL a few months before that - so this project has taken me over three and a half years to complete.  I must admit there were (quite) a few times where I lost interest, lost faith in my ability to finish but I overcame those times and here we are:

 I just need to decide now how to Finish each one - any suggestions?

Now, as I am pretty certain that I won't be tackling this project again in a hurry, I want to gift my lightly-used design booklets (three of them, with all twelve designs) to one of you lovely stitchers.

But, I am going to make you work for it!  Ha! Ha!

You have to decide which of the 12 days is my favourite - which may be hard as I do love them all but there is one which I particularly love!

So, please leave a comment with your guess either on this post or on the corresponding post on the Prairie Schooler SAL blog and on Monday, 9th November, I will draw a winner from the correct guesses.

Have a great day, everyone, 

hugs, 

P.S. Love to Linda who started me on this journey.

IHSW_October....

... well, for IHSW, I thought that I should continue on with my PS 12 Days of Santa as I am finally getting so near to finishing the series.  Yay!

So, here is Day 12 so far....

... here are some of the lovely roses from my garden (I had a play around with the special effects on the Aviary app on my iphone to get the photo looking like this).

I hope that you all had a great IHSW, 

I don't think that dear Joyce has put up the October link yet but check out her blog anyway, 

hugs, 

Not quite there yet...

Hi everyone,

I had hoped to have a finish of Day 11 by the end of this month but I think I have been distracted by a few other things going on - lol!  For some reason, I am really struggling with Day 11. This is part of the Sunday SAL which I stitch with my dear friend, Linda.  Maybe he will be finished by the end of September?

I am loving all of the wonderful Prairie Schooler Stitching which I see everyone else is doing on the Prairie Schooler SAL blog - so beautiful!

Have a good week, 

hugs, 

Weekend Roundup (or an early FNSI and IHSW post)...

.... okay, as usual I am going to stretch a long bow and my weekend roundup will cover next week's FNSI and IHSW.

How so, I hear you ask?  Well, next weekend, TraderVic and I are heading north to Sin City (Sydney) to visit DS2, we are planning to take him out to a fancy restaurant, catch up with some family friends, do some sightseeing with him and check out his new flat.  So, I am thinking in the midst of all that there will not be much stitching happening.

Luckily for me, this weekend just past was a quiet one for us, so lots of crafty, bakey things were done by me, so I have just moved FNSI and IHSW forward a week for me this month.  Clever, hey?

 Now, for those of you who don't know what I am talking about.

FNSI stands for Friday Night Sew In, it is a virtual stitch-a-long evening on the third Friday of every month when stitchers from all around the world sign up to stitch on their own projects "together".  It is hosted by the lovely Wendy from Sugarlane Quilts, so check out her blog for the sign up post which should be posted sometime this week.

IHSW stands for International Hermit and Stitch Weekend, it, too, is a virtual stitch-a-long but this one is all weekend long - from Friday night to Sunday night.  It is always the third weekend of the month, too, so FNSI and IHSW always coincide - most happily.  It is hosted by the gorgeous Joysze of Random Ramblings, so check out her blog for the sign up post, too.

You can see the badges for each of these SALs on my sidebar.

So, enough chat, what did I get up to on my weekend?  Well, lots of fun stuff!

For FNSI, I finished knitting my Tri-cowl scarf - here is a pic of me modelling it for you all.  It is lovely and warm and just right for this Antarctic Vortex the south east of Australia is experiencing at the moment. I have obviously picked the right year to have taken up knitting again - lol!

I also found some time to start my Haunted House for this month's theme for the Hallowe'en Ornie SAL.  

Side panel from "Halloween Days Sewing Basket"

JCS Halloween Ornie Mag, 2015

p. 89

Stitched on overdyed lilac 28 ct evenweave

My own choice of DMC and speciality threads

Then on Saturday, I followed one of my other passions - cooking.  I made Steak and mushroom pie (pastry and all) and Brookies (Brownies/Cookies).

Yummo! (If I say so myself)

Over Saturday and Sunday, I worked some more on American Baby and Day 11 of Santa's 12 Days of Christmas:

Across the weekend, I also spent quite a bit of time setting up my new blog:

Christmas Ornie SAL 2015

I would love it if you went and checked it out and even more if you would like to join - the details are all on the blog.

So, in all a most productive weekend except I developed a terrible toothache in one of my premolars - so it was off to the dentist for me yesterday who suspects it is a sinus infection in my tooth!  So, more antibiotics for me (my third lot in as many months) and very strong painkillers until the antibiotics work their magic - I can tell you that tooth hurts so much if I even think about touching it!  No fun at all!

I hope that all is well with you and yours,

hugs,

Santa SAL

Hi everyone,

I have finally got back to my Prairie Schooler Santa's Twelve Days of Christmas SAL which I do every Sunday with my dear, dear friend Linda.  Now, for me this SAL started in January, 2012 - so it would be nice to finish the 12th day this year.

Well, I may actually be on track for that because I can now present to you......

DAY EIGHT!

Now, you may remember that I told you all a couple of blog posts ago, that finally my baking/cooking mojo seems to have come back.  Well, I am enjoying my cooking again.  Here we have a yummy Beef Stroganoff and a light and fluffy crab omelette I made for a couple of meals.

This next pic is not my cooking but last night TraderVic and I went out with some close friends to an old Wesleyan meeting house which has been converted into a sort of pub/bar/restaurant called the Wesley Anne (clever play on words, hey?)

Monday night is two for one night, so my delicious dinner of Chicken and Cheddar Pie with garlic mash and mushy peas was only $11.50! Quite a bargain!

Lastly, I leave you with two beautiful roses from my garden.  They looks so pretty with my mother's china and the sweet stitching dear Kim made for me.

That is all, off to work shortly.

hugs,