35 x 35 for 2020 - December

Welcome to the twelfth and final 35 x 35 for 2020! I seem to be doing a lot of final posts these days but that's the downside of getting to the end of the year and the end of many SALs. Next year will be a lot quieter for me and that's a good thing... I'll even be able to catch up on things I couldn't finish in previous years - well theoretically anyway - perhaps new projects will call my name louder? You know how it goes. As an extra surprise there are two versions of this pattern - the initial pattern that I created - and stitched - and the reverse version that I didn't stitch. You get to choose which one you prefer!

35 x 35 for 2020 - November

Welcome to the eleventh 35 x 35 for 2020! Today's post is rather late because I felt it was important to finish the stitching before taking the picture. As I only had half the final colour of cross stitch and the straight stitches left I knew it wouldn't take all that long to complete. This month there are cross stitches and straight stitches! The straight stitches may look daunting but they stitch up really quickly - there isn't really a wrong way to do them either so just do whatever feels right.

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!

35 x 35 for 2020 - September

Welcome to the ninth 35 x 35 for 2020! This month there are only whole stitches and only three colours. No partial stitches, even of the nice sort so it's an easy stitch really. I decided to go for three of the newer colours of DMC: 027, 028, and 029 but you can use any three colours or shades of a colour that you like.

35 x 35 for 2020 - August

Welcome to the eighth 35 x 35 for 2020! This month there are partial stitches in the pattern - I can hear the scream you just gave over here! But never fear these are NICE partial stitches - yes, they exist! - the partial stitches are one leg of a cross so either / or \ with no fiddly extra bits that are a nightmare to stitch on Aida. You can leave them off if you prefer - they just round off the edges a little.

35 x 35 for 2020 - July

Welcome to the seventh 35 x 35 for 2020! This month you get to choose how much - or little - straight stitch you add! There are three versions possible:

• No straight stitch at all
• A single line going all the way round
• Lots!

I'll show you photos of all three to help you choose which version you'd like to do. There are eight photos in this post - if you are low on data I suggest making sure you are on Wi-Fi first.

35 x 35 for 2020 - June

Welcome to the sixth 35 x 35 for 2020! I'm a lot later than planned with this post - first I made the incredible discovery that it's a bad idea to let your bead mat with beads already on it get caught in your embroidery hoop when you are rehooping. The resulting bead tsunami that flooded over my desk, keyboard, keyboard tray and floor, was not fun to clear up and slowed me down quite a bit. Then my computer decided it would join in the fun and gave me a Blue Screen of Death which put me even further off schedule than already was. I have to say that knowing that all of the patterns were safe on an external server made the whole thing a lot less stressful as I didn't have to worry I'd lost anything. I am however finally able to get this post up so am doing so!

35 x 35 for 2020 - May

Welcome to the fifth 35 x 35 for 2020! I had so much fun with last week's rainbow colours that I decided to use them again - but this time using the new colours that are a bit more muted. I did have to add a blue to the colours that isn't in the new range as the new range doesn't have any proper blues, just a lot of purples/purplish blues.

35 x 35 for 2020 - April

Welcome to the fourth 35 x 35 for 2020! It's April, which means at some point we will get April showers, which was the starting point for this month's pattern. The squares represent puddles and the backstitching rain and raindrops splashing out of puddles.

35 x 35 for 2020 - March

Welcome to the third 35 x 35 for 2020! It's a tad later than planned but I managed to score an online shopping slot and getting food organised is more important than stitching, especially as I can't leave the house right now as I'm in the high risk category - such fun - but at least I have a garden to sit in when I need to be outside.

35 x 35 for 2020 - February

Welcome to the second 35 x 35 for 2020! I'm not back into the rhythm of stitching yet so the model I was stitching isn't even close to being finished but at least the post itself is more or less on the time I want it to be posted. I was inspired by the first colours of spring in my garden - the yellow crocuses I love so much.

35 x 35 for 2020 - January

Welcome to the First 35 x 35 for 2020! I *did* consider doing 20 x 20 for 2020 but I wanted to work on something bigger than the 25 x 25 for 2019. The plan this month was to do just the one pattern but I ended up with two as I couldn't decide which I liked the most - so you get the choice instead!

35 x 35 for 2020 - SAL Announcement Post

This year I did the 25 x 25 and the 50 x 50 for 2019, for 2020 I'm doing 35 x 35 only. Its still pretty small but it gives space to do lots of fun stuff - and to make lots of fun stuff too! You can make a fob, ornament, a pincushion, a biscornu, a card, or even a pendant with them if you wish! In some cases the pattern will tessellate nicely and you could make it as big as you wish!

Friday Freebie: C-3PO Mini Biscornu

So yesterday was May the 4th - the yearly Star Wars celebration and as you may have seen I shared a pattern for BB-8 to help the celebration along a bit. I saw lots and lots of wonderful Star Wars pictures on Twitter and deviantArt and the one thing I thought of when seeing a picture of R2-D2 and C-3PO in the desert was that not that many people seem to realise that C-3PO isn't fully gold but actually has a silver leg.

Freebie Friday: Bargallo Aurora Fob.

This is the A side of the fob.

This pattern was inspired by the Mucha princess patterns Pinky the Pink has made, this one uses the colours of Aurora which you can find here (if it hasn't sold out yet as it's a limited edition pattern). Pinky's etsy shop can be found here with more princesses and much, much more!

Ornament of the Month - December

This is the final post with the ornaments of 2015. December has 3 different birthstones associated with it depending on where you look. Tanzanite, Blue Topaz and Blue Zirconia and as usual I have made a pattern for each.

Ornament of the Month - November

November has well and truly started and it's ornament time! November's birthstones are Citrine and Yellow Topaz. I was amazed to find that Citrine is actually darker than yellow topaz and my mind keeps telling me that the darker ornament should be the Yellow topaz one hehe.

Ornament of the Month - October

Somehow or another it's already Autumn, Halloween is only weeks away and that means it's October, time for the next ornament! There are only 2 more months left after this pattern and then they will all be done - hopefully in time for Christmas. October has 2 birthstones Opal and Pink Tourmaline so this month has 2 patterns.

Ornament of the Month - September

Welcome back! September brings us Sapphire as the birth stone of the month which comes in lovely shades from light blue to dark blue. My favourite shade of Sapphire is the darker blue so that's the colour I chose to go with.

Ornament of the Month - August

Welcome to the 8th instalment of the Ornament of the Month. August's birthstone is Peridot - a rather interesting shade of green that was a challenge to find colours for, mostly because I first had to pick which shade of Peridot to try to emulate as the stone has several different green colourings.