Smalls SAL - October 2021

Hello all!

It's the last Friday of the month so time for the Smalls SAL. Thank you, Mary, for continuing to host this fun little SAL. Pop over to Mary's Blog to see what other participants have been stitching in the way of Smalls this month.

Each month I stitch a small project specifically for this SAL which doesn't appear elsewhere on my blog.

October is traditionally a Halloween small, stitched with Dark October in mind, and this year is no exception. This is another Spooky Hootie by Pinoy Stitch:

Witchy Hootie by PinoyStitch (etsy)

Stitch Count 29 wide by 40 high

Stitched on 16ct Wolf over-dyed aida by sewitall.com

Started - 1st October 2021

Finished - 6th October 2021

Total stitching time - 6 hours 5 minutes

I just love these little owls; small and quick to stitch, but so full of character! There are definitely more planned for future Octobers!

For November I start thinking about Christmas so next month will be the penultimate of six pieces started during November and December for the last couple of years.

Take care,
Rachel x

The Loneliness Of Autumn - 210 hours

Hello everyone!

I am so happy to be catching up with this project and am now where I should have been at the end of September - so only one month behind.

This is, of course, The Loneliness of Autumn by Leonid Afremov which I am SALing with Leonore extreme cross country one colour at a time.

During this ten hours I started a new colour, 741 tangerine. It's fairly evenly divided between the top half and bottom half of the chart, and in relatively chunky blocks around the yellow already stitched. As luck would have it, it took me exactly ten hours to complete the top half! Hopefully you can see the difference, especially in the branches of the left tree and around the streetlight on the right:

If my timings are correct, the end of this colour should just about coincide with the end of the next ten hours of stitching. Wouldn't that be great!

Take care,

Rachel x

In The Gloaming - 50 hours

Hi all!

Well, Dark October has been good, and allowed me to put in another 10 hours on In The Gloaming.

Like I thought, I carried on and finished the monument but was then soooooo desperate to stitch the railings that I had a couple of late night into early morning sessions to do just that; a lovely treat for which I paid the price when the lack of sleep caught up with me!

Here's how it was at 40 hours:

And after the couple of long stitching sessions:

I'm still quite a way off finishing but think another 10 hours should be enough. However, I need to get back to The Loneliness Of Autumn so doubt I will be joining Tiff in her Dark October In The Gloaming Happy Dance.

I'm also cautiously wondering whether or not to backstitch the railings. It would require a lot of work, and would definitely make them 'pop' more, but then would I also have to backstitch the monument?

Another deciding factor is that I'm stitching a similar project, Gatekeeper, and if I backstitched the railings on this one I would have to do the same on that one and, as you can see, that would be a mega undertaking, so maybe not afterall!

Thoughts?

Take care,

Rachel x

The Loneliness Of Autumn - 200 hours

Hello everyone!

This is The Loneliness Of Autumn by Leonid Afremov which I am SALing with Leonore one colour at a time extreme cross country.

I'm still playing catch up but am now at the 200 hour mark - where I should have been at the end of August.

As predicted, I finished the current colour at roughly the same time I hit the 200 hour mark. I've got a few loose tails to finish off, but since they won't take more than a few minutes, I'll call it quits.

First up are the 190 and 200 hour comparison photos. I think it's quite obvious where the current colour, 741, colour was added in the bottom half as the yellow areas are much denser:

Then these are the comparison photos after finishing the 7th and 8th colours. Again, the change in the density of the yellow areas is quite obvious. This is now 39% complete after 26,169 stitches:

So moving on... the next colour is tangerine 740, requiring 2,343 stitches (only 30 less than the previous colour). This is mostly around the streetlights again so should give this piece even more of an autumnal glow.

This may not be a Halloween project, but at least tangerine is a great colour for stitching during Dark October.

Take care,

Rachel x

In The Gloaming - 40 hours

Hi all!

It was my hope that during Dark October I would be able to do a bit of Halloween stitching, and I have! Aside from the piece for this month's Smalls SAL, which you will see towards the end of the month, I've managed ten hours on In The Gloaming; yippee!!

Here's how I left it back in January:

And here's the progress as of now:

I'm so close to finishing the monument that I will carry on until that's completed, then next time I pick it up I'll only have the railings and a bit of backstitching around the birds to do. Exciting times!

If you want a reminder of how the finished piece will look, visit Tiff's blog as she's just finished hers!

I'm now off to do a bit of catching up on The Loneliness Of Autumn but am hoping to return to this for more Dark October stitching before the end of the month.

Take care,

Rachel x

Link-up For Fully Finished Gallery SAL - October 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.

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.

It's been another month where I've only FFOd one piece, but that's OK with me. This is JBW's French Country Butterfly, stitched over the summer months, mainly on train journeys. It's been FFOd as a mini pillow with co-ordinating fabric and barley twist cord:

Now it's your turn.

Please link-up using the URL of your FFG SAL post, 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 October.

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Let's see if it's been a month for FFOing things in preparation for Christmas...

Next month's FFG SAL post will go live on 10th November at 6am UK time.

*****

Naughty November

Some of you may remember that in November last year I ran a cheeky pre-Christmas mini new start binge called Naughty November, with one new start each of the four weekends during the month. I shall be doing the same again this year during the weekends of 6th/7th, 13th/14th, 20th/21st and 27th/28th of November.

Anybody fancy joining me? When I post my new start progress each Monday morning I'll include a linky-widget thing in case you do.

Yes, I know I've had a lot of new starts already this year, but I'm justifying them as they are part of what I hope will become a regular annual SAL!

Take care,

Rachel x

People's Choice SAL - Leaves

Hello all!

It's the first Saturday of the month so time for the People's Choice SAL run by Jo from Serendipitous Stitching. Continued thanks to Jo for hosting this unique SAL which has a different theme each month.

This month's theme is Leaves.

Given that autumn is my favourite season, and it's currently autumn in the UK, I thought I'd go with the autumnal interpretation of leaves. It's not that I don't enjoy the emergence of luscious new green leaves in spring, just that I prefer them when their colours change to numerous rich shades of red, orange and yellow.

I've chosen two little pieces to show.

The first is Autumn Bear from A Bear For All Seasons by Framecraft. This brings back special memories as he was started on my honeymoon flight. The leaves were a bit fiddly but well worth it:

The second is my renamed Autumn Twirls by Bent Creek. It's one of their calendar collection and should actually be November Twirls, but since I had no inclination to stitch any of the other months, I changed it to suit:

In the way of WIPs, there's nothing particularly autumnal so the best of the bunch has to be a different interpretation of leaves, and the healthy-eating Walter aka Grow Your Own by Bothy Threads. The carrots and half-stitched radishes both have leaves attached, and there's also the cabbage leaves he's eating. He's so adorable!

And that's where I'll 'leave' it *groan* for this month.

Next month's theme is Funny. I know there are some quite humorous designs out there so will look forward to those posts.

Take care,

Rachel x