Stitch-A-Longs (SAL's)

Coming together is a beginning.  Keeping together is progress. 

Working together is success.

 ~ Henry Ford ~

Stitch-A-Longs or SAL's for short.  A group of like minded people all working on the same thing with the same goal in mind - stitching and finishing the same design!  Such fun!!

Now we all love the odd stitch-a-long, and sometimes we even manage to finish what we started.... Now while I have so far managed to finish all the SAL's that I signed up for over the last couple of years, I do wonder if this year I may have bitten off more than I can chew or in this case - more than I can stitch!!

I have signed up for 5 SAL's - yep, I did say 5!  But I don't think it is really quite as frightening as it might sound.  Let me enlighten you on my SAL plans for 2014.

MS Lover's Blog SAL's

This year over on the MS Lover's Blog we have ended up with three SAL's running for 2014 (SAL's #5, 6 & 7), and I have signed up for all three.

SAL #5 is "Spring Bouquet" from Cross Stitch Crazy issue 174.

SAL #6 is "Sunday Snooze" from Cross Stitch Crazy issue 180.

SAL #7 is "Bags of Fun" from Cross Stitch Crazy issue 185.

The other 2!

Now while those three designs alone will be more than enough to keep me busy throughout the year, that's not all I have signed up to stitch in 2014.  I have also signed up for a Halloween ornament stitching year long SAL that Jo from Serendipitous Stitching has organised.  I followed the original Halloween Ornie blog from last year but this year there is a new blog and a new year of ornament stitching...  If you would like to join in the fun, pop over to the Hallowe'en Ornie SAL 2014 blog and sign up or say hello.  I haven't finished January's ornament yet... so not a good start so far!

My final SAL sign up for the year is a Chatelaine WIP SAL.... now that is right up my street!  I have one on the go already and two more waiting in the wings for 2014!  This SAL is the brain child of Joyce (from Random Ramblings) and her stitching sisters and I love the name of the SAL - "Stitching Bandits' Chatelaine Challenge".  Joyce and the girls are still working out the final details, but if you like Chatelaines and want to stitch one, why not join in the fun and start stitching!

So now all I need is for someone to start a Mira SAL and then all my stitching goals will be covered for the year!!

So wish me luck and stay tuned for my (hopefully) regular stitching updates!

Til next time, happy stitching



Be happy

Stitching Noni xx

TUSAL - is it January or February??

Aim for the moon. If you miss, you may hit a star.

~ W. Clement Stone  ~

We have all heard of a "Blue Moon" which is what they call the second Full Moon in a calendar month, but do you know what we call the second new moon in a calendar month?  Apparently it is called a Dark Moon or a Black Moon.  Another little fact I discovered is that the two New Moons in January 2014 are also Supermoons.  The January new moons are perigee new moons which "means a new or full moon which occurs with the moon at or near (within 90% of) its closest approach to Earth".

It's amazing what you can find out on the interweb!

Anyway, enough of that Astronomy stuff, let's have a look at the ORT's jar and see what is lurking in there from my stitching over the last month.

TUSAL - January part 2  - the supermoon
Second new moon of 2014

I know it probably looks like there is a lot of ORT's in the jar at the moment which might mean I have been doing lots of stitching.... well, I guess that is sort of correct, but some of the ORT's are just very long gold ORT's from my secret stitching.  I love the look of metallic thread, but sometimes it can be so frustrating stitching with it, and I do often find that I end up with longer ORT's than normal as the thread just frays a bit too much for further stitching.  Which means my ORT's jar looks a lot fuller than it probably should do at this stage of the year!!

Photos of the secret stitching will be revealed next week.  It is all stitched but I now need to go fabric hunting for just the right colour fabric to finish it into a hanging.  I thought that I had the perfect one until I went to put it all together today and now that fabric just doesn't look right.  Am I the only one who changes their mind on what fabric to finish with?  Somehow I think not!

There are also some black ORT's in the jar from my latest start... but I will tell you more about that in my next post.

That's it for this ORT report.  If you would like to sign up and join in the fun this year, then pop on over to Daffycat's blog and leave a comment saying that you're in and start collecting your ORT's!

The next 2014 ORT report will be ready for publication on or around 1st March 2014.

New Moons - 2014
1st March
30th March
28th April
28th May
27th June
26th July
25th August
23rd September
23rd October
22nd November
21st December

Til next time happy stitching!

Be Happy

Hugs,

Noni xx

All Loved Up!!

Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole

~ Roger Caras ~

They're finished!!

I have, at long last, finished the "Puppy Love" SAL that was the SAL over on the MS Lovers Blog for 2013. I did hope to finish this before the end of 2013... but I missed by 2 days!!  So instead of a final finish for 2013 I have a first finish for 2014 instead!

Margaret Sherry's Puppy Love

Over the next couple of weeks I will hopefully "finish" the puppies into a lovely hanging for the craft room.

My latest stitching is a very secret stitch... which I hope to be able to show you sometime in the next couple of weeks.

Til next time happy stitching!

Be Happy

Hugs,

Noni xx

Guess what....

Darn the wheel of the world!  Why must it continually turn over?  

Where is the reverse gear? 

~ Jack London ~

I am late again for my TUSAL post!  Really late this time!  The New Moon was on New Years Day, but here we are already 12 days into the new month and the new year and no posting from me!

TUSAL January 2014 - New Year Starts

Seeing as how this is the first ORT report for 2014 I thought I would take the photo with the three projects that I intend to start this year - a Chatelaine, a Mirabilia and a secret project from the World of Cross Stitching magazine hiding in the back of the photo.

If you would like to sign up and join in the fun this year, then pop on over to Daffycat's blog and leave a comment saying that you're in!  The next 2014 ORT report will be ready for publication on or around 30th January 2014 - hopefully I will be on time for the next one!

New Moons - 2014
30th January
1st March
30th March
28th April
28th May
27th June
26th July
25th August
23rd September
23rd October
22nd November
21st December

Til next time happy stitching!

Be Happy

Hugs,

Noni xx

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2014!

Thank you for your friendship over the last year and thank you for all your lovely comments on my posts.

I look forward to catching up with you all and your stitching adventures over the next year.

I wish you and your loved ones health, wealth and happiness and lots of fabulous stitching for 2014

Hugs xx

We will open the book.  It's pages are blank.  We are going to put words on them ourselves. 

The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day.

~ Edith Lovejoy Pierce ~