Well, that was exciting.

I'm back. Summer of Halloween began with quarantine and ended with food poisoning! I haven't picked up a needle in over two weeks, and my plan to finish strong on my Halloween stitching didn't quite succeed. I've got one last small project about half finished, and had another one ready to go, but I think I'll just go ahead and move on with my fall stitching after I've finished the little one. I had such a blast getting some new Halloween stuff stitched over the summer, but fall is here and I have projects that are calling me. 

Nurse Tiger Lily was on duty during the drama.

Magnificent floofy tail.

I'm pretty much back to normal and hope to be able to get back to my stitching this holiday weekend. Hope y'all are well and stitching away!

Saturday Sampler: Late Summer Stitching Edition

 It has been nearly a year since my last Saturday Sampler. How is that possible? 

Needle minder: Michelle Palmer Originals

Scissor holder: Mini Stash 'n Store

Orange fabric: 28 ct. PTP Flash

Inventory Heaven! (and a PSA)

 Y'all, I made a fiber/bead inventory book and I am tickled pink with it! I'm sure there are spiffy apps and stuff for inventories, but I'm an old-fashioned, paper and pencil kinda gal. I love writing things down on paper, I love flipping through notebooks and books and magazines, and I try to limit or eliminate screen usage when possible. Behold! My new inventory!

I save the covers of stitching catalogs if they're particularly pretty. They're great for notebooks with cover sleeves. This is the book I used. I love these things and keep several tucked away all the time. I'm always finding uses for them.

My fancy new inventory includes all of my most-used fibers and beads: Classic Colorworks, Gentle Arts Sampler Threads, Weeks Dye Works, Cosmo, Kreinik, and Mill Hill beads.

Now all I have to do is check off what I have in my stash and I'm all set. Making shopping lists will be much quicker! You may wonder how I've survived all these years without an inventory, but believe it or not, I usually can look at a list of threads and pretty much know what I have and what I don't. And I usually don't buy for more than one or two projects at a time, so it's not inconvenient to just check my threads or beads for a few colors. That changed with the pandemic, and that brings me to my PSA.

***Public Service Announcement: If you're planning a lot of fall and Christmas stitching, consider doing your shopping now. 

No industry escaped pandemic-related difficulties in the spring, including the stitching industry: online shops were flooded with orders and were weeks behind in shipping, local shops were closed, dyers couldn't get supplies, etc. Gentle Arts, which is based in Ohio, completely shut down in compliance with state orders, and if you tried to find GAST during the spring, you know how hard it was. 

Along with all of you, I'm hoping and praying we don't go through this again in the fall and winter, but I'm preparing just in case. A few weeks ago I sat down and planned a bunch of projects and made a shopping list. Even with most things returning to normal, I still had to hunt for all the threads I needed and ended up having to order from three different shops. 

So if you really have your heart set on some special projects for this fall and Christmas (and who doesn't?), you might want to think about not waiting too long to get your supplies together. 

***This concludes today's PSA. And now I'm off to play with my inventory. 

Happy Stitching!

Summer of Halloween: Lantern Tags

Finished my other little lantern! These are Mill Hill kits Taboo Kitty and Moonstruck Manor finished using chalkboard tags from Michael's. 

Really happy with how these turned out. Quick, easy, fun little stitches and super easy finishing option. What could be better? 

One more month left in Summer of Halloween... what will I stitch next? 

Fall Goodies

It's coming. I know it doesn't feel like it but the best season of the year is on the way. I went on a little craft crawl to a couple of my favorite local shops and picked up some Cosmo floss and a few fat quarters for fall finishing projects. 

It's been a long time since I got a new piece of pottery. We don't have as many local potters here as we did where we used to live, so our pottery collecting has slowed significantly. However! While looking for something else (isn't that always the way?) I stumbled across this gorgeous little bread baker from an Ohio potter. It makes a very small loaf, just right for two people. Since I'm always on the look-out for small bakeware to feed my tiny baking obsession, I snapped it up. I am absolutely delighted with it and can't wait to try it out when fall baking season rolls around. Happily, it comes with a dozen recipes! (If you're a pottery nut, click on the "pottery" label at the end of this post to see some of my collection.)

Tiger Lily did not miss out on goodies. She has a passion for tissue paper and whenever something arrives in the mail wrapped in it, the tissue paper goes to her.

Bonus mid-summer sunrise!

Happy Stitching, y'all!

Summer of Halloween: Spooky Little Village

I pulled this little village from the much larger design Halloween Quaker from Lila's Studio. I just love the contrast of the bright window colors with the black and dark grey. It has a cheerfully spooky look! I used the recommended PTP Murky in 32 ct. linen, and the recommended threads, except for the CC Black Coffee. My skein of Black Coffee was almost entirely black and didn't provide enough contrast with the DMC black, so I used GAST Onyx instead.

There are a couple of other small motifs in this large design that I'd like to pull out and stitch. We'll see how many projects I can squeeze into my Summer of Halloween. Can you believe summer is half over? 

Time for Tea Update

June and July blocks are finished!

"June" 

"July"

Info on this design is in this post.

Y'all, look how cute!

Look at my Bluebonnet stitchy tools, y'all! For those who don't know, the Bluebonnet is the state flower of Texas, and let me tell you, if you've never seen a field of Bluebonnets in the springtime, you've missed a treat. I found the scissors here a few weeks ago.

There's a lot of black in the Halloween design I'm currently stitching and I've been having to pick out a lot of Tiger Lily fuzz, so I decided I needed a pair of tweezers just for my needlework. Just any old tweezers wouldn't do, so I went hunting, and by happy accident, found matching Bluebonnet tweezers here! How adorable are these tools?

One of the best things about having a hobby is the toys that go with it. 

Happy Stitching!

Summer of Halloween: Another Finish!

This is Happy Halloween by Silver Creek Samplers, stitched with the recommended threads on 28 ct. Wren from PTP. It's in the 2013 Just Cross Stitch Special Halloween Issue, and it's also available as a separate chart. ***If you stitch this, be on the safe side and get TWO skeins of GAST Wood Trail.

I only made a couple of minor changes. I didn't stitch the tips on the kitty's ears and I moved her eyes a bit further apart (three stitches between them instead of one).

I also altered the jack-o-lantern's face just a bit.

Happy Birthday, Everybody!

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

Also, 'cause I know y'all will ask:

Pie recipe here

Cookie recipe here

Halloween finish is Happy Halloween by Silver Creek Samplers (more on that later)

Fabric for Halloween WIP is 28 ct. Murky linen by PTP (more on that later, too) (yes, it's spooky and awesome)

Hope y'all have a safe and wonderful Independence Day!