July WIPocalypse

Ahh July! We're right in the middle of all that summer heat and I'm loving it. From what I can see there is a lot more waiting for us. I must admit though that I'm very thankful for a/c on some of the more humid days. 

Before all that humidity hit I managed to stitch up an early birthday gift for my friend Nan. I'm so pleased with how it turned out. This one is designed by Needlework Press and is called May The Hinges of Friendship Never Rust. I stitched it with one strand of Gloriana silk floss in Winter Woods.

Here is the backing fabric and another front view of the piece which shows the lettering a bit better.

As you can see, Nan loved it and I'm so happy.

I also made a belated birthday gift for my friend Theresa. This is a Blackbird Design called Her Majesty from their Honeybee Hill leaflet. What I didn't know was that Theresa loves bees and collects them!

I do love watching their faces when they open their gifts. It was just like Christmas with the kids!

We exchanged all these gifts, both early and late, at a weekend getaway. This is a group of stitching buddies with whom I've become fast friends. We all live at a distance from each other both in the US and Canada. We chose E Syracuse as a location for our weekend which seemed to be a central location for most of us.

One of the reasons we chose this location is because there is a fabulous stitching shop in nearby Fayetteville called A Stitcher's Garden. I think we all laid down some serious cash there, lol!

During the course of the weekend we also had a staining lesson from Theresa and Nan. They each use different methods but the results are virtually the same. We stained both linen and chenille.

Besides stitching there was also lots of shopping and eating during the weekend. These pics are courtesy of my friends Cathy and Theresa.

Even Theresa's son joined in on trying his hand at stitching. He did a fabulous job, with a little help from mom!

I was also the recipient of some wonderful belated birthday gifts during our trip. There were several handmade smalls but I will share those on my Smalls SAL report next week. In the meantime, here's a couple other gifts I was thrilled to receive. Those silks are so pretty and in my favourite colour! The pattern is one I did not yet have. The girls all know that I love anything with deer in it. I'm almost afraid to use those beautiful scissors and tape measure. They're gorgeous!

I am so blessed to have such an amazing group of stitching friends! The weekend passed by far too soon and we all agreed that we should do it again next year. The count down is on!