October Smalls SAL

I had really hoped to get in more than one small project this month but time just got away on me. Consequently this is my one and only Halloween small stitch which as you can see is still lacking the final finishing. This is Witch's Kitchen by The Primitive Hare and is a freebie which is available on her site here.

 

 I'm already scouting out some smalls for next month's SAL. My mojo has somewhat deserted me though and I just don't feel like any new starts. I must be sick!!

I know that winter is just around the corner but I was a little surprised when I came across this fellow on my way home late this afternoon.

 

We had a large number of the snowy owls in our area last year due to a shortage of food in their own habitat. The flew further south than they had ever been seen before. I wasn't sure how many we would see this year and I certainly didn't expect to see one here quite this early! Now I'll be keeping an eye out to see if others are arriving. 

My youngest son dropped by this weekend for a short visit. While he was here he decided to get started on some pumpkin carving for me. He picked out a pattern, got my pumpkin cleaned and scraped and then transferred the pattern onto the surface. After that he ran out of steam and I ended up carving out the pieces. This design was a bit of a challenge to carve but the results were certainly worth it.

 

This piece took about 2 1/2 hrs to complete so we'll see just how ambitious I am when it comes to doing another. 

Happy Halloween!!! 

 

October Stitch From Stash

October has been one of those month where I seem to have lost my mojo for a good part of the month. I picked up a respiratory bug early in the month which I just can't seem to shake the remnants of. Most evenings I'm just too tired to stitch and my daylight hours have been taken up with other activities. Nonetheless I was rather surprised at exactly how much stitching I have accomplished. Most of this was done during the past week or so.

As you can see, Fancey Blackett's Brooms didn't advance too much this month.

 

 Carriage House Samplings Pumpkin Farm was finished off right at the beginning of the month prior to my getting sick. It can be seen at this post here. I dropped it off at the framer this week and will have it back in a couple of weeks.

With this finished off I allowed myself a new start from my stash by Blackbird Designs - House on Acorn Hill. I loved the colour scheme on this one from the very first time I saw the chart. As with many of the charts, either the lighting when the picture was taken or the dye lots of the floss result in far different results when you start stitching. Here are three of the main colours of floss that were called for in the stitching of the leaves and the acorn.

These are 3 different colours of floss but the dye lots of each resulted in 3 floss which didn't give me much variation in colour. The chart also called for Gentle Art Mulberry for some of the leaves and the lettering. My dye lot was so dark that it wasn't much different than the above colours. As a result I've done a lot of substitutions with this piece and I'm pretty happy with the results so far. My lighting here tonight wasn't the best. There really is much more variation in daylight between the different leaves.

I'm pretty close to a finish on The Primitve Hare's Witch's Kitchen.  I counted wrong and had to frog out some of the motifs on the right but all is well now. I should have this finished up by Halloween since only the border is left.

There was one chart I purchased last month that I forgot to include in my count but since it was my exemption month it doesn't count anyways. The chart in question was another Pineberry Lane Fancey Blackett pdf called October Ride. The only monies I spent this month were for the JCS 2014 Christmas Ornament issue. So I spent a grand total of $9.99! Yippee!!

Christmas stitching should begin any time now so I'm checking out my stash to see what goodies I can come up with. Stay tuned! 
 

Thanksgiving Greetings

A very Blessed and Happy Thanksgiving to all my family and friends from our house to your house!

Here are some shots of the beautiful fall foliage which I'm so very thankful that I get to witness in my small corner of the world. These pics were taken over the past couple of days during my travels throughout the country around our village.

 

I'm not sure what these flowers are, mums perhaps. All I know is that they looked so pretty lining this garden fence.

However you spend it I hope your Thanksgiving is a good one, full of family, friends and food!

October WIPocalypse - missed the Lunar Eclipse

Looks like my post title will tell you what I was not doing last night. I did not wake early in order to see the eclipse. The need for sleep won out and I slept right through the alarm which intended to wake me for the big event. However I do have a lot of stitching to show for this month's full moon WIPocalypse.

From the looks of my original list I am in fact stitching a number of pieces but not necessarily the ones on my list. I tend to change my mind a lot so this really doesn't surprise me. My latest finish though was one of the original choices from my list. Carriage House Samplings Pumpkin Farm was stitched as a thank you gift for my quilting buddy Thea who has finished off two of my cross stitch pieces as quilted wall hangings and is about to start work on a third. 

Being as this is an older chart, I checked online for any corrections and did in fact find one on the CHS webpage. I was halfway through the sideways house though when I found a second mistake which had not been caught. The house is charted to be stitched entirely in the darker creamy yellow with no separate colour around the door or the eaves. I got thinking that I didn't remember the house as being that yellow and sure enough when I pulled out the coloured cover I noticed the difference. It meant frogging out every thing that I had stitched on the filling in so that I could add that differentiation around the door and eaves as well as stitch the front of the house in the correct colour. I will definitely be contacting them to correct this mistake.
Thea has asked me to pick out the frame for the piece and she may accompany me when the time comes. She was sooo happy when she saw it which made me happy too. Even the wacky pumpkin guys approve of this one!

After finishing this larger piece I allowed myself two new small starts. The first is a freebie from The Primitive Hare called Witch's Kitchen.

The second is from Lori Brechlin's Autumn at Notforgotten Farm book. It's called Turkey Trot pillow.

I'm also back to stitching again on Pineberry Lane Fancey Blackett's Brooms.

Lots of autumn/Halloween stitching going on around here so I figured it was about time I dug out some of my decor to match. I have most of my fall stuff out upstairs but the rec room was lacking much of anything so I filled it with some of my favourite Halloween pieces.

I'm still in the process of unpacking my Jim Shore Halloween tree but I should have it up shortly (if I can find where I stored it last year, lol!). Thanks for dropping by. Hope all my Canadian friends are getting ready for their Thanksgiving feasts this weekend!