Fright Night

Fright Night by The Sweetheart Tree (S.C. Vanosdall, ©1992) — a small primitive Halloween scene with a personified spooky tree at the centre (frowning face, branches reaching up, knotted roots), a RIP tombstone with a black cat arching in front of it, pumpkins on trailing vines wrapping the bottom, a spider hanging from a web off one branch, and three bats in flight up in the corner. The whole composition sits low in the frame so the empty fabric reads as a misty graveyard sky.

This chart is out of print — The Sweetheart Tree’s older catalogue isn’t generally available anymore, and Fright Night is one of the harder ones to track down secondhand.

The original chart calls for 16ct Bay Rum & Sage Aida. I went with 32ct Fortnight Fabrics Fright Night — a hand-dyed linen with a mottled tan-peach-rust wash that happens to share its name with this design and works beautifully under it. Stitched 2-over-2 on the 32ct, the finished size lands close to the original 16ct model but on a more elegant ground than aida.

Threads are DMC throughout — the chart palette is mostly browns, grays, dark pumpkin orange, and sage green, with DMC 3371 (dark brown-black) doing all the backstitch outlining (tombstone, cat, pumpkins, tree, leaf veins, spider webs, vines, tendrils) and the bat-wing detail. The chart suggests Mill Hill Black Onyx beads as an optional substitution for the bat and spider bodies; mine are stitched in DMC.

Framed in an ornate black frame with sculpted scrollwork in the corners and a fine beaded inner edge — the matte black with copper-tone wear in the carving suits a cottage-y antique-storybook Halloween piece better than a clean modern frame would.

Finished October 28, 2023 — three days before Halloween!