All Things Stitchy

Well, it's the middle of August (seriously?), so I thought I'd post a newsy kind of post. I do have stitching!

Alrighty. Carol asked if we hang around in the AC here in AZ. Yes, we do! Haha! I feel for the people who live in the hotter areas here like along the Colorado River on the western border, the deserts south of me. Elevations differ heavily here. I live at 5100ft elevation and Phoenix is at 1,000+ I believe. The drive back to home from Phoenix is usually an ear-popping excursion, and vice versa. You need AC in the car, in the house, and at work. The temps have dropped though in the last 2 weeks because of our monsoons. In the last couple of days it's been soupy and we can blame it on Hurricane Hilary or by now she's Tropical Storm Hilary. We've had thick cloud cover as she moves north through Baja California but today the clouds are looking different! I think we're catching the outside bands of Hilary now. The worst of it will go through southern California and those people have my thoughts and prayers for sure! 

Let's talk stitching!

I joined up with Stitch from Stash 2017-23 again for this 2nd half of 2023. I ended July with a balance of $58. I gave myself a monthly budget of $20 plus I had 3 finishes in July and the credits were $38. This month is another matter!!

Haha!

I have 2 finishes so far...this one is Bee in Your Bonnet

designer is Summerhouse Stitche Workes. It was a WIP for at least 4 years. I stitched 1 over 2 on 32ct. Once again, I had white DMC issues with the very light honeycomb you can barely see. So I did a bit of frogging and used the right white to match the other 2 honeycombs. That bee skep is all Algerian eyelets which wasn't bad at all! I tend to build mountains out of mole hills! 

I'm so glad to get some of these old bigger WIPs finished. 

One more finish was a start last week and it took about 4 or 5 hours to stitch...

Salt of the Earth by Lucy Beam. Last weekend I was going through my stash and I saw this and decided to start it. I bought it as a kit last year from the website. It came with the 40ct white linen and 2 little buttons for the salt. I don't know if the kit is in stock. The designer says the little frame on the model can be found at Hobby Lobby. I now have 18 finishes on the year.

Now this start was something that was yelling at me to start! Over on Becky Nolan's FB group, this woman posted her finish and framed piece and I couldn't purchase the PDF fast enough! Here's her framed piece with her permission..

I had the perfect piece of fabric for this but didn't have the 2 floss for it so ka-ching! Here's how the chart model looks like ...

Please excuse the lamp reflecting on the left. I had to take a picture of the PDF on my iPad which is dumb because..well that's a story for another time...here's my start...

I'm not sure of the name but it's from the Atomic Ranch fabric line, 36ct using 2 skeins of GAST Cucumber and 1 of Purple Haze. It's funny how a pattern that you've seen doesn't stir up excitement until you see it stitched! I'm framing mine like hers and will hang it on the wall of the next place I live. I think we can all agree that we're a bit crazy for cross stitch!

Hmm, what's next? 

Oh, my regular stitching for the month. Roseannah Tindale 1840 is a start for summer camp on IG. She's on 32ct vintage country mocha using Flower threads. I mostly stitched in that left side border and then a little of the letters...

IRL, the border shows up better than my picture. The border is the first page of the graph. She might turn out to be a big girl! We'll see.

And here's Wicked Ride by The Primitive Hare...

I'm stitching this for a challenge and I count stitches that I make each week. Fun fact: an ancestor of mine in the late 1600s in Rhode Island is named Ichabod! 

Next up is a non-stitchy question...

This is a Christmas card that I bought from Country Sampler in Wisconsin. I thought it was pretty and that I could frame it for the season. I'm having a bit of trouble deciding on what color I should paint my frame. Click on the pic to see it better. A red matching the red in the candy cane or white or a rich green that matches her beautiful dress? It's just a pretty card. Leave your opinion in the comments.

Linda and Lee, I hope you've gotten your packages by now. Enjoy!

And that, my friends, is all she wrote. I did all my laundry for the new work week on Friday so I get to stitch all day today! I am getting things in the house together for a yard sale, or the 2nd hand store, or just trash. Moving is still on the cards within a year or two so I'm just getting a head start on organizing things. My craft room/bedroom is going to give me heartburn because of my books and all my cross stitch i.e fabric, pincushions, stash, cubes etc. I'm seeing lots of plastic totes in my future!

Take care and stitch a lot! See you soon🙋🏻‍♀️