June WIPocalypse

The month of June has seen my stitching time increase somewhat. As much as I would have loved to see a finish on A Yuletide Welcome it just hasn't happened. If you remember from last month's post, I was pretty much finished with the exception of the bottom grass with the lettering and background fill in. At this point I have everything complete except for all that white fill. I started out stitching it from one side of the piece to the other but I keep on having to move the Q snap when I do it that way. So instead I decided to fill in one small section at a time and it feels like I'm progressing more.

I'll continue to plod along on this as the urge strikes me. As long as it's complete before the year's end, that's all I care about. I think the larger Q snap (11x11) is what is slowing me down.

Heartstring Samplery's Victoria's Garden was the next piece to get some attention.

Last month's start

This month's progress

I'm really enjoying this particular design but then again I've always been a huge fan of any Heartstring Samplery pattern. I'm hoping to get back to this very shortly.

As for my Blackbird Design, Her Fair Works, very little was done. I finished up the bottom lower left flower basket and started to add the little bird to the right of it. 

Last month

June's progress

Then my interest waned and I switched to a small design for Canada Day which can be seen on my previous post. 

The plan for July is to continue working on the above three until at least one is finished before I start something new. Our weather here the past couple of weeks has been extremely hot and humid which I find just doesn't give me the energy to do much of anything, lol!

As Covid restrictions start to ease up some here we are also starting to see some of our family and a few friends. I've missed everyone and I'd much rather be doing that this month. I hope everyone continues to be well during this difficult time. 

June Smalls

Six months into the year and this is only my second posting for the Smalls SAL. This year has turned out to be the year of the larger projects. Understandably they help pass the time more during this quarantine plus I have some large projects that have been on my wishlist for some time. However I couldn't resist stitching up a little Canada design for the upcoming Canada Day on July 1.

This particular design is one of Jeannette Douglas' Patriotic Snippets, specifically #5. I had hoped it would be completely finished by now but I had none of the required Petite Treasure Bread, Kreinik Blending Filament and none of the required Threadworx floss. I couldn't find them locally which means that I have to wait for them to arrive from the US before I can finish this.

The missing threads will fill in the outline on the left which is meant to be an interpretation of the northern lights. There are 12 of these sweet little snippets to stitch. They were released two to a package every other month throughout 2017 in celebration of Canada's 150th birthday. I hope to do several more of them if not all but it probably won't happen this year. Too many other things are wanting attention. I'll post a pic of the final finish on this one as soon as I can get it stitched up. Floss orders have generally been taking anywhere from 3-5 wks to arrive!

I hope you are all well and getting lots of x's crossed!

May WIPocalypse

I've seemed to get back some of my Mojo this month and have made considerable progress on my stitching. First up, Plum Street Samplers A Yuletide Welcome:

I spent the beginning of the month completing the border and then grew tired of this. It then sat aside until just this past Thursday when I picked it up again and started work on the large box at the bottom which will eventually contain the title of the piece. This morning I've moved the Q snaps and I've already completed two more rows at the top to the right of the house door. Once the entire box of green is complete I'll start stitching the letters before adding the white background. On all the completions of this that I've seen that box is filled in with white but on the chart it only shows an outline of white around the inside of the box. 

When I'm ready to move on from this again I'll return to my latest start which is Victoria's Garden by Heartstring Samplery. 

This is such a pretty piece! I've thought about buying it on many occasions and always passed it over for something else. However several weeks ago I decided I really wanted to stitch it and I ordered the PDF from Beth's Etsy site. As a result of the pandemic she has recently switched over her Etsy shop to exclusively PDF models. This works better for me as the shipping costs to Canada are quite costly, along with the exchange rate on our currency. 
I searched my stash and found a piece of R&R Crème Brûlée. I had all the suggested threads with the exception of one and Beth gave me the DMC equivalent for it. I'm hoping to get back to this one in a couple of days.

Earlier in the month, when I tired from my Yuletide Welcome, I browsed through some of my Blackbird Design books. I love working on Blackbird projects and many call their designs comfort stitching. If you watch flosstube, specifically Brenda & The Serial Starter, you'll hear Brenda often refer to Blackbird Designs as comfort stitching. I feel the same way about them and considering my mood at times with this pandemic I gravitated directly to my BBD books and charts. In their Ooh la la book from 2019 I found 
Her Fair Works, a boxtop finish which is featured on the front cover.

As you can see, I'm nearly finished. Only the flower on the left is remaining along with a bird and an ititial and then the border around the piece. 
I don't have the appropriate size box for the finish but whenever we can finally get into our stores again I hope to find one. 

While I was searching for a box though I found one that I had completely forgotten all about. This is a Sudberry House Box which will fit a 5 in diameter circular stitch.

 You won't believe it but I found this box in a collection of stash which was dropped off at my front door a few years ago. We have never found the donor of the stash collection but it contained many treasures including this box and a vast collection of Weeks Dye Works floss.

I celebrated my birthday earlier in May and because my family couldn't go out and purchase gifts they gave me the next best thing. My sons gave me gift certificates to a favourite online shop and my husband gave me the money for some stash which I used to order four cuts of linen. In addition my friend Nan sent me a copy of her latest release, Handtuch Sampler, along with the floss to stitch it with. 
It also felt like Christmas all over again when I received word from my friend Patti that she had completed the framing on my Pennsylvania Dutch Sampler. 

I love how it turned out! This was a Christmas gift from my mother and I know she will be happy with the results too. 

I hope everyone is well and that it won't be long before you can resume visits with friends and family. Until then, happy stitching!