Happy Halloween - Fall & Christmas Finishes

 BBD "Cast A Spell"

32ct Belfast Linen Natural

WDW - Jack-O-Lantern & DMC threads

Hello bloggers! Welcome to all my followers and to my new followers. We have had the most beautiful weather here in Northern California (Bay Area 69 degrees) - all sunshine. Hope all of my blogging friends are safe and warm. I pray for your safety.

After seeing everyone's wonderful Halloween Ornaments I wanted to share my one Halloween project I did with you. Last year I stitched this design from BBD. Now mind you I had no blog last year and had just started cross-stitching again. I choose to randomly place the designs from the booklet with intentions of adding more to it this year. Nope didn't get done. No idea how I am going to finish this. So to the pile to be done with others it goes for now:) 

 Fall SAL - By The Bay

32ct Belfast Linen hand dyed by me - Lt Grey

Used Rhodes stitches for the as suggested by Donna. 

All Finished.

 Someone had taken a photo of their Fall sal project from this view and I thought it showed the specialty stitches really well. So I tried taking a photo from the same angle.

Do you like my silk flowers? Picked them up from Dollar Tree store. The frame I got from our thrift store for 80cents and 35% off (store wide closing sale) that. Unfortunately our Hospice Thrift store is moving to another town. But I sure shopped & stocked up for frames for my cross stitch projects before they closed.

 

 Now to decide where to display? I love that I now have Two completed projects from

By the Bay and framed. So I was experimenting as to where to put it.

 This is where I ended up placing it for now.  I enjoy seeing it in the corner of the kitchen.

 2012 JCS Christmas Ornament Issue

Mosey N' Me - "Santa's Helper" pg 62

32ct Flax Natural Linen 

Threads: All the Gentle Arts Simply Shaker Sampler threads reccomended & WDW

This month I participated in an Holiday Ornament exchange thru Ellen Maurer-Stroh Cross Stitch Forum or as we refer to it as EMS. My partner Alexia has received it and now I can share with you. This design caught my eye from the first time I opened the magazine. When I first started stitching it (the threads & fabric I picked up while at Needle in a Haystack) I hadn't  realized that their were 2 different specialty stitches. Let alone that I had not done these stitches before.  

 Triple Tied cross stitch - Vertical band on sheep 

& 

Mosaic stitch - Horizontal band on sheep

One is called Triple Tied cross stitch and the other is Mosaic Stitch. In the back of the magazine their are Stitch Illustrations........Hump... I really had to study these and of course I Googled the stitches to learn more. Well make a long story short the illustrations provided in the magazine are very good. But still I needed more information or more pictures to go by. What I looked at was here at Arts and Designs.com. I had not seen this website before and I loved the glossary of stitches they provide.
In the Sheeps body I used Gentle Art Simply Wool - Tradewind (Needle In a Haystack didn't have the color Oatmeal). It's a beautiful thin wool for needlework. I was comfortable with these new stitches after I trained my eye to follow the pattern. It went really fast and it turned out to be FUN.

 First time I made a twisted cord of any sort. I know you are thinking "OH THAT'S EASY" - Not for me it was. This was challenging enough. I'm always impressed with how the rest of you make those gorgeous twisted cords.

And finally the finished ornament. Alexia said she likes it and plans to hang it on display in her new house. It was my pleasure Alexia:)) Sorry this photo was taken at night. I had finished sewing it and then wrapped it up and packaged it. Went out in the mail the next morning. If I didn't get it in the mail ASAP I was afraid I wouldn't want to part with it:))) I really love this ornament. I'm sure I will stitch this again for me - sometime....     Hope everyone has safe time tomorrow. I have stocked up on many bags of my favorite candy - Snickers, Reeses Cups, Kit Kats, Baby Ruth Bars, Twix & Milky Ways. I do not want my house Tee Peed the night after Halloween (just kidding). We got over 85 trick or treaters last year. I hope we get more this year.
Always with my Love and Appreciation - Annette