Temperature SAL

I've been stitching my Temperature SAL this month to catch up as I have been quite a way behind, and I'm delighted to have finished half of my cake band temperature record. 

Each day I have used timeanddate.com to look at the highest and lowest temperature of either here at home or where we are if on holiday or visiting our daughter in Cardiff. 

I have two cake bands for this year's Temperature SAL; a winter one covering January, February, March, October, November and December, and a summer one April, May, June, July, August and September.

My summer band is now complete, I love it as the very hot days in bright yellow remind me of, firstly our holiday in Germany, and then the two very hot weeks here at home. 

I need to measure round my cake tin to decide where to do the finishing edge before backing it in baking parchment. I've done this with stitched cake bands I have done before and it reduces the need for full washing. I use a very light brushing of pva glue to attach the paper and then can wipe clean after each use.

I just need to work on my winter band now but it may have to wait a while as I have a few more urgent bits to do. 

Trick or Treat Blog Hop 2022

 🎃🦇👻🕸 Happy Halloween 🕸👻🦇🎃

It's that time of year when we celebrate anything spooky, All Hallow's Eve is a celebration of the dead the day before All Saint's Day when we celebrate all who did good. Nowadays it's a chance to dress up and decorate our homes with ghosts, spiders, ghouls and most importantly pumpkins. 

I don't carve a pumpkin now our children are grown up but I do decorate the lounge with my Halloween ornaments, although some are more harvest/autumn than Halloween. My Happy Halloween post has plenty of photos.

Halloween also means it's Trick or Treat Blog Hop time thanks to the lovely Jo at Serendipitous Stitching. You need to collect a letter from each blog to reveal a Mystery Phrase. Pop over to Jo's blog to see the list of bloggers who have a spooky letter ....

..... my letter is 

Jo asked us all to include a photo of something we have stitched for Halloween. My photo is the ornament I stitched for July's Topsy Turvy SAL. It's a lovely free design from Durene Jones.

Keep my letter safe and follow the Halloween Trick or Treat Blog Hop 2021 by visiting 

http://janalynmarie.blogspot.com/

Have a super Halloween be that enjoying a film, dressing up, pumpkin carving or just eating treats (no-one likes a trick), have fun being spooky 👻🕸🦇

Happy Halloween

Although we are away for Halloween I have still put out our bits and bobs. Our sideboard is full of my Halloween stitching, many items are ones I have received for various exchanges, it's growing into quite a collection.

I have also included a few of my autumn stitching on the sideboard because although our mantle is the autumn theme I do light candles on it. I collected and dried some leaves and Chinese lanterns from our garden for the centre piece, I'm quite pleased with it.

I hope you've had a lovely Halloween be it spooky or not! 

Gifted Gorgeousness in October

 

Gifted Gorgeousness is hosted each month by the lovely Jo at Serendipitous Stitching. GG, on the 15th of each month, is when we share our latest gifts. These can be gifts given or received, or any item made using fabric, threads, buttons, ribbon, chart, backing fabric that has been gifted. If you visit Jo's blog you'll find the links to everyone's Gifted Gorgeousness posts.

You may have seen my gifted cushion on my FFO post. The cushion was pre-made and has been in my stash for many many years. Our daughter's fiance's grandmother turned 90 at the start of October, everyone (including us) call her Gran so I stitched up the cushion with Gran on instead of her name.

The design was with the cushion but only one corner so I reversed it for the other and found an Alphabet design just the right size. I recently discovered her favourite colour is blue, perfect timing for choosing my colour scheme. She looks very pleased with her gift. 

My other gift was also on my FFO post. Sadly one of the Needlecraft Haven ladies passed away last month. Angi was such a fun lady, joining in our exchanges and coming to our meet ups with Gill who is also a NH member. I stitched Gill a mini pillow as they had been close friends for many years. 

This was taken at our last meet up in 2017 as with all the ups and downs of recent years we haven't held another one since. Angi is wearing bright pink and Gill is the lady on the left in a checked shirt.

We're currently on holiday in France although it's our last day today. We've had a lovely time, quite good weather too but I haven't done any stitching. The overnight hotels never have good enough lighting and as we're on holiday with friends we've been playing cards (and drinking wine) most evenings. Hopefully my needle will be busy once we're home.

Fully Finished in October

 

Rachel, Ten Hour Stitcher, hosts Fully Finished Objects, a super chance for us to show and tell about the crafty items we have completely finished. Thanks Rachel, your FFO prompt each month really helps me finish my projects, especially my letters for this year's church tree.

I have finished my final 9 letters which means as well as family initials I have stitched every letter of the alphabet.

Another Fully Finished Object is my New Year ornament which I stitched for September's Topsy Turvy SAL. 

In also stitched and finished this mini pillow for my friend Gill. She is a member of Needlecraft Haven along with her very close friend Angi. Sadly Angi passed away early September and so I stitched this for Gill. Angi was one of the first members of Needlecraft Haven and until her illness was very active in our daily chats, meet ups and exchanges. We all miss her, she was a lovely lady.

I'm not sure if Rachel will allow this item as although I stitched it it was already made up. I will say it was a nightmare to stitch and I did catch the back a few times. I also had to blanket stitch the opening edges as they were just cut and started to fray.

The cushion was for our daughter's fiance's grandmother who just turned 90 at the start of October.

As we get nearer Christmas I probably won't be able to share many FFOs as they will be gifts, guess that means there will be lots in January - hee hee 

Topsy Turvy SAL Valentine's

 

October stitching is all about Valentine's, you can stitch or make anything about love, hearts, friendship

Lizzie Kate has a lovely design on her freebie page
https://www.lizziekate.com/free.html

There are links to freebies on last year's Facebook post, use the topic link #TTValentines 

The Album for Valentine's on Facebook and at Needlecraft Haven will be open on 20th October, I'll be sharing in my blog on the 20th too.

Happy Valentine stitching  

Here's my February by Drawn Thread, I'm not sure what I'll stitch this time