When kits run short of threads...

...one needs to either complain (and hopefully get more threads) or smile as a chance to become creative makes itself known. I chose the latter as this was a freebie kit that came with the February issue of CrossStitcher. Thousands of these are made and sometimes someone miscounts threads - in the end I only needed to add a little white to complete it and that was for an extra bit that wasn't part of the pattern.

I really liked the Owl freebie kit and started it the same day I got it, though my son's illness got in the way of craft time so I didn't get round to finishing it till last night. I measured everything carefully and found that I'd be able to make a 2 sided scissor fob as there was enough fabric for 2 of the 5 x 5 squares of Aida.  I wasn't sure what I'd do on the back but I left that for later.

The owl went smoothly, especially because I'd taken the time to measure the centre and mark both that and the starting place for the different parts. At one point the scarf on the bottom half reminded people of a ray gun and later it resembled a nerf gun more - this is the fun of stitching - seeing what shapes pop out during the stitching, I decided to not backstitch the scarf fringe but to use Ghiordes Knot: instead so I now have a 3-D fringe. I used wheat Hoffman's batik for the back of the keep as I didn't like how stretchy the felt was and I was certain I'd make a mess of sewing it as a result.

When I got to doing the scissor fob I discovered that I was a good 50 stitches short of finishing the blue and there was no more blue thread left. As a stingy stitcher who uses up thread to the last possible mm this was really surprising. Normally I have "stacks" left over as kits usually include enough for a less experienced stitcher to be able to complete it even if they have to rip a bit. I too had to rip as I'd started the column of 5 blue stitches doing the 5 next to each other before before doing the next row. This would have mirrored what you can see on the right in the photo above. Half way up was the place where I ran out so I carefully removed all of that and re-did the rows but then doing them in columns of 20 instead - I had enough for 2 whole columns so stopped after that.

As I finished colours I decided I could stitch them onto the back in a "circle" and decided to start with the bit of orange I was certain to have leftover after backstitching as I'd made a note of how much I'd needed on the owl itself.  I then did the yellow and green and then the white. It was at this point that I discovered the blue issue so I looked at what I had left and decided to use the last of the brown to make one row and some of the remaining grey to make the other two rows.  I only had enough grey left (one length of 2 strands of thread) that would do about 25 stitches but needed another 100 to complete the back so went with some white from my own stash to complete the back and used the grey to do the backstitching around the edge of the front to make the biscornu shape.

In the end I'm very happy with the result - this is really a one of a kind fob which uses the basic pattern and then does it's own thing.

Size: Scissor keep: 3 1/8" x 4 1/2" / 8 cm x 11.5 cm - fob: 1 2/2" / 4 cm across the middle
Fabric: 14ct Aida
Thread: 7 colours.