Exchanges, passing the torch & halloween displays

Ok well I said there would be more exchanges and I wasn't lying!! Only 4 today so we should wizz through them pretty quickly!

First up the All Our Yesterdays exchange, I sent a stitched bokmark & a papercrafted card using one of the new Faye Whitaker decoupage designs (only the backing image as I didn't want to decoupage it)

My partner in this exchange has recently had shoulder surgery and was unable to stitch anything but I still received this lovely kit & yummy chocolate (always goes down well!)

Next up the Assisi Card exchange I sent this:

And received:

Then we had a butterfly exchange, this one I actually struggled with, the gift could be shopbought rather than stitched so I sent a 2012 diary with a butterfly print & a stitched card:

I received these lovely coasters, stitched on sparkly aida :)

Lastly for the exchanges today is the ABC exchange, probably the funniest exchange I've had all year so far. We had to choose either modern or traditional to stitch and we would be sent something from the catagory we chose, I chose traditional and stitched this design from Joan Elliott's latest book 'Cross Stitched Greeting Cards' and finished it as a pillow using the fabric pictured as the backing.

Now I'm a big fan of Joan Elliott and planned to stitch this again for myself in the new year after all these exchanges are over so you can imagine my surpprise when I received this in the post!

It's almost identical, I omitted the fractional stitches & french knots in my version (the diamonds above the houses and the leaves in the corners/between the houses) purely because time was running out to get it posted but the fact that I received the exact design I posted & it was finished in exactly the same way still baffles me, goes to show that stitchers really do think alike!!

After thinking long and hard about it, I gave up stitching my Krabby/Kingler pokemon quilt patch for the patchwork gym, I simply have to many other comitments right now and I knew there was no way I was going to make the deadline to get it finished, however all is not lost, I have sent my incomplete patch to another member of the patchwork gym to finish for me as she very kindly offered too so massive thanks to Blackmageheart (forum name) for doing that, hopefully it won't take her as long to complete as it would me! :) I'll be sure to post up the finished pic when she's finished it!

Lastly I wanted to leave you with a few pictures of my new (well it is to me) singer machine, all dressed up for Halloween.

And a few close ups of some of my new halloween/autumn bits this year (I try to buy one or two things every year as well as make some)

i love this wooden sign, it has fixtures at the back to hang in on the wall but I plan on getting some thick cord and stringing it up that way.

This pumpkin reminds me of Nightmare before Christmas (fave film) or something out of Halloweentown from the Disney Channel, so wish they would release the dvd's over here in the UK as me and my mum loved watching them on the Disney Channel every year!!

Finally I'll leave you with my spidey candle holder complete with orange cobweb candle, I hate spiders bit this little guy was too cute to say no too!!!

Till next time happy stitching!!!

xX Fiona Xx