New HAED SAL

Last week I read about a new HAED SAL on Cindy's blog. They were going to work on their HAED projects on Fridays. I have a couple of HAED WIPs which had not been worked on in a long, long time, so I decided that this might be a great opportunity to work on one of them. So I joined the SAL, and yesterday, Santa's List by Ruth Sanderson came out for some attention. I got a tremendous amount done for me, and there is a reason. My husband and son left on Friday morning for a campout, and so I just stitched and stitched and stitched. My daughter and I went out to eat at Chili's last night and then we watched National Treasure II and I stitched some more into the night. It was very enjoyable to work on a HAED again, and I will hopefully be back to it next Friday.

Click here if you want to see what the design will look like when completed.
Then here is my before-SAL picture:

And here is the after-SAL picture:

I also wanted to explain a little bit about the LHN Dear Diary sampler that I am working on as well, because there were some questions regarding it. The patterns are each sold separately and they are not really intended to go together into a large sampler, but I saw a picture of a Neighborhood Round Robin project that was using the Dear Diary charts in two straight columns of four. I thought that it was beautiful. (sorry, I couldn't locate this picture online) Then I read that an informal SAL was being begun by Cheryl and Vonna as they were inspired by this same Round Robin. I played around with the patterns until I decided upon a layout that I liked, and the rest is history. It will make a large project completed (243 x 317 stitches), but it doesn't seem overwhelming because I think of each separate little chart as a finish. I am stitching it on a full yard of 32 count Lakeside maple sugar linen.

And, finally, here are some stitching posts from around the web that inspired me this week. The stitching web is abundantly full of new starts in honor of the new year this week, but I found a few lovely finishes to highlight.

Penelope in Italy finished this adorable hornbook. I am not familiar with the design, but I like it very much.

Silvia in Barcelona, Spain has finished a beautiful redwork Bienvenue
heart with roses.

And Loreta has a gorgeous wintry finish of CCN's Forest Snowfall.

Until next time....