People's Choice SAL - Designer Of 2024

Hello everyone!

It's the first Saturday of the month, and of another New Year, so time for, what is (at least for the time being) the final People's Choice SAL.

Jo, this has been a wonderful SAL and I have loved going through my finishes, WIPs and stash each month looking for pieces to match the theme. Thank you for the unique idea, thank you for hosting for five years, and thanks (I think!) to all participants for the enabling!

So we end with the theme of my chosen Designer Of 2024.

If the Designer Of 2024 correlates with the amount of pieces I will be stitching by any one designer over the course of the year, then the winner will be ZindagiDesigns on etsy, as they will provide the 12 pieces I am hoping to stitch for the Smalls SAL.

The story behind this purchase is that I fell in love with some Scandi/Nordic Christmas fabric and needed designs to go on them. A search through etsy revealed ZindagiDesigns as the closest to my requirements.

I love how three variations of the same theme are offered. I chose the square ones, although won't be stitching the numbers so some will require a bit of jiggling around.

Other than ZindagiDesigns, my planned WIPs and new starts for 2024 cover no less than 25 different designers, both companies and individuals, five of which will be new to me. I think I can safely say that I am not exactly a mega-fan of any particular company or person, at least not this year!

Perhaps, in another year, concentrating on a particular designer or two might be a good way of making progress on or whipping WIPs. Now there's food for thought...!

Take care,

Rachel x

People's Choice SAL - Chocolate

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 Chocolate.

For a chocoholic, I have only started two projects to do with this wonderful confectionary. I guess there's a big difference between eating it and stitching it!

The first is The History Of Chocolate, a Heaven and Earth Designs chart from the artwork of Randal Spangler. This has had 70 hours of work put into it (before I started blogging) but is so full of confetti I gave up. I expect one day I shall just pick it up and 'go for it', but when that day will be is anybody's guess!

The second WIP is Choc-o-holic by Margaret Sherry, started in 2015 and never worked on again because the numerous fractionals are a nightmare on 18ct! A restart on evenweave would not be out of the question, just such low priority right now compared to other WIPs and plans.

Chocolate comes in all sorts of shades, from creamy-white to very dark, so how about these three finishes from the Silhouettes range by Heritage Crafts to represent the colours of chocolate:

Keen to show more, I went diving into etsy to see what I could find...

These gnomes are carrying mouth-sized chocolate sweets in Chocolate Delivery by SodaStitchDesigns:

And for the drinking chocolate lovers, the wonderful Hot Chocolate Recipe by Stitchrovia. 'A Hug In A Mug'... I like that expression, especially if the hot chocolate involves cream and vegetarian marshmallows!

And where would Chocolate be without one particular factory?! This is Wonka Golden Ticket by WittyStitchCo:

Next month's theme is Designer of 2024 and seeing as I have already made my plans for next year, that will be easy to write about!

Take care,

Rachel x

People's Choice SAL - Circles

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 Circles.

Off the top of my head I couldn't recall stitching any circles, but after looking through my projects I realised I was wrong. Here are some of them...

The two big eyes of Winter Owl (six circles for the price of one here!):

The bubbles in these Seahorse and Dolphin Critters:

The balls in Dolphins With Ball (bit of a giveaway in the title there!) and Let's Play:

The sign in Platform 9 3/4 (it's a circle if you squint!):

The moon in In The Gloaming (you can just about see it on the right):

And lots of snow globes, most of which haven't been finished but these two have; JBW's Snow Globe and Ursula Michaels' Let's Be Frozen:

Some of my projects have been FFOd in circular apertures, such at Lucie Heaton's Tree Snow Globe and four of the Mr Men:

There are some circles in my stash too. I tend not to purchase circular projects, especially if they are designed as hoop finishes. But if they can be framed or finished as square ornies, I'll happily buy them! My favourites waiting in the wings are these four seasonal chart by FlyingFishXStitch (no longer on etsy):

And finally... 'one day' (hahaha) I'd like to stitch something from Ink Circles, not only because I like the idea of a mandala, but because I like mindless stitching with variegated threads. This one, Circular Logic, tops the list. It reminds me of Spirograph!

Gosh, that was quite an extensive post; hope you enjoyed it!

Next month's theme is Chocolate... I can feel the weight going on already!!!

Take care,

Rachel x

People's Choice SAL - Weather

Hello all!

It's the first Saturday of the month (actually the second, but I thought I'd confuse everyone by cheating and back-posting this!) 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 Weather.

In real life I'm not a fan of the heat and much prefer wind and rain to hot and dry (although do concede the latter is much better for drying washing!) and that seems to have been reflected in my stitching:

These two cuties are Puddle Duck and Waterlogged. I'm guessing Waterlogged was shaking himself dry after having splashed around in the puddle after the rain: 

Sheltering from a heavy downpour is Lickle Ted in April Shower:

Also sheltering from the rain is the mouse in this little Margaret Sherry design, which I named Daisy Umbrella:

And in keeping with the rain (although more of a drizzle this time) here's A Shower by Soda Stitch:

Luckily, I have stitched other weather-related projects too.

Here is Eeyore's Snowflake:

And this is Snowflake The Cactus by FuzzyFoxDesigns (etsy), keeping warm during the snowfall:

And finally, this is Autumn Twirls by Bent Creek. It is part of a monthly series and is Supposed to say 'November Twirls' to rhyme with the following month's 'December Swirls', but I only wanted to stitch this one so changed the wording. It's clever how just a few swirls of stitching gives a real sense of a windy day.

In the way of stash, I have Sudden Showers by Janlynn, a chart which (like far too many others) has been on my to-do list for well over 15 years! I believe most of the background and reflections are half-stitch to add depth to the design:

See, I told you I like the rain!

Next month's theme is Circles. Maybe I'll actually post that one on time!

Take care,

Rachel x

People's Choice SAL - Embellishments

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 Embellishments.

To embellish something is to add additional detail, so anything charted, such as beads, does not count. This means it's down to the imagination of the stitcher to add that 'something extra'.

There are a few projects where I have added beads, but these were covered by the beads theme last year, and a few where I have swapped out regular DMC for Etoile but that's not really 'embellishing' a project. Most of my embellishing comes with FFOing but, again, that's been a previous theme.

All of which means I'm really scraping the bottom of the barrel this month with a few projects where I have added just one charm!

These are four of an Advent set by JBW Designs showing the tiny bow, star, snowflake and heart charms I added:

This is Lizzie Kate's Joy, with an enamel Christmas tree charm:

And this is Snuffles In Purple, with a 'hand made with love' charm:

I do have a selection of Christmas and Harry Potter charms waiting to be used, and think I know which projects they will go with. I just need to remember to put the two together when the time comes!

So not much to show for this theme then. Next month's theme is Rainbow; that should be easier!

Take care,

Rachel x