Night Birds

 

Summer of Finishing: More Christmas

 

Still hard at work/play in the sewing room! I am thoroughly enjoying my time in there and finding it very therapeutic. My unfinished pile is slowly diminishing!

These two are from With Thy Needle and Thread. When finishing them I had to overcome my urge to make perfect ovals because the designs themselves are not perfect ovals. So they're slightly lopsided and I'm going to be okay with that. I'm growing!

And here's my lovely Viking Santa from Homespun Collectibles. I love him. I stitched him with Caron Wildflowers on undyed linen, one of my very favorite combinations. 

A little change of pace coming up. Stay tuned!

Saturday Sampler: Summer Stash Edition

It's been over a year since I last visited my not-so-local shop, which is about 2.5 hours away. But Mr. Wonderful had a couple days of leave after the holiday weekend so we took a little road trip so I could do some stash maintenance. I was shopping for 250th and Christmas Open House stitching!

I can never have enough GAST Buckeye Scarlet. It's my favorite red and I expect to be using lots of it over the next year. Not being a fan of most blues, I took the opportunity to peruse the wall of threads and choose a blue I really liked to swap out when I needed it. I chose Classic Colorworks Cauldron. It looks periwinkle in this picture (and purple next to other blues!) but it's a deeper, smokier color and looks so pretty with Buckeye Scarlet. 

I picked up a few pieces of fabric as well, all 32 ct. Lugana. Left to right: Dusty Lavender (not quite as grey as the picture), Wildberry, and Steel Blue. 

I'm always on the lookout for nice, neutral "parchment-y" colors that don't lean too heavily yellow or brown. This one is reading yellow of course (have I mentioned I hate the camera on this phone? Colors are impossible), but in reality, it's a very well balanced neutral. 32 ct. Burnt Sand from Mani di Donna. 

I have so much patriotic and Christmas Open House stitching lined up, I didn't even really look at charts, but I did bring home this little guy. Too adorable to pass up. The whole Animal Crackers series is very cute, but I think he's my favorite. 

A couple of treats from one of my favorite Etsy shops. 

This week also brought a lovely surprise in the mailbox from Robin in Virginia! She knows me... I am a fox loving, sweater weather kinda girl! Thank you, Robin!

In other news, stitching has commenced on 250th birthday and Christmas Open House 2026 projects! Yes, you read that correctly, 2026! Things are cookin' over here at Wonderful HQ.

We also had shots this week, and while Marigold always powers through with no ill effects, Butterfly always develops a fever, poor darling. She's all better now, but she had a rough couple of days. Here they are, sleeping off their vaccines.

And that's the update from our house. Hope y'all are having a wonderful summer. 

Happy Stitching!

 

Happy Birthday to us!

 

Happy Independence Day, fellow Americans! I've mentioned before that I don't really stitch patriotic designs. Being a military family, we are surrounded by flags and other symbols of patriotism every day of our lives, so for me, I don't feel the urge to also stitch them. And as such, my stash of patriotic designs is almost nonexistent. 

However.

I am getting excited about our 250th birthday next year! And our 250th year starts today! So, since I have plenty of time on my hands and nothing else I need to stitch (that was a joke) I've decided to throw in a few patriotic designs here and there over the next year. Since I really don't have any, I've been on the hunt and I've found some I really like. I'm interested to see what designers come up with to celebrate our 250th. 

I was just barely old enough to remember the Bicentennial and can remember it being a very exciting time. We were stationed on Guam at the time. I would never have imagined that 50 years later I would be a military wife myself. I'm looking forward to stitching a new-to-me theme and sharing them with you. Stay tuned!

Happy Stitching and Happy Independence Day!

Spring Tiny Village

Behold! A finish! Y'all, this pretty little spring village by Crocette a gogo took me two months of a few stitches here and there when I felt like it. Finally done! I had been eyeing the winter village for a while but I must confess I was a little weirded out by the giant snowmen. I loved the spring village and picked that up immediately. There's now a summer village in the series, and I've noticed the summer issue of Punch Needle & Primitive Stitcher magazine has another version of summer village that has a patriotic American theme. I may stitch that, haven't decided yet. I may go ahead and stitch the winter village as well. Of course, what I'm really waiting for is the autumn village. I hope I like it. 

Anyway, thought I'd share this charming series for those who like series and seasonal stitching. These would be nice for summer travel: easy, only a few colors, bigger than an ornament but not too big for a small bag.

Happy Stitching!

Summer of Finishing: Christmas

 

My Summer of Finishing is well underway! How exciting! (Well, for me anyway!) I decided to start with Christmas because wow, do I have a backlog of unfinished Christmas stuff! 

First up is this cheery little fellow I stitched last Christmas when we were in Texas. He's from this Etsy shop, which has the cutest animal designs on Etsy, hands down. I stitched a bunch of them for my 2021 Christmas Open House. He's stitched on 32 ct. Weeks Red Pear.

Next is this adorable wee Christmas mole. I stitched him on 32 ct. grey Basalt Splash and since he looks like he burrowed right out of a Dickens novel, I used a very fussy trim that makes me think of the trim on a Victorian lady's dress.

Cardinal Santa by Mill Hill. I rarely stitch Mill Hill kits but every time I do I wonder why I don't do more of them. They always turn out so pretty. The red paper is what I used to finish him. (Here's my tutorial for finishing perforated paper.)

And finally, Winter Treasures from a now-closed Etsy shop called Homestitchness. I did some poking around and found the designer is on Instagram and Facebook, but I don't know if she still sells her designs. I stitched this several years ago, on 32 ct. Butter Pecan.

Stay tuned... more on the way!