Well Hello November!

I slowed down and it was the end of October and today is the first of November. The last time I posted was September 1, wow! This may be a long post, or I may have to break it up into pieces. Anyway, grab a drink and settle in. Here is what I have been up to.

Goodbye, October.

Hello November.

So, September was spent getting my house and spare bedroom ready for my Mother-in-law’s visit. She arrived the end of September and spent 3 weeks with us. We had a great time. Busy all the time, lots of shopping, some crafting and just visiting and hanging out. I even taught her to do counted cross stitch. She was just about finished her project by the time she left. We had fun and I was sad to see her go.

Now onto what I have been stitching…where to begin…The Beach Boardwalk. I think I was on the 2nd shop the last time I posted. Since then I have added the Bicycle shop and the Boardwalk Banner.

I have a really hard time photographing this one. The individual photos don’t show the details and the colors look washed out. So this is the best photo I could get. I love how this one is turning out with all of the shops all in a row. They can be stitched individually, too. The patterns are from Country Cottage Needleworks and I am stitching them on 16t Aida Friendship Greene from Fabrics By Steph. This week I received the next shop, Souvenir Shop, so I will have to get back to it soon. Especially since today I saw the next shop is shipping to shops next week.

Next up is the Flying Lesson that I was stitching to put on a sign for a really cool Halloween display. So I finished the stitching in early September, but then it sat on a shelf.

The fear of cutting into my stitching was the reason I put it aside. I even finished a cute little witch on the other half of the fabric.

This pattern is from the Witchy Stitcher. I changed the purple colors from the called for green, mainly to match the colors I stitched the Flying Lesson with. So I waited until 4 days before Halloween to finally get going on finishing the sign. So I gathered all of my materials and was determined to get it done over the weekend.

This is such a cool looking sign for finishing a cross stitch on.

Gluing and staining. Not my favorite.

As you can see in the above photo, I did cut into the fabric, and I finished the stitched piece onto a sticky board with some batting. I had a bit of trouble with the corners but was finally able to get them to look like somewhat pointed corners. I couldn’t find a trim that I wanted in the craft stores, so I twisted a length of black crochet ribbon around a length of purple yarn and glued it around the edge of the piece. Then I glued it onto the sign. I couldn’t wait for it to dry to hang it onto the post.

Here it is, fully finished! It’s not perfect, but I love it! I am not a fan of gluing wood pieces together nor am I a fan of staining. I did learn that I need to be better at cleaning up the excess glue because the stain doesn’t adhere to the glue. But I think I did pretty good for my first time. And here is how I decorated it for Halloween.

I did not permanently attach any of the decorations to the signpost. My idea is to make more signs for different holidays. Maybe not this year, but in the future. The wooden sign is from Chantelle’s 141 and I have heard that she will be offering just the sign portion in the future. She has some awesome wood pieces for cross stitch finishing in her shop. Click on the link above to visit her online shop.

I did not get the witch piece finished for this year. It was also stitched on 16ct Aida Gina from Fabrics By Steph. I wanted to do some kind of flat fold, but just didn’t get to it. Cutting into 1 piece of finished cross stitch was enough for this year, I think 😉 The Flying Lesson pattern is from Silver Creek Samplers and is stitched on 16ct Aida Gina from Fabrics by Steph.

Well, I think I will end this post here. I have lots more to share, so come back to see what I have been up to. For now, I will leave you with what I woke up to this morning. Hello November.

Happy Stitching,

ginny