Small SAL - February Check In

This is the second year I join that SAL. I discovered it last year, when it was hosted by Stitching Lotus and I enjoyed with the monthly updates. This year I went to Stitching Lotus to join and I knew that the SAL has a new home....... Now it is living in Mary's Thread blog. Thank you for giving a home to this SAL.

So many times we are very concern in working in big project taking us ages to finish them (I made two projects which took me around 2 years each) and we pay less attention to small things which most of the time you can quickly do and gives an excellent result, mainly for seasonal decoration. This SAL encourage you to do this type of small projects.

I am subscribe to Cross Stitcher magazine from years. They normally propose a SAL or serie of pattern to make along the year. This year they proposed a SAL which I didn’t like too much. But they proposed also a collection of flowers. The idea is to make one flower every month which is going to be the most typical flower for that month. Obviously you can finish it off as you want, but I like the way they are proposing in the magazine and I think I am going to follow. There is also a small description and picture of the flower of the month.

January’s flower is ………. Snowdrops. I love snowdrops. When I see them for the first time in January, many times coming out through the snow, my mood changes. Obviously it is winter and most of the times there is still quite long time of cold weather, but they are the signal for the beginning of the spring which will be confirmed when the daffodils sprouts.

For that design there are couple of things I tried for the first time. I chose for my snowdrops a brown 28ct evenweave and stitches 2 strand over 2 threads. I have never used this fabric before but I think I am going to use it so much more from now as I like how the cross stitch looks and I like how I can stitch on it.

I used the threads DMC in the called for colours excepting for the white one. I decided to substitute this thread for the new variety of DMC thread, the DMC Etoile. I bought few threads of this  variety last year just after they were released but I never had the opportunity to use them. I decided to do now and even if the results are not amazing, I can say they are not bad. I think I need to try in other type and colour of fabric as well as other thread colour from the same collection and write a review about them. You can tell me in the comments if you are interested…….

I finished it as it was proposed in the magazine, as a heart shape cushion. I chose a beige fabric for the back and I think it is not too bad, don’t you think?

It looks nice, but not as the real snowdrops.