Winners of the wXSw Halloween SAL Contests Announced … FINALLY !!!
Once again … I must apologize for the unplanned delay … but wasn’t it spooky? 
(Planned delays, of course, are just plain annoying, but fortunately do not occur when one is self-employed. Or self-unemployed. Or whatever.)
Here, at long last, but no less the worse for the wait, are the well-deserved winners of the Wonderful XS World (wXSw) Halloween Stitch-a-long (SAL) Contests.
Most Bootiful Tree
The competition in this category was very, very stiff. INN readers were charmed by several different styles of finished trees, from the scary to the folksy to the Halloweenishly lovely. It was a close race, but the results are in, and it is well past time to announce the winners.
Taking first place and also being awarded her choice of one design from each of our three SAL designers (Helga Mandl Designs, Periphaeria Designs, and Tam’s Creations) is …
… Karen Gieselman !!!
Mere votes behind to take second place and her choice of a design from two of our participating designers is …
… Lauren Kuik !!!
And just a few tiny votes behind her to take third place and her choice of one design from one of our participating designers is …
Joni Gochenour-Lehman !!!
Most Creative Display
INN Readers really had a good time voting in the next category, and as this particular category only has one sponsored award this year, it was really exciting to see we had one very clear winner.
Without further ado, many congratulations to the winner in the Most Creative Display category … for a tree which showed not just pizzazz and creativity, but also a big warm heart and good fun:
… Karen Gieselman !!! Karen is hereby the winner of a $50 Gift Certificate from Enchanted Fabrics! Karen, who lives in a small town and thus has to make most of her things herself, obviously had a lot of fun decorating this year. Her Halloween tree is made of tomato cages and papier mache and stands over five feet tall! Everything except the tombstones and the car were homemade by Karen with her family!
Most Creative Individual Finishing
The choices were a bit more difficult for INN readers to choose their favorites in the category for Most Creative Individual Finishing, although we did have a clear favorite in first place. Her finishing idea was so charmingly beguiling that I, for one, double-checked my pattern printouts to make sure I’d actually received all of them! For her exquisitely tricky and even magical idea, first place along with a $20 gift certificate and free postage from Violarium belong to …
… Rita De Graeve !!! Rita, I personally must thank you for such an inspirational finishing idea. It puts a big smile on my face every time I think of it, and reminds me of many good games of Battleship with my brother many years ago (I used to love cramming all my ships into one tiny little area … all that open sea for him to miss when he tried to bomb my ships, LOL … It’s one of my fondest childhood memories, and was nearly forgotten way back in those deep recesses until now.), and both the smiles and the good memories are much appreciated.
Second place and a year’s subscription to The Gift of Stitching online magazine go to …
… Karen Gieselman ! Are those old jeans? Maybe a pair that you accidentally spilled bleach onto? Just wondering because I am still amazed at all this creativity, and my mind is going a mile a minute — well, okay, half a mile a minute, as I did just get out of the hospital a few days ago — at the recycling opportunities for Halloween decor all of a sudden!
Third place and a $10 gift certificate (plus free postage) from Violarium is awarded to …
… oh, now this is just too spooky!
We have a TIE!
Joni Gochenour-Lehman (upper photo) and Joan Pavlick (we love those big, hairy spiders with the googly eyes — just as long as we know they aren’t real — don’t we?) have BOTH taken third place! What now? Will we have to have a stitch-off?
Because the Christmas SAL on wXSw is already in progress … ?
Not to worry! We’re all set, with many thanks to Leena from Violarium, who very generously agreed to sponsor both third place awards.
To all of our contestants, thank you so much for entering. Our pointy hats are off to you for a truly fun competition that made each and every little (and big) hurdle getting here worthwhile. We hope you enjoyed yourselves as much as we enjoyed watching things develop, and we are already putting ideas to percolate in our cauldrons for next year — so you might want to do the same!
That wraps up not only the first annual wXSw Halloween SAL Contest, but also the first ever contest intended to be hosted by Independent Needlework News, while actually being hosted by One Star’s Light Needlework Supplies.
Once again, thank you to all of our generous prize sponsors (all in the Blogroll):
Enchanted Fabrics,
The Gift of Stitching,
Independent Needlework News,
Helga Mandl Designs,
Periphaeria Designs,
QSnap Huggers,
Tam’s Creations, and
Violarium
Please don’t forget to stay tuned here to INN to see if YOU might be the prize-winner drawn randomly from the voting group! That’s where the as yet mysteriously “absent” (because I negotiated for that a while back … and thank you again, Kim!) QSnap Hugger mentioned above as a prize sponsor will make itself known along with some other stitchy goodness. Just as soon as the validation emails seem to have finished coming in (I had no idea there were to be so many, LOL), I’ll get my randomizing research team on the job, and we’ll get that award taken care of, too!
Technorati Tags: wXSw, Halloween, cross stitch, needlework, contest, competition, Wonderful XS World, Bootiful Tree, Creative Display, Creative Individual Finishing, Independent Needlework News, Random Voter Prize, Violarium, Gift of Stitching, Enchanted Fabrics, Periphaeria Designs, Helga Mandl, HMDesigns, Tam’s Creations, Jenna Magee, One Star’s Light Needlework Supplies, Karen Gieselman, Joni Gochenour-Lehman, Joan Pavlick, Rita De Maeve, Lauren Kuik