SAL check-ins

For someone who normally has very little time to stitch, I am involved in a lot of stitch-alongs.  Fortunately for me, none of them are really very stressful, they mostly give me topics for my blog posts and keep me on track with my stitching.  The only bad part is that the check-ins seem to cluster around the end of the month which makes for a either a lot of posts in short period of time, or more recently crowded, multi-purpose posts.

This week, I have check-ins for TUSAL, Mega-Mini Month Madness, and Stitch from Stash and pictures of my regular stitching, so let's get started....

First up is TUSAL which is hosted by Sharon at It's Daffycat.  As I mentioned above, low stress.  Put all those little snippets of thread from the back, leftovers and, in my case this week, frogging fuzz into a container and post a photo each month on the new moon.  I am using a repurposed Yankee Candle jar and I think I will probably continuing using it next year as it seems to be just the right size.

Lots of metallic ends from Santa's Magic and lots of frogging fuzz from Fondant Icing.

Speaking of Santa's Magic, here is where he ended up after his week in the rotation:

I was able to finish the moon and the metallic blue swirls on the right hand side and added a little bit to that unfinished glove.

Back to SALs, the next one for check-in is Mega-Mini Month Madness.  It is hosted at Pull the Other Thread and is a one month blitz to stitch on smalls.  Small was defined as ornament size or smaller.  I stitched away on The Nutmeg Company's Fondant Icing this week and finished the stitching and beading.  I am not sure when I will get to the actual construction - maybe next week.  Here are all the pieces finished:

And because I have another week of MMMM and my Smalls SAL, I started Shepherd's Bush's She Tends.  As the whole design consists of four separate ornament sized parts, I figured it fit the definition of both SALs.  I got this far with it last night:

I am stitching this one in-hand so it's wrinkled and a bit wonky.  It's stitched using a combination of Weeks Dye Works, Crescent Colours  and DMC fibers and I am stitching it on 28-count Weeks Dye Works Linen (or at least I think I am - I didn't save the fabric label when I kitted this up).  I may finish this one before the end of next week as I was able to get this far after only about an hour of stitching.

And the final SAL is Stitch from Stash.  Hosted at Epic Stitching, it is a reminder to "love the one you're with" (with recognition to Stephen Stills) and keep within a budget with our stash acquisition.  We are given a budget of $25 each month for purchases and any balance rolls over to the next month.  There have been several exceptions given and we have been given a $50 exception to use anytime through the end of the year.  We were also given one free month to really binge if necessary.  So for October:

Carry over:  $225
October Budget: $25
Available:    $250
Spent:  $0
Balance Forward:  $250 + $50 exception

I had two new starts from stash, both are shown above and I stitched on Chatelaine's Secret Victorian Garden, Kayann's Kreations Elegant Doily, Mirabilia's Santa's Magic and Lizzie*Kate's Holly and Hearts Sampler.

Speaking of Holly and Hearts Sampler, it is on the frame right now and has gone from here:

To here:

It's spot in the rotation is up tomorrow night, so I am hoping to get a bit more done before it gets put up for a few weeks.  After this one, Just Nan's Spring in the Air will be pulled out.