July Basket

 

Cruising along through the Cosford Rise Stitchery (Etsy) basket series and having a lovely time with it! The baskets are quick to stitch so it's easy to keep up with monthly finishes, even if you're busy with other things, and of course, they're so pretty! This design includes a number of flag options, and the model is stitched with the flag of the UK, so I hadn't seen a finish with the American flag. I think it's beautiful!

As we head into this holiday weekend, the last weekend of summer (hooray!), I've had to make some adjustments to my stitchy plans. If you've been around lately, you know I've been stitching up a bunch of birds for my summer decorating, and that we've been sick, and that this summer has not gone according to plan. No worries! I have adapted! 

I'm about 2/3 done with my final bird of the summer (a real showstopper). I wanted to get my birds finished/framed in time to display them this summer, but that didn't work out. I am undeterred. I really want to enjoy them so I decided to just go ahead with that plan, instead of bringing out all of my fall/Halloween stitching. (If you missed last year's somewhat over-the-top display, click on the Halloween label in the right sidebar and scroll down a bit.) I have a stack of small Halloween stitches I want to get done, and the new plan is to whip those up and do a smaller display with just my new finishes. So, full speed ahead on Summer Birds, and on a scaled down--but all new!--Halloween display! Fingers crossed I can get some finishing done this weekend. 

Wishing you all a safe and stitchy holiday weekend... we made it to fall, y'all!

PS: Thank you so much for all the birthday wishes for the girls! 

The Werewolves Are Two Years Old!

Happy Summerween!

 

If you are a fellow Summer Sufferer and spend June, July, and August longing for all things cool and crisp and autumnal, this design is for you! This is Jack-o-Melon by The Stitch Crypt (Etsy), stitched with the recommended DMC on lime green Lugana. Such a cheerful, unique little design. It's very summery, but with a spooky twist!

Speaking of summer, I'll be glad to write this one off. We were both sick (he in June, I in July), which is extremely unusual. We both get sick maybe once every four years or so, and even then it's never at the same time. I hadn't been sick since December of 2019, so I was overdue. Anyway, that messed up some summer plans we had, and also threw me behind with stitching and finishing projects, and that's most annoying! Last week I spent about five hours doing project prep for a bunch of stuff I want to stitch, so now I can just pick up a new project as soon as I finish one and keep going. I am in desperate need of a finishing marathon. Maybe Labor Day weekend? We'll see.

Meanwhile, sneak peek of an almost-finish! 

Happy Stitching!

Nimble Birds Update

 

Nimble Birds (Owl Forest Embroidery) is coming along nicely. I have one more bird to stitch on this side of the sampler before I tackle all the intricate straight stitched feathers and tracks scattered between the birds. They're probably hard to see in the pictures of the design, but there are a lot of them (7 pages of illustrated instructions) and they're so lovely. Then I'll move to the other side of the sampler. I haven't decided if I'm going to add the backstitched border. I'll see how it looks when everything else is done.

Thank you for all the well wishes for my recovery. I'm over whatever was wrong with me, but it has left me pretty depleted. I missed an entire week of stitching, which is intolerable! 

Hope you're all well and getting lots of summer stitching done!