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.

As always for the first post I'm showing the fabric and thread I'm using this time. I don't like to spoil the surprise of opening the pattern so my photos are of the day before, or in this case of the fabric and thread. I'm using DMC 3893 - one of the USA only threads that were originally only available as a 16 skein set. I don't normally use these as people outside of the USA can't get them but since I'm not giving this colour for the pattern I decided it would be ok to use it this time. The fabric is Jodyri Designs Nevermore 18ct opal Aida that I also used for the other even Mini Magical Mystery SALs. It's a bit scrunched up from being in the hoop for the other Mini Magical Mystery SALs - the bit you see here isn't going to be stitched on yet so I didn't iron it - it'll get scrunched up again when I put it in the hoop so I didn't think it made sense to do so. The beads are TOHO TR-11-147F Ceylon Frosted Lt. Ivory.

Here you can see my backstitched outline next to the Mini Magical Mystery SAL 10, Mini Magical Mystery SAL 12, and the Mini Magical Mystery SAL 14 - they are eight stitches apart, my usual distance between things (the actual stitched area is then ten stitches apart which is what I advise as a bare minimum). I think you can see why I haven't cut the either one out yet. I haven't done the second square yet - I spent four hours chatting with youngest yesterday about life the universe and everything and times like that are all too rare now he's 17 so I made the most of it!

In case you are wondering why I do the backstitched outlines first: it helps me with placement of the stitches (as long as I remember to skip the first stitch next to the outline) and it means that I don't have to do it afterwards as it's not my favourite part of stitching.

You can find today's pattern here. Please count carefully - you don't want to make a mistake today.

Have fun and I'll be back tomorrow with the next part of the Mini Magical Mystery SAL 16 and the A Blackwork Christmas SAL!