July FFOs and stitching round-up

Wow, it's already August. As I wrote on another blog, as a life-long Texan, I see August as something to be endured, while in many parts of the northern hemisphere people are enjoying it as peak summer. Pretty much the only time I've ever enjoyed August is when I've had a chance to spend a few weeks of it in Maine!

FFOs

Let's get started with the remaining FFOs that weren't quite completed in the June FFO Frenzy!

First up is my second flat fold, this time of "Autumn Harvest" that I finished stitching in 2013. I think this is now the oldest stitched piece that was waiting for finishing that isn't being framed (there are definitely some older ones in the pile of things that I'm going to frame... more about one of those in a couple of months). I'm pretty happy with how this one came out, even with a little flub on the trim on the bottom. But hey, it's on the bottom so it's not all that easy to see!



Next is this little pillow I made from the thistles kit I finished in early 2020, shortly before everything went pear-shaped in the world. I had originally planned to frame this but when I mounted it I realized that the kit fabric wasn't square and it was going to be quite noticeable in a frame, but since this was small enough I figured it wouldn't take all of my fiber-fill to make it into a pillow. Plus it's always a bonus when I can pull out the sewing machine and continue to shake the rust off those skills a bit.



And finally, this was a stitching finish and FFO from the past month. I actually started this back in April but I did the bulk of the stitching in July. This is, of course, a Mill Hill kit! I decided to try doing this with only 2 strands of floss - most Mill Hill kits are supposed to be stitched with 3 strands - as a bit of an experiment. I don't really care for stitching with 3 strands, although I have figured out a way to do a modified loop start, which helps. But this design had a lot of colors and small areas, so I was afraid it might be a bit of a challenge with 3 strands, plus I was curious to see how the coverage came out with 2 strands. All-in-all, not too bad! I went back to 3 strands with my current Mill Hill, but I have another one in the stash that I think I might do with 2 strands instead of 3 since it's another more detailed design like this one.



WIPs

Time for a check-in on Temperature Tree! This is now complete through the end of July and I'm abolutely gobsmacked that I've only used the 99-101F color a few times so far this year. I'm beginning to think that there is some weird connection between my choices for this pattern and the actual weather. It was warm to start the year so I chose the hottest color range and then a week or two later, we had the Big Freeze. And now we've only hit 100F twice so far this year and that's been the highest temperature we've reached at all (NOTE: this is NOT A COMPLAINT). I'm sure that August will still be quite hot and I'm sure that I'll use at least one of the hotter colors, but I'm sitting here listening to thunder rumbling from the storms that kicked up with a "cold" front that is slipping down into central Texas. August fronts are rare, and especially this early in the month. It won't drop the temperature by much, but it will probably take some of the humidity out of the air, which always helps!



These next few WIPs are from the end-of-May bout of start-itis.

First is "Mediterranean Flavors" Dimensions kit, but I switched out the kit fabric for 28ct French Vanilla Swirl from my stash since it looked like it would be perfect for this design and look like a stucco wall in an Italian restaurant or something. (Sorry about the moiré pattern on the thumbnail)



Next is "Oregano" from a Mill Hill kit (on fabric, not perforated paper, like most of their smaller designs). This is part of a series of herbs that I want to do for my kitchen but I've only purchased this one so far. And I love oregano, so even if I never do the others, this one will still be appropriate for my home! Just the flower pot so far on this one.



This one is technically a re-start since I decided to start "Celtic Seasons" again, but this time with only 1 strand of floss. I cut out the Spring section that I had already done earlier this year and I'm going to try to make it into something eventually. I think the 1 strand version will work a little better with this design since it doesn't seem to make the backstitching disappear as much (and there is a lot of backstitch on this one!). This kind of threw off my plan to keep up with each season in that season, but I might get Summer started in August and then finish Spring next year as I come back around to it.



New Start

I technically have two new starts in July, but there really isn't much to show on the newest one, which I just started yesterday. But I thought I would show my current little Mill Hill, which you might even be able to already recognize as the "Pizza Slice" kit which oddly is part of their Autumn Harvest collection - I don't know about you but I eat pizza year round! :)



Plans

No haul this month (I'm putting myself on a buying diet for a while) so straight into plans! I'm mostly hoping to work a little more on the WIPs and new starts I mentioned, and possibly finish a couple of the smaller ones. But since I have been seeing it pop up a lot lately, I've been inspired to put my Glendon Place "Sleepy Hollow" back on the q-snaps and actually do some stitching on it for the first time in about 10 YEARS (!!). I did a little stitching on it to get it started (see below) and then it ended up sitting in a corner for a long, long time. Part of that was the time I was struggling with my eyes and then once I got a magnifying lamp, trying to figure out a good way to use it with large projects. But now that I've got that sorted - which is why I was able to work on Fairy House back in May - I think it's time for some stitching on the Headless Horseman! Here's where I got to back around 2011:



That's it for this month! Happy stitching to anyone who stumbles by the blog!

April stitching round-up

In a reverse of how this usually goes - I felt like I did a lot of stitching this month and then when I went to do the round-up, there didn't seem to be as much as I thought. Maybe because I also spent a bit of time doing some finishing? I do actually have 4 FFOs this month, but they are all pretty small projects. As I continue to try to clear out some old stash, I pulled out 4 small hoops I had and found some small designs to put in them (and I used a few old bits of fabric too!).

First up was this little bonsai tree that I had some fun with. The design is from "The OmniBook of Quickies" that I've had for easily 20 years (more likely 25). I have a half dozen or so Weeks Dye Works skiens that I picked up when my LNS closed that have just been sitting in storage, so I pulled out #2202 "Bullfrog" for the greenery on the trees and used DMC 4130 for the planter. In hindsight I should have chosen a little lighter brown for the trunk of the tree, but I'm still pretty happy with how it came out. The leaves on the tree were charted for two DMC greens and I used a variegated thread instead so I just hopped around the design as I was stitching to mix it up. The range in the colors wasn't huge, but I still like how it came out. The bottom was a variegated DMC thread that was supposed to look like a copper planter, which I think it kind of does.



Next was this cute little penguin that I got from the JCS 2013 ornaments issue. I changed the color of the hat though to something that fellow fans of a certain 2002 sci-fi TV series might recognize. :)



Last weekend I tried my hand at tea-dyeing fabric for the first time. The fabric for both of the next two are on the results. I was using a scrap from my stash and I wasn't sure if it was 100% cotton or if it was a blend, so I made the tea pretty strong. Maybe a little too strong as it turns out since I'm pretty sure now that the fabric was completely cotton after all. But I'm still pretty happy that I gave it a try and I learned a few things before the next attempt.

This design was from the JCS 2012 Halloween special issue and I altered it a little from the original. I substituted DMC 90 for the moon and it came out a little more stripey than I would have liked so now it looks more like the cat is watching Jupiter rise!



And this one was from the JCS 2011 Halloween issue. For this one, I changed out the thread for the "booo" to WDW "Trick or Treat" which I used before on a border for another Halloween design. The lightest yellow was probably a little too light for the fabric, but I'm still pretty happy with how it came out. The more interesting thing was that it was the first time in over a decade (at least) that I've stitched on 28 count over 1 and amazingly my eyes didn't bleed thanks to the new glasses I got last summer and my magnifying lamp. I had a hard time getting this centered like I was aiming for, but after messing with it for far too long, I called it "done". I also left off the "to you" part that was along the bottom since I just wanted it to say "booo" because we had a black cat named Boo when I was a kid. :)



That's it for the FFOs, but I also have a partial finish because I wrapped up the spring quarter of Celtic Seasons. I started it on the first day of spring and finished it a month later (although I wasn't working on it exclusively). I'm happy with how it is looking on the black fabric and I can't wait to see how the remaining seasons come out. I'm not quite sure about some of the backstitching though since it looks like it is getting a little lost in some of the stitching and I don't know if that would have been the case on a lighter fabric.



And I've been keeping up with my Temperature Tree. I usually stitch up the previous week's worth of leaves up on the weekend, so this is complete through the end of April. (sorry the color balance is a little wonky on the photo, I was too lazy to fix it this month!)



I technically had a new start this month... yet another Mill Hill kit... but I'll wait until next month to post more about that. It might even get finished in May, although I'm going to try to concentrate on the "big project" I'm hoping to either finish or get a lot done on this year. And I'm just now touching it in May so.... good luck to me, especially since I'm expecting that a lot of that extra time that I got back in my schedule during the pandemic is going to start to go away in the next few months. I also did some shopping this month (I seem to every month these days!) but I'll share more about the Mill Hill kit I bought in that batch in a future update when I actually get started on it.

That's it for April!

March round-up

I managed to get a fair amount of stitching in this month (mostly thanks to Spring Break) and even have three FFOs!

I did finish up the little Mill Hill kit from my birthday 123Sttich order that I mentioned last month. This design is called "Wine Glass" and it is now all finished up and stuck to my fridge.



And I framed Oppy (just using a press board and frame I already had in my stash):



And I did manage to finish the lighthouse AND frame it! I like doing the "before and after backstitch" photos, so those are first, followed by the framed picture. This was also finished with a press board and a frame from my stash (finally starting to use up all of those frames I've been collecting over the years on close-out sales.) Right now it's on the shelf behind me so it shows up over my shoulder on my constant Zoom meetings.





I've been keeping up with my Temperature Tree, so here's how that's looking now (through March 31):



I have one new start from March, or rather, re-start. I mentioned last month that I started on Celtic Seasons but then ripped it out since I wasn't happy with my stitching, but now I've re-started it. I'm still not 100% happy with how my stitching is coming out, but I've decided not to stress over it too much. I'm not trying to get a blue ribbon and this is just for me, so it doesn't have to be perfect. I'm going to stitch each season in that season, so I started Spring on the first day of spring! Here's where I am so far:



I also have a litle bit of haul from late in the month. I decided to start filling out my Mill Hill bead collection so I bought a couple Elizabeth Ward bead organizers (the one with the 78 mini containers) and I'm going to start adding a couple of bead packages on to all my 123Stitch orders. I had a pretty good organizing system before but since I want to keep adding more, I needed a system that was easier to add new things into (which my old one wasn't). I have a decent collection, but some of them are just remainders from various kits so I'm buying full packages of those colors too. And of course I added another little Mill Hill kit on my most recent order! Look for that one in an upcoming post since I'll probably start stitching on it soon.

That's it for this month - let's see how much I manage to do during a very busy April!

Welcome to 2020!

I really meant to write more about what I was stitching last year *during* the year but I never got around to it, so here's a 2019 round-up and a little about what I'm going to be working on in 2020.

First up - I finished the IT Crowd I posted about last year and framed it! And it's hanging in my office at work (and has even drawn a few chuckles and "Oh I love the IT Crowd!" comments). Here's the final version before I took it to work:



I also tried my hand at hoop framing some older projects and one new project. As often happens to me, the first couple that I did came out great and then the third one wasn't as good. (I have the same track record with Thanksgiving turkeys and my grandmother's pecan pie recipe). Here are the pizza penguin and Castle Coch, both originally stitched many years ago:



And this is the one that I wasn't as happy with the framing on (and this is also hanging in my office at work... for no reason whatsoever of course...):



And I framed this other old project and hung it up in my bedroom:



And I stitched up this little Celtic swirl card kit that I threw in my basket when I was shopping for some other supplies (I actually left of some backstitching in this because I thought it made the design a little too busy):



And this one was supposed to be my final finish of 2019 but I technically finished it two days into 2020. I had a pre-finished bookmark that I got in a grab bag I bought ages ago and I had saved this bookmark pattern from "The Cross Stitcher" magazine in 2008. I started on this in the fall with the original intent of finishing in the fall, but the fall ended up too busy:



And last but not least, here's a photo of my thread ends and leftover thread from a kit:



So what's up for 2020?

I've got a few projects that I've been stitching on for a few years now that I'll probably keep plugging away at, but of course I had to start a few new projects! I did a few stitches on another kit that I threw in to a supply order (that is actually one of the main ways I acquire small kits) but I have trouble with my left hand cramping if I stitch on something 'in hand' for too long. So I also have a couple of things on q-snaps that I can use on my lap frame.

I've signed up for the Wonders of Space stitch-along, which is my first SAL! We don't have the first part yet, but I'll try to post some progress photos of it as we go along. I don't know how well I'll be able to keep up through the first few months of the year, but I'm going to try!

The thing on my frame right now is something that probably shows how nuts I am, but I'm re-stitching the second large-ish project I did when I first started stitching 30 years ago. I've learned a lot since then so I'm curious to see how it comes out! I don't have the first project I did because it was TERRIBLE (I had no idea what I was doing....) but the second was Lichtenstein Castle, from the book Medieval Castles from Jeanette Crews Designs and you can see the first version of it here. Technically I'm getting a bit of a head start on the 30th anniversary of when I really got in to cross stitch since that didn't happen until the summer of 1990, but I know it's going to take a while since I have a lot less stitching time than I did back then!

My largest project to date

... and probably still my favorite.



Sorry for the not-so-great picture. This obviously isn't a professional framing job either. I bought the frame before I finished (maybe even before I actually started) this design, but when I saw it in the store I knew it would be perfect. I did a temporary framing job on it a few years ago so I could have it up for Christmas and I still haven't taken it in to get it done professionally. Someday!

The design is, of course, Celtic Christmas from Told in a Garden. It's still the largest project that I've done, and it was my first large linen project. I think I had only done two very small linen projects before tackling this one.