July Smalls

I've been trying off and on all day to get this post up from my laptop and finally gave up in disgust. I'm posting from my tablet now. On July 1 we celebrated Canada Day and that got me into the mood to stitch a couple more of Jeannette Douglas' Patriotic Snippets. I received the floss I was waiting on for last month's snippet, #5, and started by finishing it off.

It's hard to see the shine from the metallic floss but it's there. It's been years since I've used any kind of metallic floss or blending filament. I'm not a huge fan of it but it served its purpose in this piece to demonstrate the Northern Lights.

I'm not committed to stitching these in any particular order so the next start was snippet #2.

I was really motivated because I went ahead and did the final finishing of each of these! Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not fond of finishing and tend to put it off but I've had a lot of time on my hands lately so here are the results.

After seeing how well they turned out I pulled out my Canada 150, another Jeannette Douglas Design, that I stitched up last year and completed the final finishing on it as well.

I'm so pleased with how they all turned out. I was able to display them with some of my previous patriotics, just in time for the holiday.

The last snippet stitched this month #12, I finished up last week.

I'll wait until I've stitched a few more before I do any more pillows.

I've been concentrating on larger projects this year and when I need a break these are a great diversion. They stitch up quickly and I've feel like I'm making progress. 

The weather here has been so hot and humid. In fact Ottawa broke a record for the hottest July ever! When the humidity gets bad I spend most of my time indoors. I'm really hoping August cools down some. If it does perhaps I'll get in the mood for some autumn smalls!

July WIPocalypse

It's a HOT summer here! I know it's the same for many of you across not only Canada but in the US as well. I've been very thankful that we have our gazebo in which to enjoy the weather but during the past two weeks there have been periods of high humidity which just scream "Stay inside!" On days such as this I spend my time with my needle in hand in the air conditioned comfort. 

I had hoped that I could finish off A Yuletide Welcome but sometime during the first few days I ran out of the floss needed to fill in the label at the bottom of the piece. I have some on order but Lord knows when it will arrive. Postage times have increased as has the time to fill orders in many shops. Here are pics of the piece where I left off.

I'm really hoping that by next month my floss will have arrived and I will close to a finish if not there already!

In the meantime I worked on some patriotic stitches for display this month. You'll see some photos of those on my smalls SAL post at the end of this month.

Once the smalls were finished I pulled out Heartstring Samplery Victoria's Garden. I've added a bit more to it than I had last month.

This one is going to be really pretty when it's done. I'm enjoying my time spent with it. I really love that flower basket! The muted colours are lovely and show up much better in real life than in the photos. On the cover of this pattern there is a photo of both the original sampler and the reproduction. The reproduction is very true to the original colours because it's hard to tell them apart.

I'm thinking that I might get started on a few Christmas ornaments in August. I need to stitch some for my granddaughters as well as a friend. I've also ordered a Jeannette Douglas pattern, Friendship No Borders, which has both a Canadian and a US design which can be stitched as individual pillows or combined into a double sided pincushion. I like to stitch this as a gift for my sister who lives in the US. It's on order with my shop so it may take several weeks to arrive.

No stitching was done on my Blackbird Design piece but maybe I can get that finished up for next month too. Keep an eye for my Smalls post on Friday to see all of my patriotic finishes!