Sunday 27 December 2015

Cheryl's December Ornament

Itsy Bitsy
by Charlette Dockens

I chose this chart to stitch for December as it is just so darn cute!  I stitched it on 14 count plastic canvas and backed it with felt.  A quick and easy finish to end the year.

"Itsy Bitsy" by Charlette Dockens of Charlette's Collectibles is featured in the 2015 Just Cross Stitch Halloween Issue.

Monday 21 December 2015

November & December Done and Dusted!!

This is a real shoe-horn post.... I have finished off November's creepy tree finally... and added December's free choice and combined them to be a big hurdle finish on this design - "Dancing in the Moonlight" by Praiseworthy Stitches.

So here we are.... the creepy tree finished.... along with the raven, cat and resident ghosts!

"Dancing in the Moonlight" - Praiseworthy Stitches
I still need to add beads and a bit of back stitch but that will be done at the end when everything else is stitched.

Did you notice my lovely new needle minder?  Just perfect for Halloween stitching - a spider in his silvery blingy web!

So that's me done for 2015.... now I just need to start planning for my 2016 stitching!

Before I go though, I just want to say thank you to Jo for hosting such an awesome blog for all of us that love to stitch Halloween...  It has been great fun seeing all the great stitching over the year as well!

Til we meet again in 2016, have a wonderful Christmas and New Year!  See you all again soon!

Friday 11 December 2015

Jo's December Ornament

Remember the Blue Ribbon Design's Creepy Tree from November?  Well, I liked it so much I stitched all eight blocks and added another BRD to make a Box of Treats:


Here are the side views:





You can read all about it on my blog post here - Serendipitous Stitching

Saturday 5 December 2015

E is for Eek, Eisoptrophobia, Ectoplasm and Enchantment - Revisited

When we first started this blog I made a series of posts beginning with each letter of the alphabet starting with A.  Unfortunately, they ground to a halt after L.  So in honour of The Alphabet Club hosted by Chiara I have decided to resurrect the original posts and link up each month with the rest of the Alphabet Club posters.  To learn more about this SAL follow the Alphabet Club link to Chiara's blog.


E is for Eek from A Dark Alphabet designed by Julie and Becky's Note of Friendship blog.   There are lots of things in this picture to make you go "EEK!" from spiders to ghosts and bats.

One friend of mine was told that to keep spiders away you should place a conker in each corner of the room.  So every time we visited in the Autumn there were little piles of conkers all over the floor as the children wanted to play with them.

Spider Banner - Cross Stitch Pattern

I found a great list of Hallowe'en related phobias while searching for Things That Make You Go EEK including this one:

Eisoptrophobia - fear of mirrors, or seeing oneself in a mirror 

E is also for Ectoplasm -  a supernatural viscous substance that supposedly exudes from the body of a medium during a spiritualistic trance and forms the material for the manifestation of spirits.

Ghost Dance - Cross Stitch Kit

And when you have ghosts, who're you gonna call? 

Pixel People - Ghostbusters - PDF Cross Stitch Pattern - INSTANT DOWNLOAD
GHOSTBUSTERS!!

The final E is for Enchantment, the act of putting someone (or something under a spell).  Sometimes used as a curse (Sleeping Beauty's Enchanted Castle) or as a Love Spell, we also use the word to describe something which captivates our attention - "your stitching is enchanting!"

Teresa Wentzler has to be the Mistress of enchanting designs and here is one fittingly called The Enchanter:

Preview Image

Teresa has this to say about the design on her website:
This piece was designed in response to numerous requests for a "wizard". Since I am an avid reader of fantasy, inspiration for this project was certainly not lacking! The challenge, of course, was to come up with something original: ideally something that was a synthesis of my favorite impressions from all that I'd read and/or seen. I chose to show a young wizard (mage), perhaps an apprentice, studying and practicing his art. Exactly why I decided to show this aspect instead of a grander portrait of a wizard in full regalia doing something appropriately fantastical I'm not sure. Perhaps it's because I feel the process of "becoming" (growing in knowledge) is a journey that never truly ends....


And here is another Enchanted design -


Which designer enchants you most with their creations?






Tuesday 1 December 2015

November-Creepy Tree

I didn't finish the ornament I intended to have for this month but, I quickly stitched this tree. After seeing Jo's entry I remembered and added another ornament to my Behind the Gate project.
Behind the Gate
Blue Ribbon Designs 

Gwen