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!