Stitching Christmas and a Pile of SALs

It’s the last day of September, and I am in full on Christmas preparation mode.  Only, perhaps, to be broken by a little bit of Halloween stitching next month.  We shall see.

On the knitting needles is a Christmas gift, so no pictures of that.  I will be knitting Baby Man a pumpkin hat for Halloween, which I will share.

I’ve been diligently stitching away on Baby Man’s Christmas stocking, and have achieved my September goal of finishing the toy sack and Christmas tree.

My goal for October will be to finish up all of the stitching with the exception of the back stitching.  All this work on the stocking means that I have fallen horribly behind on the Papillon Creations Castles in the Air SAL.  But that will be going on for about another year and a half, so I think I will be able to get caught up.

I’ve also completed Part 3 of the Sampler de Noel SAL.  Part 4 is due out on Thursday, and I’m ready.  (Yes, I did say Fridays before, but my French really is so bad that I get days of the week mixed up.  Cereal box French doesn’t really get you very far on the Internet unless someone is giving away something for gratuit.  That’s free for those of you who’s French is even worse than mine.)

Voilà:

Lovely, isn’t it?  The very uneven linen I am using makes it look a bit off in a couple of places, but everything is just as it should be.  I think it gives it a bit of an antique look.

This brings me to yet another SAL, or rather Read Along.  I’ve finished book 4 of the 10 Book Reading and Stitching Challenge from Reading and Stitching.  It was A Good Yarn (Blossom Street, No. 2) by Debbie Macomber.  Please forgive me.  I know I said I wouldn’t read any more of her books, but I figured that I had to be missing something since so many people like them.  I’m not.  I didn’t enjoy this book either.  I think it is because I want a mystery or a historical event or something to underlay the story.  I don’t want to just read about someone’s life.  (Jane Austen is an exception here, and only because she is a fabulous writer, and they are historical novels now, right?  Anyone?)

I’m halfway through my next two books.  The first is Empire by Orson Scott Card, which is hibernating because the story has gone silly.  My husband read it last week and thinks I should stick with it.  And the second is Norstrilia by Cordwainer Smith (aka Paul Linebarger), a fabulous old school sci-fi novel that is making me want to reread some classics on my bookshelf.

And one more SAL to round out the post: Tempus Fugit is hosting another SAL.  This time she isn’t providing a chart (like her fabulous SALexander).  The aim of this SAL is to finish at least one project every month using just what you have in your stash.  She means completely finished, so turned into a pillow, framed, made into a pinkeep, whatever.  It will run from October to June, and I’ll be taking part.  Goodness knows there is enough in my stash to do this. Head on over and read about the SALsuffit.