2019/2020 NYE Mystery SAL - Part 29

Welcome to the 29th part of the NYE Mystery SAL! Sorry for the second delay of the day! I dozed off after dinner and didn't wake up till just now - the nap was unplanned, but apparently needed. While I was stitching part 28 it occurred to me how nice it is to finish off the shorter bits that have been parked all over my embroidery (and suddenly clearing up space when a lot happen at once) as it did when I was doing part 28 - "only" have 13 parked threads left - I had 19 before I started part 28.

2019/2020 NYE Mystery SAL - Part 28

Welcome to the 28th part of the NYE Mystery SAL! As I'm sitting here stitching along with you I keep getting the delightful *cough* sounds of a banger going off just outside the window - even though I know there are kids out there doing stupid things with fireworks I still jump out of my skin every time a louder one goes off. I will be glad when it's the second of January and things quieten down again! I'm sorry it's a little late - it took a moment to feel ok after the last series of bangs :(

2019/2020 NYE Mystery SAL - Part 27

Welcome to the 27th part of the NYE Mystery SAL! Hopefully the last part was a nice easy restful zoom (barring parked threads getting in the way - always a pain but worth not having to start and stop all the time) I'm not sure if you noticed how it suddenly brought the edge of the embroidery together making the line that much clearer to see.

2019/2020 NYE Mystery SAL - Part 26

Welcome to the 26th part of the NYE Mystery SAL! In 24 hours I will be giving the very last part of this SAL - there will be two more posts after that but they are not for the front pattern. I do hope you have been enjoying this SAL. I have been seeing some fun colours in the fb group! It's really fun to see both people who are just starting as well as people who are just about up to date with the latest pattern part all mixed together. Don't be afraid to jump in, even this far into things - remember not everyone stitches as fast and some people are taking things slow to make it last as long as possible - all ways are good ways to stitch this SAL!

2019/2020 NYE Mystery SAL - Part 25

Welcome to the 25th part of the NYE Mystery SAL! When you have finished stitching this part there will be only 7 parts left! The end is getting closer... but you still have over a day to go! When you have finished stitching part 25 you will have stitched 2021 stitches! There are only 680 stitches left, so not too much to go still.

2019/2020 NYE Mystery SAL - Part 24

Welcome to the 24th part of the NYE Mystery SAL! The hecticness continued after my last post so I'm still behind on stitching - I still haven't stitched part 22 but I DID stitch part 23... I got *that* confused, I thought I was stitching part 22 - oh well... so pardon the confusing image below! Hopefully things are going better for you!

2019/2020 NYE Mystery SAL - Part 23

Welcome to the 23rd part of the NYE Mystery SAL! Today has been pretty hectic so I have again had to resort to a picture for this post - best laid plans and all that... hopefully your stitching plans are doing a bit better than mine!

2019/2020 NYE Mystery SAL - Part 22

Welcome to the 22nd part of the NYE Mystery SAL! Great news! When you have finished a third of this part you will be two thirds of the way with stitching this SAL! Isn't that awesome?! I think some of you are starting to get close with ideas as to where this ends up but even so... I think you will be surprised with the ending I have planned!

2019/2020 NYE Mystery SAL - Part 21

Welcome to the 21st part of the NYE Mystery SAL! Having just finished a bit of ripping on part 20, the top left stalk and bud as I can't count accurately and did five stitches on the stalk instead of six. *Sigh*. On the plus side it showed me that I'd completely failed to see the sneaky single stitch on the curved bits so I was able to go back and add a little note about that in the pattern - why say something now when it was for part 20? Because I wanted to show a bit of my process of how I do things. I make the post, then stitch that bit as my photo is needed for the next part. Because I work ahead I can spot things I didn't notice when looking for the stitches for the pattern notes. So I basically work in order of when I need things.

2019/2020 NYE Mystery SAL - Part 20

Welcome to the 20th part of the NYE Mystery SAL! Goodness there are so many parts done now! There are still twelve to go too - which means there are just two days left from now - not that long really, to do all the stitching that needs doing. I'm certain the stitching will be done in time - and I don't just mean mine hehe.

2019/2020 NYE Mystery SAL - Part 19

Welcome to the nineteenth part of the NYE Mystery SAL! I hope is going well with the stitching! I also hope that my weird filenames aren't bothering too many of you, it's unfortunate as I prefer to have nice neat names that are all the same within a SAL but I noticed people trying to get sneak peeks of patterns so I have to make weird ones that people can't guess so all they get is a big fat nope when they try to look ahead. I hope I don't run out of ideas before I run out of patterns!

2019/2020 NYE Mystery SAL - Part 18

Welcome to the eighteenth part of the NYE Mystery SAL! Hopefully you are having fun with the SAL - who's worked out what it's going to be yet? Let me know either here or in the fb group! It's been a few parts since I last gave the total stitches so I think I shall do that now: When you have finished stitching this part you will be at 1397 stitches and still have 1304 stitches left, so you will pass the half way mark of stitches while you stitch part 18!

2019/2020 NYE Mystery SAL - Part 17

Welcome to the seventeenth part of the NYE Mystery SAL! Those of you who are using sparkly thread will notice that it's getting quite sparkly by now and there is still more sparkle to be added! Only 16 stitches this time but it will help the corners sparkle just that bit more (and made me regret not using 4 lots of thread rather than just one at a time for the border - oh well. If you are in the fb group and haven't voted on the poll to see what you think the white shapes will become in the end it's not too late to do so! I've been quite amused by some of the answers - you will see why eventually!

Jodyri Advent Box - Christmas Day and Overview

Hiya and welcome to the fifth post and last of the short series of posts that happened till I ran out of advent packages (which is today). If you haven't opened yours yet please skip this post till you have! I'm posting this in between the NYE Mystery posts as I want to get it posted today so I can focus on the NYE Mystery and the January 1st posts.

For my birthday last month my fiancé gave me a most wondrous gift - one of the small advent boxes from Jodyri Designs, my favourite hand dyer. As this is the fifth post I am going to skip the long story about things (you can read it here if you missed the first week's post) and just move on to the package.

2019/2020 NYE Mystery SAL - Part 16

Welcome to the sixteenth part of the NYE Mystery SAL! When you have done this part you will be halfway! When I woke up this morning I discovered that people had been stitching up a storm while I'd been sleeping - great job everyone! All of the different colours being used look fantastic - I am looking forwards to seeing them finished!

2019/2020 NYE Mystery SAL - Part 15

Welcome to the fifteenth part of the NYE Mystery SAL! Day three is starting and with it a new pattern for you to stitch! After a couple of parts with just one colour you get a part with two colours, and in the same bit of pattern too! I look forward to seeing how this part changes your own versions!

2019/2020 NYE Mystery SAL - Part 14

Welcome to the fourteenth part of the NYE Mystery SAL! This is the last post of the second day of Mystery mayhem! There are still 3 more days to go after today so still plenty of time to catch up with stitching - it's easier when you can set your own pace so if you are "behind" you can see that you do actually have a bit of a benefit to it!

2019/2020 NYE Mystery SAL - Part 13

Welcome to the thirteenth part of the NYE Mystery SAL! After stitching all thirteen parts that have been given so far you will have stitched 965 stitches! That's no mean feat when you have no idea what you are stitching and have to keep waiting for the next bit!

2019/2020 NYE Mystery SAL - Part 12

Welcome to the twelfth part of the NYE Mystery SAL! I hope you are all having fun stitching - I know I am, though I'm a wee bit rushed as I also have to write the posts between stitching (yay for "great" organisational skills and poor health ha!). I'm currently only a few parts ahead of everyone else, and that will probably change by the time I manage to be awake enough to stitch tomorrow. So when I said a couple of posts ago that seeing other people's pictures was inspiring I meant it - it's helping me keep going!

2019/2020 NYE Mystery SAL - Part 11

Welcome to the eleventh part of the NYE Mystery SAL! Once you have finished this part you will have passed the one third mark for this SAL! (32/3 = 10.67 so almost 11 but not quite). It's a great milestone to reach during a SAL so treat yourself for making it this far! I had a bit of fudge with a cup of tea as my treat - it was good!

2019/2020 NYE Mystery SAL - Part 10

Welcome to the tenth part of the NYE Mystery SAL! I have seen some wonderful colour combinations showing up in the Facebook group! Great work everyone! It's so inspiring to see the progress pictures, keep them coming!

2019/2020 NYE Mystery SAL - Part 9

Welcome to the ninth part and day two of the NYE Mystery SAL! At the time of writing this it's late o'clock on Friday/Saturday night and I'm way too tired to stitch so I haven't stitched part 8 yet - so for this post you will have to make do with another computer generate image. Things have not exactly gone to plan as they say (for starters my kids were extra needy and cut into my planned stitching/post creating time) but I'm sure I'll be all caught up by the time part 10 needs to be posted.

2019/2020 NYE Mystery SAL - Part 8

Welcome to the eighth part of the NYE Mystery SAL! With this part you have reached the end of the first 24 hours of posting - I know there are a few more hours left of those 24 hours but when the next post happens day two starts! Hopefully the larger amount of stitches of the last part didn't throw you off too much, this time you get fewer stitches.

2019/2020 NYE Mystery SAL - Part 7

Welcome to the seventh part of the NYE Mystery SAL! It's so strange to be on part seven and not even be a third of the way! Of course this just means more stitching fun to come! Part seven brings the return of a colour... in about the same place you have been stitching all day but then the most stitches so far!

2019/2020 NYE Mystery SAL - Part 6

Welcome to the sixth part of the NYE Mystery SAL! I hope the gentle easing into the stitching has been helpful! Don't forget to share your pictures in the Facebook group, I'd love to see your progress!

2019/2020 NYE Mystery SAL - Part 5

Welcome to the fifth part of the NYE Mystery SAL! This time you get more white in the border. The nice easy start is continuing for this part, but don't get too used to it as later there will be more stitches per part.

2019/2020 NYE Mystery SAL - Part 4

Welcome to part four of the NYE Mystery SAL! I'm pretty sure that those of you who have started stitching were able to do the small number of stitches I started out with - this time you are also lucky as you also get a small number of stitches! That will change later on but I'm giving you an easy start.

Jodyri Advent Box - Week 4

Hiya and welcome to the fourth post of the short series of posts that will happen till I run out of advent packages. If you haven't opened yours yet please skip this post till you have! I'm posting this and the Christmas Day package in between the NYE Mystery posts as I want to get them posted today so I can focus on the NYE Mystery and the January 1st posts.

For my birthday last month my fiancé gave me a most wondrous gift - one of the small advent boxes from Jodyri Designs, my favourite hand dyer. As this is the fourth post I am going to skip the long story about things (you can read it here if you missed the first week's post) and just move on to the package.

2019/2020 NYE Mystery SAL - Part 3

Welcome to the first part of the NYE Mystery SAL proper - which is also part three so later the pattern names make sense if you want to make it again or don't have time now (Not surprisingly so as it has been a busy week for many what with Christmas landing in the middle of the week). I was running around a lot myself in the days running up to Christmas and had flopped on the sofa yesterday thinking I could *finally* relax only to wake up from a nap with that feeling you have forgotten something important... yup! I had totally mixed my days up and had almost forgotten to get all of this sorted out! EEEEEEK!

Merry Christmas!

Hello and welcome to my annual Christmas post! I hope you are having a good day no matter what you celebrate - or don't as the case may be - as I know not all of my readers live in countries that celebrate Christmas. I want to take a moment to thank all of you for visiting my blog, giving me coffees via Ko-fi, donating via PayPal (I know I have a few people to email patterns to - I'm sorry for the delay - it's been a bit hectic the last few months and my health has been making things difficult), stitching my patterns and sharing the results! As always there will be a freebie for you in here somewhere in the post!

Blackwork SAL - December

Welcome to the twelfth part of the Blackwork SAL! This month is the last part of the 2019 Blackwork SAL - I hope you have enjoyed this SAL! For those who want to continue next year I have another Blackwork SAL on the way! You can read more about it here. But that's not the only blackwork I'm doing next year! I'm also doing blackwork style stockings - as I'm designing many of the patterns from scratch they might not be true blackwork, but they do look very pretty! You can read more about it here.

Jodyri Advent Box - Week 3

Hiya and welcome to the third post of the short series of posts that will happen till I run out of advent packages. If you haven't opened yours yet please skip this post till you have!

For my birthday last month my fiancé gave me a most wondrous gift - one of the small advent boxes from Jodyri Designs, my favourite hand dyer. As this is the third post I am going to skip the long story about things (you can read it here if you missed the first week's post) and just move on to the package.

2019/2020 NYE Mystery SAL - Pre-stitch part 2

Welcome to the second part of the NYE Mystery SAL - pre-stitch part 2! If you found my blog in time and had enough in your stash (or have been out shopping) you are all set to get things started for the NYE Mystery SAL! If you have just found my blog and don't have a clue what's going on start reading here where you will find the fabric and thread requirements as well as when the SAL proper starts. You still have a week to get ready for the big event so it's not too late!

I have added a new Mystery SAL Tips page to my blog to help you with the SAL.

Friday Freebie: 25 x 25 for 2019 - December

Welcome to the twelfth and last 25 x 25 for 2019 pattern! It's been a year of fun little stitches, so it's a pity it's ending but next year brings a slightly larger size with more possibilities! This month I was also able to finish it - not just one version but TWO! I used both to make a two sided ornament.

Medieval Owl SAL - December

Welcome to the December edition of the Medieval Owl SAL! This month you get the final part of this SAL! I hope you have enjoyed stitching this even if it was a bit more of a challenge than most of my SALs. On Sunday things got a bit exciting for me while doing the last part of stitching this - I ran out of 3371 just 42 stitches before I'd finished with the colour! While it might be a simple thing to get more - here in the Netherlands shops are closed on Sunday's and often on Monday morning too - and my local needlework shop is closed all day Monday. To top if off this is the week of parcels arriving (I need to be home for them as I don't want a cross town bicycle trip with my joints playing up), so I ordered the threads online and hoped that they'd arrive in time to finish the stitching.

Jodyri Advent Box - Week 2

Hiya and welcome to the second post of the short series of posts that will happen every Monday till I run out of advent packages. If you haven't opened yours yet please skip this post till you have!

For my birthday last month my fiancé gave me a most wondrous gift - one of the small advent boxes from Jodyri Designs, my favourite hand dyer. As this is the second post I am going to skip the long story about things (you can read it here if you missed last week's post) and just move on to the package.

Easy Christmas Cards SAL

Stitching Christmas cards is something I always plan on doing but never really get round to doing. This is mostly because of all of the stitching I do for the blog - there's often not much time left when I've finished so I thought that for 2020 I'd not only make sure I try to stitch a card every month but to also keep it nice and easy too so it's a nice quick stitch.

Friday Freebie: 50 x 50 for 2019 - December

Welcome back for the twelfth and final edition of the 50 x 50 pattern series! This month I was not able to stitch the entire main pattern, I might have done if I'd not done a Sleeping Beauty impersonation on the sofa last night but I did do that so I didn't finish much at all.

NFSAL 2019 - December

Welcome to the twelfth NFSAL of 2019! This month I went for an extra special finish - that didn't come out the way I planned, but ended up even better! I wanted to add a beaded crocheted edging to seal the seam, but I didn't have the right colour crochet thread and a single strand of craft thread was far too thin - and a full thread too much (a few strands was too confusing and I made quite the mess with it) to crochet through the blanket stitches.

Mamluk Cross Stitch SAL - Part 12

Welcome to the twelfth and last part of the Mamluk SAL! I hope you have enjoyed stitching this SAL as much as I have! Have you thought about how you are going to finish finish yours yet? I'm not sure if I'm going to finish mine as a pillow or if I'm going to frame it - time will tell.

Jodyri Advent Box - Week 1

Hiya and welcome to a new short series of posts that will happen every Monday till I run out of advent packages. If you haven't opened yours yet please skip this post till you have! For my birthday last month my fiancé gave me a most wondrous gift - one of the small advent boxes from Jodyri Designs, my favourite hand dyer.

2019/2020 NYE Mystery SAL - Pre-stitch part 1

Welcome to the NYE Mystery SAL! If you found my blog in time and had enough in your stash (or been out shopping) you are all set to get things started for the NYE Mystery SAL! If you have just found my blog and don't have a clue what's going on start reading here where you will find the fabric and thread requirements as well as when the SAL proper starts. You still have a few more weeks to get ready for the big event so it's not too late!

Friday Freebie: Ornament of the Month - December

Welcome to the twelfth and last Ornament of the Month for 2019! I hope you  have enjoyed this year's patterns, even if the construction was a bit of a challenge if you chose to make it with the hole. I'm sorry this is late but I really wanted the ornament to be fully finished and I was so close to making it that I pushed on, then stuff happened and now here it is... a bit more than an hour late but still here on a Friday! This month the theme is snow and ice very fitting colours for people in the northern hemisphere this close to Christmas and hopefully a cooling thought for those who are down south suffering from heat and bush fires (if only I could send you our rain!). If you aren't in an area that's on fire I'm very glad you are not and hope it stays that way!

Finish It In...2019 - Check In Post, TUSAL, and More for December

 

Welcome to the tenth Finish It In... 2019 post for the year! (Since I skipped July and August). I just realised that even though this was supposed to be the last post it can't be really, as you are presumably doing things in December and so would want to show them off afterwards! Since the next first Wednesday of the month is also the first day of the month/year and has the tail end of the NYE Mystery SAL, the Temperature SAL, and the Seasons SAL all on the same day I'm going to do the very last post for this SAL on Thursday 2nd January. Although I will still do some sort of round up for the TUSAL and my pie charts I'm not going to be running this SAL any more - feel free to keep on doing it if you wish - it's just one thing too many for me right now.

Weavers Birds SAL - Part 12

Welcome to the twelfth and last part of the Weavers Birds SAL! This month you get the final part of the last band!

I hope you have enjoyed stitching this SAL and I would LOVE to see your results - or WIP pictures if life and/or other projects got in the way as they do at times. I am hoping to do a post between Christmas and the new year with pictures of your work - if you'd like to be included please email me at:  Magical at smallbluemonkey dot net (put a @ where "at" is and a . where it says "dot" and don't forget to remove the spaces) and please tell me what name I should use for you as I do like to get things right.

2019/2020 NYE Mystery SAL!

The time is upon us to prepare for the most fun NYE possible for us stitchers!  This year I have switched it up a little as we have a weekend before NYE and I thought it would be fun for everyone if we started then instead of waiting for NYE - this means more pattern and more pattern parts!

Friday Freebie: Chained Flowers

Happy Friday! This week is another no SAL Friday so instead I have a fun pattern for you! It's been another super busy week so I've had no time to stitch extra things, as has been the norm this month due to all the posts this month but I hope that all you have seen so far has given you some inspiration for next year's stitching!

Seasons SAL - Announcement Post

I wanted to do a SAL that was easy for many people to keep up with while still having a bit of fun and my fiancé suggested doing a Seasons SAL - while I've not done it exactly the way he was thinking of (a larger pattern spread over three months), it was a great idea and this is what I have planned for it: I will give a pattern at the beginning of the month four times a year. You will get a winter, spring, summer, and autumn pattern.

Temperature SAL - Announcement Post

It's not often that I do something asked for by a specific person but Karen Thompson came with the Idea of a temperature SAL and I was intrigued enough to make a design. The design is a simple blackwork style pattern (I seem to have many of these this year hehe) that gets repeated many times.

Blackwork SAL - November

Welcome to the eleventh part of the Blackwork SAL! Thank you all for the birthday wishes, I had a great day and was spoilt rotten! For those wondering why my fb birthday shows as another date - I had stalker issues in the past and setting a different birthday from the real one is one of the ways to avoid issues. On to what you came for... this is the second to last post for the SAL bringing you the second to last part - this month it's a LOT of stitches!

NFSAL 2020 - Announcement Post

A bit later than planned but it took a lot more work than expected. This post will explain more about the NFSAL. I'm going to shamelessly copy parts of the post that Carla made over on Deviant Art last year (with permission of course!), and with a few additions, to help explain things as she is a big part of what the NFSAL is and has become over the years.

Friday Freebie: Black and White Floral Two

Happy Friday! This week another no SAL post so instead I have a fun pattern for you! It's a super busy week for me with all of the posts I've been making recently - it will be good to get all of the SAL announcement posts done, only four left!

A Blackwork Christmas - SAL Announcement Post

Sometimes when you try to design things you end up with something completely different - this is one of those cases. I was thinking about the Ornament of the Month SAL and what to do for it when I had the idea of doing stockings this year - except all of the patterns I have made so far ended up with blackwork only - not something I like to do for the Ornament of the Month. So I decided that I would just do these as a separate SAL and do something else for the Ornament of the Month, which worked nicely. Many of these patterns are ones I have designed specifically for this SAL, so are not traditional blackwork patterns and it may not be possible to make them in Holbein stitch as is the tradition for blackwork.

Bookmark SAL - SAL Announcement Post

Over the last year I've had more than one person ask if I do bookmarks... especially after I did the Pisac Weave Bookmark (which I used to make the banner above) back in March. I decided to give it a go and see what I could come up with over the coming year. You can expect different shapes and sizes - every month will be a surprise!

Medieval Owl SAL - November

Welcome to the November edition of the Medieval Owl SAL! This month you get the first of the two head parts! We are starting with the left hand side with the cute little ear, the beak side you will get next month.