Mini Magical Mystery SAL 16 - Part 6

Welcome back for day six of the sixteenth round of mystery stitching! It feel so weird to be telling you that the final part is tomorrow! But that is indeed the case. Tomorrow also sees the start of the next mystery SAL as it happens to be 1st November then, so it's a busy day for all of us! (I'd better get my backstitched outlines done - I haven't started them yet and I personally prefer to do them first.)

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 16 - Part 5

Welcome back for day five of the sixteenth round of mystery stitching! Just two more parts till you see what the end result is - of course with the final part being a bit pick and mix it's going to be fun seeing what you decide to do! For those wondering how my son's job interview went yesterday: He felt it went well and will hear back on Monday if he gets the job or not.

The Next Mystery SAL: The Advent Magical Mystery SAL 2020

As a final ending to a year of extra SALs I'm going to host an Advents SAL - a four week, one pattern a week SAL. Although it's called the Advent SAL it's mostly called that because of when I'm giving the patterns. I have adjusted the colours to be a bit more Christmassy, but you can really do this in any colour combination. You will mostly get just under 500 stitches per week.

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 16 - Part 4

Welcome back for day four of the sixteenth round of mystery stitching! I'm afraid this post is very late because I was helping my son get ready for a job interview - he's just walked out of the door as I'm typing this - I'm hoping it works out this time! He's autistic so things can be a bit more difficult for him, though fortunately he's reasonably good with people. As for today's post... it's the halfway point of this SAL! Yes already! This SAL is half the length of the other ones so that it finishes on the same day as the Autumn Magical Mystery SAL starts.

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 16 - Part 3

Welcome back for day three of the sixteenth round of mystery stitching! Things are moving along swiftly this time round and the Autumn Magical Mystery SAL 2020 is starting soon - are you ready? I hope so, it's going to be so much fun!

A Blackwork Christmas - October

Welcome to the tenth edition of A Blackwork Christmas SAL! This month I have stitched up a storm and not only did I finish this month's stocking but I also fully finished September AND stitched and finished August! I'll start with the oldest first with the pictures below and end with the October one. Just two stockings left! Can you guess what colour they will be?

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 16 - Part 2

Welcome back for day two of the sixteenth round of mystery stitching! Today things were not done in the usual order as I had to go get even more blood tests done - before food so extra fun! Fortunately I was back in time to get the stitching done!

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 16 - Part 1

Welcome back for day one of the sixteenth round of mystery stitching! This time the SAL runs for only one week as the Autumn Magical Mystery starts on the first of November - the same day this one ends. A busy stitching day but... it's a Sunday so hopefully you will be sufficiently recovered from whatever you did the night before and have all day to stitch! Be prepared for more stitches a day than for the previous Mini Magical Mystery SAL as we have a lot of fabric to cover in the next seven days.

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 15 - Final Post

Welcome back for the final post of the fifteenth Mini Magical Mystery SAL! Don't worry it's not over - the Mini Magical Mystery SAL 16 starts in an hour! This post is just a final post showing my stitching of part fourteen and what I'm planning to do with it.  I do hope you all had fun! I have loved seeing your stitching in the mystery Facebook group! 

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 15 - Part 14

Welcome back for day fourteen of the fifteenth round of mystery stitching! This is also the final day of patterns for this SAL - I'll be back one more time to show my completed mystery tomorrow (an hour earlier than usual). I hope you had fun stitching! I can't wait to see the results of your mystery stitching! The next round of the Mini Magical Mystery will start tomorrow at noon as per the information post. Please remember that this one is only a week long this time because the Autumn Magical Mystery SAL starts next Sunday!

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 15 - Part 13

Welcome back for day thirteen of the fifteenth round of mystery stitching! Because I knew it would be a busy weekend/week running up to the super busy month of November I did a bit of stitching ahead the other day and for the most part all went well till I got to this part and was so excited to stitch it that I completely forgot to take a photo of part twelve first. Below you will find the photoshopped part twelve where in I took the photo of part thirteen and the photo of part eleven and did some serious covering up. I'm not very good at this but it works for the casual eye.

NFSAL 2020 - October

Welcome to the tenth part of this year's NFSAL posts! This month I not only finished the stitching but I did a pretty fancy finish to it too! I got pictures made for part of it but I didn't take photos of the lace edging I crocheted as I'm not really very good at crochet and was making it up as I went along - I can tell you what I did so if you know how to do basic crochet then you too can achieve the finish I did!

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 15 - Part 12

Welcome back for day twelve of the fifteenth round of mystery stitching! One of the things I have been working on lately is catching up with my stockings as I dearly want them all ready for my tree this year and not have an incomplete set. I've been posting some of my progress on my Instagram as well as the same pictures I have been posting on my daily mystery posts. If you want to see all of the daily pictures of this SAL at the same time and more go have a look!

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 15 - Part 11

Welcome back for day eleven of the fifteenth round of mystery stitching! I just had a bit of an eek moment where I realised that there are just 9 days left till November starts and I still have a ton of work to get done for the Autumn Magical Mystery SAL (that runs the whole of November instead of the Mini Mysteries) and a bunch of stuff for the SAL announcements for 2021 (mostly designing of the options for the larger patterns). Fortunately I have most of the stitching for this month complete so that's one thing less to worry about. I'll get it done in time - I always do - usually because of eek moments spurring me on hehehe.

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 15 - Part 10

Welcome back for day ten of the fifteenth round of mystery stitching! As I'm slowly but surely working on catching up on all the cleaning I couldn't do when I was unwell I'm starting to feel more and more that it's a big spring clean type cleaning - I should really try and wear a mask as the dust I'm putting into the air is making life a bit miserable once I get to a particularly dusty spot - like the corner of DOOOOoooom next to my desk which I cleared out yesterday - it's amazing what had fallen down there since I last dared deal with it. It's a small gap between my Kallax cupboards and the small wheely drawers by my desk wide enough to park stuff and eat up anything that falls down there. This time I have put a box at the bottom, so hopefully the pile of stuff won't become another corner of DOOOOoooom.

Easy Christmas Cards SAL - October

 

Welcome to the tenth part of the Easy Christmas Cards SAL! This month I used a perforated paper bauble shape to make my card, but you could also use normal perforated paper or plastic Aida to make yours. If you are lucky you might even find wooden ones in your local crafty shop!

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 15 - Part 9

 

Welcome back for day nine of the fifteenth round of mystery stitching, which as you may have noticed is a bit late I got slowed down this morning as I had to pick the fabric for next week's A Blackwork Christmas stocking before I came downstairs as all of my quilting fabric lives on the attic landing next to my bedroom. My arthritis is playing up so my knees are not keen on going up and down stairs so I thought I'd save myself the trip. Sometimes finding the right fabric between the other fabrics is a bit difficult, especially when you know which bit you want to use and can't find it straight away. (I'd still like to know how it got into the box of green fabrics!)

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 15 - Part 8

Welcome back for day eight of the fifteenth round of mystery stitching! Today we are starting the second half of this mystery, where everything slowly becomes clear! It's been so much fun seeing people post their progress this time round! I got the information post up for the Mini Magical Mystery SAL 16 up so you can look ahead and see what changes have been made for this one - not much but the number of parts is much reduced.

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 16 - Information Post

Hi and welcome to the sixteenth information post for a Mini Magical Mystery SAL! With lockdowns increasing for many people as the second wave hits I'm continuing with another mystery to keep you stitching! This pattern is the same size as the previous Mini Magical Mysteries and has 280 stitches total - some of which are optional. This mystery will start the Monday after the current mystery ends: 26th October. Due to the Autumn Magical Mystery starting on the 1st of November this mystery will last only 7 days!

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 15 - Part 7

Welcome back for day seven of the fifteenth round of mystery stitching! You may have noticed that the information post didn't go up - I'm afraid I got a bit too caught up with the finishing of the NFSAL for Friday - sorry about that. I'm going to get that done right after doing this post (though perhaps after a few more sips of coffee hehe) as I still have a bit of work to do on the NFSAL finishing and I'm having a load of fun with it.

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 15 - Part 6

Welcome back for day six of the fifteenth round of mystery stitching! I will be putting the information post up for the next Mini Magical Mystery up today as there is just over a week left till it starts! In case you skip reading information posts because you have done so many now and you know that basically each of the posts is more or less the same:  The Mini Magical Mystery SAL 16 will only be a week long as the Autumn Magical Mystery SAL is due to start the 1st of November and I don't do a Mini Mystery at the same time as another daily mystery. I'll put a reminder of this in the Mini Magical Mystery SAL 16 part 1 post in case it slips your mind between now and then.

Tutorial: Adding Beads to Cords and Tassels

 

Sometimes you just want everything to sparkle, not just the ornament itself but the cord and tassel too... but what if you don't have enough beads to fully bead a hanging cord? Then you can go half way by adding beads to the thread cord (you can find a tutorial on how to make cords here)!

35 x 35 for 2020 - October

Welcome to the tenth 35 x 35 for 2020! This month there are cross stitches, backstitches, and beads! The beads are optional and can be done as French knots, colonial knots, using beads, or just as a cross stitch with shiny metallic threads - or skipped in their entirety if you prefer! I'll show you a photo of the unbeaded version below first, then you can see that it can work both with and without the beads!

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 15 - Part 5

Welcome back for day five of the fifteenth round of mystery stitching! Yesterday was a day of bling and as a result there will be an extra post today with a tutorial on how to add more bling to your finishing (though I'll probably name the post differently) but not till after the 35 x 35 for 2020 post as the extra bling was used for that. Now on to other things like today's pattern...

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 15 - Part 4

Welcome back for day four of the fifteenth round of mystery stitching! Today I'm rushing a bit to write this post because the shopping arrived just as I sat down to do it. Of course the shopping needed dealing with first - not that there was as much as usual due to a fire in the warehouse - which meant that 3/4 of the cooled goods weren't delivered. They did warn me yesterday after the fire had happened and again in the middle of the night when they told me what they couldn't deliver which meant I was properly informed which is a good thing, no surprises when I got my shopping.

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 15 - Part 3

Welcome back for day three of the fifteenth round of mystery stitching! Today's stitching will bring you back to where you started... but without the pain of ripping first! Now that I've got you all nice and curious I'll leave you to move on to the rest of this post - not much to say today as so far the day has been uneventful and looks to remain that way, especially as we are back to a partial lockdown here (not that I went out anyway) - fingers crossed people actually listen and do the necessary to avoid worse.

Blackwork SAL 2020 - October

Welcome to the tenth part of the 2020 Blackwork SAL! This month you will again get two pattern options. I not only managed to get this month's stitching done in time but I also finished last month's as well! I didn't remember to take a photo of last month's before I started stitching in the weekend so you will get a full photo of everything so far instead of multiple images.

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 15 - Part 2

Welcome back for day two of the fifteenth round of mystery stitching! I'm afraid this post is very late I woke up today feeling super rested and thinking I was awake early as I'd not heard any alarms - just awake me went to check fb and did some stuff before I glanced at the time and eeeeeeek-ed. It was 11:48 am! I didn't rush the stitching as it is day one stitching and I really didn't want to have to rip if I'd miscounted from rushing.

News: Update and More - October Edition

If you have been keeping up with my blog posts you will have seen that I've had some new health issues this year. Last time I mentioned anything away from a Mini Magical Mystery SAL post I was awaiting a 24 hour blood pressure test. I had the test, with some issues as it wasn't set up correctly, the band was too large and the box needed a restart and recalibration but the end result was that the test showed that actually I didn't need blood pressure meds at all and that was why I was having so many issues. I've been off the meds for almost two months now and I'm finally feeling normalish. Of course now I have six months of cleaning to catch up on... which is exhausting as I'm terribly out of condition now. 

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 15 - Part 1

Welcome back for day one of the fifteenth round of mystery stitching! This is the first mystery that will not at some point give a part number that has the same number as the mystery number (so say part 7 of Mini Magical Mystery 7) - yes we've done that many! Which means I also need to start thinking about a second end pattern as I want to have a different end on my chain from the first one. If you wish to see/remind yourself what the first chain looks like you can see it here.

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 14 - Final Post

 

Welcome back for the final post of the fourteenth Mini Magical Mystery SAL! Don't worry it's not over - the Mini Magical Mystery SAL 15 starts in an hour! This post is just a final post showing my stitching of part fourteen and what I'm planning to do with it.  I do hope you all had fun! I have loved seeing your stitching in the mystery Facebook group!

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 14 - Part 14

  

Welcome back for day fourteen of the fourteenth round of mystery stitching! This is also the final day of patterns for this SAL - I'll be back one more time to show my completed mystery tomorrow (an hour earlier than usual). I hope you had fun stitching! I can't wait to see the results of your mystery stitching! The next round of the Mini Magical Mystery will start tomorrow at noon as per the information post.

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 14 - Part 13

Welcome back for day thirteen of the fourteenth round of mystery stitching! I was a bit worried yesterday about my ability to stitch as around lunch time, shortly after making my daily post I had an itchy eye, which I rubbed because I thought it was a kamikaze eyelash - turned out that it wasn't but an eye infection - joy. Just over two hours later I was at the dr getting it looked at (lucky for me they had a cancellation otherwise it would have been the weekend dr I'd have had to go see... right next to the ER) and now I have a cream to try and get in my eye twice a day. The mornings are always a bit unpredictable with an infected eye but fortunately the cream is already doing its job and it's improving nicely. I was able to stitch as per usual with my morning coffee. The eye cream comes after I have written this post as I can't see for a bit after applying the cream.

Bookmark SAL - October

Welcome to the tenth part of the Bookmark SAL! This month there are many options available for how to stitch and finish this month's pattern! The pattern itself has four sizes on it - shown as three options because option three has two possible lengths, but you can do so much more with it!

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 14 - Part 12

Welcome back for day twelve of the fourteenth round of mystery stitching! Yesterday I bit the bullet and designed both the Mini Magical Mystery 15 and 16. I also got the information post up for the Mini Magical Mystery 15 and for the Autumn Magical Mystery SAL 2020! I made the names clicky so go look if you are curious!

The Next Mystery SAL: The Autumn Magical Mystery SAL 2020

Great news: There will be an Autumn Mystery SAL this year! This time I'm going to do it a little different - both from the usual weekend long one and from the summer one. It's going to last the entire month of November! That means 30 smaller parts instead of bigger chunks every four hours - and instead of the Mini Magical Mystery SALs that will probably still be ongoing by the time November comes around.  I'll be aiming for around 70 stitches a day keeping it doable for many and not too difficult to catch up on if you get behind a bit. I'm doing it like this to make sure I can deliver all of the pattern parts without getting too stressed and with the way my health has been this year it seemed like a better idea not to push myself too much.

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 15 - Information Post

Hi and welcome to the fifteenth information post for a Mini Magical Mystery SAL! With lockdowns easing, but still enforced/sensible for many people I'm continuing with another mystery to keep you stitching! This pattern is the same size as the previous Mini Magical Mysteries and has 300 stitches total. This mystery will start the Monday after the current mystery ends: 12th October. Please note that due to my health issues I may not be able to post links to fb on a daily basis - please bookmark this site in your browser, add yourself to the email notifications for a daily digest email, or add this site to your RSS feed (the link to add this to your RSS feed is right at the bottom of every page).

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 14 - Part 11

Welcome back for day eleven of the fourteenth round of mystery stitching! I'm not sure what I was going to say today, being faced with the new interface for writing my blogs for a second day has thrown me off again - I wasn't looking forward to writing this post as I used to - I was dreading it and actively avoided doing the still to be done information posts as it was all just too much change for me. I like to be able to test the pdf links before I post for example - something I can only do with a workaround now instead of the nice old "test this link" button. The "jump" button has been hidden (and the image changed), but it used to be next to the picture link and has been replaced with a insert video link instead - much fun and games there too when I click the wrong thing... the list goes on but I don't want to bore you even more with the complaints but I do want to explain why it's putting me off so much.

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 14 - Part 10

 

Welcome back for day ten of the fourteenth round of mystery stitching! I've been completely thrown off today by blogger taking away the "Legacy" version - in other words they have forced me to change to the new mobile friendly (and desktop unfriendly) version of the blogger platform which I hate the look of so much I almost didn't write this post at all. If I was trying to use a mobile phone I'd be a happy camper but I'm not and this isn't a mobile phone - it's a rather larger device that couldn't fit in a pocket no matter how much you tried. It was fine as it was and the things that did need tweaking weren't or were made worse... *grump*. Any ways... it's day ten and that means just four more days till the next Mini Magical Mystery SAL starts - I need to get the post up for it AND for the Autumn Mystery that I noticed I hadn't finished writing - sorry about that! I am so forgetful nowadays *sigh*

Weavers Animals Band Sampler SAL - Part 10

Welcome to the tenth part of the Weavers Animals Band Sampler SAL! This month both sizes have about the same number of stitches but for different reasons. The standard size because it has the skinny border and the first few stitches of the next border and the small version because it has a wider skinny border than the standard size. Although the standard size has a few stitches of the next border in the pattern I won't be showing the final two (or one if you are doing the smaller version) borders till next month - just to keep the suspense going *grin*.

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 14 - Part 9

Welcome back for day nine of the fourteenth round of mystery stitching! Today I played four games of thread chicken on my version of the SAL - because all four threads that I use came close to the end two stitches before I'd finished stitching yesterday's part and I didn't want to start a new thread for just two stitches when I can eke out a few more and potentially avoid starting a third thread for each section later on. It's crazy I know, especially as this is DMC so not *that* expensive (though more than thrice that of the USA cost - it always makes me blink when people in the USA complain about paying 59 cents for a skein when we pay closer to two dollars.) but I still like to be frugal with my thread where possible even though I can't be bothered to start and stop my thread for every jump.

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 14 - Part 8

Welcome back for day eight of the fourteenth round of mystery stitching! As I was sitting here wondering what to write today the sirens went off as they always do on the first Monday of the month at midday - reminding me that I'd been lost in thought and it was now suddenly midday. It's an old relic from the WWII really, though it was started up a bit afterwards to make sure that the mechanical sirens still worked and to keep them in working order. Later it changed from hand cranked to electrically cranked and later still to digital recordings which rendered the need to test the sirens obsolete. People had complained that they were still being tested so long after the war and the siren testing was stopped for a while but it was started up again as people complained that it had stopped and also because people didn't know what it meant when the sirens were used locally to warn people when something went wrong like an overturned gas lorry (truck) and they should stay indoors till the air was safe to breath. I have to say that I missed the sirens when they were not happening, I wasn't the only one apparently. Any ways... enough short history! On to the reason for this (now very late) post...

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 14 - Part 7

Welcome back for day seven of the fourteenth round of mystery stitching! Another halfway point has been reached - this time there is a LOT more space left than there have been in the last few SALs at this stage... will it remain this light and airy? Time will tell as always! Don't forget that I LOVE seeing your WIPS! It always brightens my day when you share your progress (and means I know people are joining in *wink*).

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 14 - Part 6

Welcome back for day six of the fourteenth round of mystery stitching! Today is another quick part with only 16 stitches to add, just like for part five. Hopefully it will ease you into a nice quiet weekend or be a quick stitch between the hecticness of your weekend... or something in between... however your weekend is I hope you enjoy it!

Temperature SAL - October

Welcome to the very delayed tenth Temperature SAL post! I'm sorry it's so late but at least it's now up! Somehow despite being a finger short for stitching due to having cut my left index finger while cooking dinner today (it's not a bad cut, just in an awkward place and doesn't like pressure) I managed to stitch this in under two hours! That's my fastest time yet!

Ornament of the Month 2020 - October

Welcome to the tenth Ornament of the Month for 2020! I'm running a little late - both the thread and the beads were contrary today and it didn't help that I'd cut my left index finger while cooking dinner today - it's not a fan of being used, so I had to hold the ornament without it. This month's colours of the month are white, yellow and variegated. As I don't want to stitch with white this year and all of the other ornaments are/will be solids I don't want to use the variegated option. In addition I've already done a yellow I decided to go with gold, which is kind of a yellow.

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 14 - Part 5

Welcome back for day five of the fourteenth round of mystery stitching! Somehow I managed to get all confused with the last diagonal stitching from yesterday's part and forgot to skip the first stitch - I then still managed to end up in the right place - by way of skipping a stitch between the third and the last square of the diagonal - all without noticing! I sat back, took my first sip of coffee and DID notice... yeah... It's fixed now, fortunately it was only six stitches.

Seasons SAL - Autumn

Welcome to the autumn edition of the Seasons SAL! This is also the final part of this SAL as we started with winter in January, went on to spring in April, and did summer in July. Rather to my surprise I managed to finish stitching this on time - I'd hoped to also fully finish it but I was just too tired and still need to stitch the Temperature SAL (which is why this post is first, not second as I'd said this morning).

Mini Magical Mystery SAL 14 - Part 4

Welcome back for day four of the fourteenth round of mystery stitching! One of the things I've noticed since my micro stroke in March is that I'm a bit less organised than I used to be - and I wasn't terribly organised before that hehe. With blog stuff I've got into a nice habit of doing stuff (and as you may have seen in the fb groups I have a calendar tracking stuff) so that's easy enough to remember even if I can't always stitch what I design in time. But for everything else I have to write it all down, including what I need to remember to do/bring or it's likely that I will forget. It isn't as bad as it was in the early days though, so I'll take the improvement for what it is. Things are slowly getting better.