There's a ghost kitty!

I finished up as much as I'm going to of part 3 of The Great Cheshire Pumpkin SAL, and I absolutely love the little ghost kitty!

Looking forward to part 4 being released this coming weekend so I can finish up that moon (which was charted in pumpkin colors, but I changed mine to green cheese colors!).

I've also spent some time on Nora Corbett's Un Ricamo Per Rinascere, and am enjoying watching it come to life. It is amazing to me that Nora can take seven colors of floss, with no back stitching, and create detailed stone work like this:

I'm going to spend this week working on the Rosewood Manor piece, so I can work on the next SAL part guilt-free when it comes out.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Designers helping Italy

A couple of years ago  I was lucky enough to be able to tour (and shop in!) Casa Cenina's warehouse in Italy; here is Aida, their "warehouse" cat:

Casa Cenina has brought several designers together to aid in the efforts to rebuild after the earthquake that struck a year ago; the designers have donated exclusive charts, and all of the proceeds of sales will go to the Italian Civil Protection. An especially nice feature is that the charts are available for download, so there are no shipping fees; the charts that are available (and information about the project) can be found here: Casa Cenina.

Nora Corbett is one of the designers who donated a chart, which I bought and printed out yesterday. As it hasn't been stitched yet, there is no actual photo, just Nora's pencil sketch on the front page. It looks like it is the statue of an angel, holding an urn of greenery; I picked a fabric that reminded me of a garden to stitch it on:

I'm hoping to make a small start on it this week; it's always kind of fun to see a design appear when you haven't seen an actual picture of the finished piece.

Before I start I want to finish up part 3 of The Great Cheshire Pumpkin SAL, which was released this past Saturday (I nudged Deb into a bit of an early release, and she was an easy sell!). I'm hoping to finish it up today; here is where I left off last night:

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

All caught up...

...and ready for the next part, which should be released this Sunday or next Monday; The Great Cheshire Pumpkin SAL by Tempting Tangles:

Of course I'm playing with colors, brightening it up a bit and adding some sparkle. The witch's dress and hat were stitched with Silk Lame Braid, which has a metallic woven in, and I used beads for the decorations; the beads are actually citron, to match the socks (because every good witch has to color coordinate!), but they look more gold in the picture.

I'm also using some Silk'n Colors in place of DMC; the broom bristles were stitched with one color, and the leaves with another. It's nice to get a lot of variegation without having to change colors all the time.

I'm hoping to stay up-to-date with this one, to have it done before Halloween, and in the meantime I've made a good start on a Rosewood Manor model.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Stitching for me!

Last Friday I finished up Hallow-day Inn, and it will be on its way home to my customer later today:

The entire time I was stitching it I was thinking about which colors I would use if I stitched it for myself. I was tempted to buy the chart and do it, but I just have so many other projects I already own that it seemed silly.

I have a Rosewood Manor piece and two Nora Corbetts already in my possession, but I decided to take a few days to work on something for myself. Tempting Tangles has another terrific SAL going, called The Great Cheshire Pumpkin SAL, and it's perfect for my overwhelming desire to stitch with bright, cheerful colors. It was supposed to be a mystery SAL, but when Deb tried to put a small preview on Etsy it ended up showing the entire design; I think that's okay, though, as a lot of people commented that they liked seeing the whole thing.

Part 1 was released a couple of weeks ago; I stitched the partial witch from it on Saturday, using PTP's Haunted on Belfast:

Then part 2 was released just yesterday, so I was able to finish the little cutie:

And here is where I am as of last night:

I'm hoping to finish part 2 this week, then I'll start on the RM piece and work on it until part 3 is released in a couple of weeks.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Stitching I can share

I am stitching Breanda Gervais' Hallow-day Inn for someone I met through Facebook, and while I like the design I am not thrilled with the look of one strand of floss over-2 on 32ct fabric. It is what the directions call for, and I did make sure that my customer was okay with it (she was, as she likes the primitive look), but as a two-strand girl it is just not my cup of tea!

I also think the chart photo is misleading, as I am 99.9% sure that the model was stitched with two strands; look at the difference:

I know the fabric in the model is darker, but just looking at the stitches I don't see any way that it was done with only one strand of floss. But, all that really matters is that the recipient is happy with the result!

I'm hoping to have it done within the next week or so:

Hope those in the US have a happy Independence Day, and to everyone a great stitchy week!