Link-up for Fully-Finished Gallery SAL March 2019 (and 5th Blogoversary winner)

Hello all!

Welcome back to the second month of the Fully-Finished Gallery SAL 2019. I'm going to sound like a broken record, but thank you again to all who took part and/or left comments in February. We had an amazing 70 FFOs from 22 participants. Let's see if March can be just as successful.

The aim of this SAL is to encourage all cross stitchers to fully-finish at least some of their completed cross stitch projects and proudly show them off via this gallery. These might be projects which have been gathering dust for weeks/months/years and/or projects which have recently been completed; it doesn't matter.

Whether you are a regular fully-finisher, an ad-hoc fully-finisher or a reluctant fully-finisher, you are all welcome. There is no need to sign up and no commitment required, just pop in when you have one or more fully-finished cross stitch projects to show.

If you are unsure of anything, the FFG SAL 2019 page at the top of my blog may help, or just ask.

Since the last link-up I had good intentions for delving into my Box of Shame but, alas, it was not to be so I have only two recent offerings for March:

 Green Sleeping Dragon
stitched last month for the February Smalls SAL

 March In Aquamarine

stitched this month for my Year Of Birthstones

Now over to you.

Given the impressiveness of last month's entries, I'm really looking forward to seeing which projects you have fully-finished since then. Quite a few stitchers have told me they've made notes of new techniques they'd like to try, which is really encouraging. Perhaps if you've been inspired by or incorporate a technique you've seen from someone else you could mention them or provide a link back?

Please link-up using the URL of your FFG SAL post and not the home page of your blog, adding a thumbnail of a finish and either your name or your blog name as the caption. The link-up will remain open for 10 days, closing at 6am UK time on 20th March.

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And please don't forget to follow other links and see what fellow fully-finishers have been up to; you never know, other projects may give you an idea for your next finish!

Once the link-up has closed I shall update the FFG SAL 2019 page with the number of entrants and entries.


But this post isn't finished yet...

The Make It and Knit and Stitch It 2019 shows were in my hometown a couple of weeks ago so how could I resist not going when the venue was within walking distance of my house?!

It was a fairly good show and I was a 'fairly' good girl! Stash-enhancing wise I only picked up one small chart and one small kit, but I did pick up quite a few ideas and relevant things for fully-finishing off projects (= weakness for fabric FQs!) The funny thing is I haven't started the majority of the projects I got these finishing ideas and goodies for!

There's one in particular that I want to share with you, which gave me an idea... how about trying to incorporate some sort of Featured Finishing Idea in this SAL? (or FFI because us cross stitchers need more acronyms!) It won't be every month and I'd like to try to show 'raw' ideas so that you can interpret them yourselves.

Here's the first Featured Finishing Idea:

Mobile arms by pinflair.co.uk - at the show these were available as just the arms or as a kit, using fabric to cover the 2mm greyboard to make a mobile (picture on the right is supplied with the arms as a finishing idea). But, with my cross stitch FFO head on, I immediately saw their potential for hanging lots of small cross stitch projects. Apart from projects, time and patience, the only other thing you would need is a hook in the ceiling:

Each project could be finished off with felt or backing fabric, or attached back to back to make double-sided ornies. The number and/or lengths of ribbon could be adjusted to accommodate less or more projects and, of course, the projects don't all have to be the same size or shape.

So many ideas have been swimming round my head for themes - Christmas, Halloween, seasons (or maybe one for each season), snowflakes, a particular colour, hearts, a monthly set, geometric designs... the list is endless! Or it could just be made up of various unrelated designs.

I'll be using mine next year for a set of Christmas ornies which, with a few adjustments, I'd like to make interchangeable too. In for a penny...

Any of you like this idea too?


And finally... the winner of my 5th Blogoversary giveaway.

Thank you for all your kind comments for my blogoversary. 14 of you asked to be entered so I loaded up the RNG and it chose entry number 4. Congratulations to...

Cathy, A Stitching Grandma!

Just leave a comment and I'll reply asking for the necessary details.


As for the FFG SAL, next month's link-up will go live at 6am GMT on 10th April. I hope to see you there!

Happy fully-finishing!
Rachel x