Halloween

Halloween by La-D-Da
Just Cross Stitch 2009 Halloween Ornament Issue (September/October)
Natural linen (30ct)
Stitched with Crescent Colours Belle Soie

This little pillow ornament was a quick stitch — so quick, in fact, that I did it twice.  Why?

My LNS doesn’t carry the Belle Soie or WDW linen called for on the chart, so I ordered the kit for this ornament.  When it arrived, I thought the chestnut colored linen was too dark for the silks; I can barely see the stitched pumpkin.  Here’s a photo of the stitched-but-unstuffed pillow ornament.  The linen looks a lot lighter in the photo; actually kind of nice, but even so, the pumpkin doesn’t stand out as well as I would like.  And the linen is much darker in real life, trust me. I also had a difficult time stitching on the dark linen, so I made a few mistakes, and then when it was finished, I just wasn’t crazy about how it looked.  Have you ever had that happen with a project?

As I said, this ornament stitches up fast, and I have a bunch of extra 30 count natural linen with no project on which to use it, so I decided it was worth trying again. (The linen was on sale at my LNS and for good reason; it’s very stiff and scratchy.  Not very fun to work with, but perfect for this re-do, as it has the right sort of rustic charm.)

This time, I’m much happier with how it turned out.  My local fabric shop had just set out their autumn/Halloween fabrics, and I bought a few fat quarters to experiment with this ornament and the Blackbird Designs Halloween stockings.

In other Halloween stitching news:  Trick or Treat?  My Just Nan Spooky tin autoship arrived, but the linen is missing!  I called the shop and learned that they had run out of WDW Peoria Purple.  It’s backordered and they’ll send it to me when they receive more.  Hopefully I’ll be able to stitch up the tin lid before Halloween.  Like all the other Just Nan tins, it looks so cute (Spooky is an especially unique design) and I’m eager to get started on it.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 19th, 2009 at 12:08 am and is filed under halloween, smalls. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

2 Responses to “Halloween”

  1. Zeb Says:
    September 19th, 2009 at 1:04 pm

    I find it really frustrating when the recommended fabric isn’t true to the stock image of the design. Classic example was Just Nan’s Sirens of the Sea. I loved the gently mottled look of the stock photo and ordered the recommended fabric; but turns out they did photo editing on the stock photo cause the recommended fabric is NOTHING like the stock photo version. :(

    So annoying!

  2. Heather Says:
    September 19th, 2009 at 8:50 pm

    Ugh, that’s too bad. Good to know, since Sirens is on my wish list too, but what a hassle to be stuck with something you don’t really want.
    The La-D-Da ornament linen (WDW chestnut) looks a lot lighter in the magazine, and the mahogany Belle Soie is brighter orange, too. I prefer to choose hand-dyed threads and fabrics in person so I can get the colors I like (and they’ll work well together) but that wasn’t an option with this project. Maybe I just got a pair of dye lots that were never meant to be together.