Link-up For Fully Finished Gallery SAL - January 2021

Hello all!

It's the 10th of the month so time for another Fully Finished Gallery SAL, the place to show your FFOing achievements since your last link-up.

And this year there is a new logo! I thought I'd go Ye Olde Worlde, with a scroll of parchment written (on purpose) in Blackadder font. It's available on my sidebar if you want to grab it.

The link-up for this SAL opens on the 10th of each month and stays open for 10 days so you can join in whenever you're ready.

But before delving into this month's FFOs, let's take a look back at 2020.

In 2020, 394 FFOs were submitted by 18 different bloggers - fairly comparable to the 389 FFOs by 23 participants in 2019. That's amazing! Thank you all so much, not only for joining in, but in taking the time to create wonderful fully-finished objects from your beautiful stitching.

For those who like statistics, here's how many participated and how many entries were received each month:

Apart from June, there's a fairly good correlation between the two, with obvious enthusiasm at the beginning and end of the year waning a little in the middle.

This FFG SAL isn't competitive, but I do have to do a few shout-outs to:

* Jo, Leonore, Mary H and Suzanne who linked up every month.

* Jo who submitted the most FFOs during the year with 55, closely followed by Suzanne with 51.

* Katie who submitted the most entries in one month with 19 in January.

But well done all of you; even one FFO is one less in those Boxes/Drawers/Cupboards Of Shame!

So let's see what 2021 brings - any guesses as to how many FFOs could be achieved this year? There's probably not as much of a backlog as in previous years, so I'm expecting numbers to be a little lower.

Having said that, I had an FFOing binge during Twixmas so am starting the year off with 17!

First up is Daisy Hugs, a start from 2015 finished in December 2020. It's FFOd to match last month's Daisy Umbrella, on metallic card with some gems for a bit of bling and a ribbon bow to finish:

Next up, October's Smalls SAL piece, Witchy Spookie Hootie. He's been mounted in a frame made from black card covered with black glittered felt, with ribbon added for a hanging loop and ric-rac for an extra bit of colour:

Then we have November and December's Smalls SAL pieces, two Christmas Words Cards by Durene Jones. For these I used foam mounting board, covering the back piece with sparkly fabric and the front piece with the padded cross stitch. Silver and blue tinsel wool was added around the outside (to cover the join!) and as a hanging loop, and a little tassel added at the bottom:

And then the Gold Stars Christmas Tree started on Christmas Day and finished a few days later. The ornie was originally going to replicate the shape of the tree, but as I didn't want to lose the fabric it became a mini pillow, with gold and silver tinsel wool twisted together to create the edging, bow and hanger. Bling bling!

Finally, we have Durene Jones' Cute Animal Calendar. Although stitched on one piece of fabric for the 2017 Smalls SAL, I always intended to FFO each month separately. However, I didn't leave much space between them so had that nagging doubt about cutting the fabric. But on Boxing Day I took the plunge and turned this...

... into these...

... and then into these:

Each month's piece was stuck onto felt and then onto metallic linen-effect card. Ribbon was added as a hanging loop and onto which a button and a couple of raindrops were attached at the bottom.

I wanted to mix rather than match the purples, greens and blues and deliberately make each card different, but I just couldn't do it; apart from the backing card, my brain told me they all had to be identical! In some ways it's a shame, but it does mean that I can save other card-finishing ideas for another time.

So with 17 FFOs to start off the 2021 FFG SAL, it's now over to you.

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 January.

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And please don't forget to follow other links and see what fellow fully-finishers have been up to; an encouraging comment can go a long way.

Next month's post will go live on 10th February at 6am UK time. Hope to see you there!

Take care,
Rachel x