Sing For Joy – Cottage Garden Samplings

 I first started stitching 'The Songbird’s Garden' series from Cottage Garden Samplings, way back in 2018, when I was kindly given a gift voucher for  The Patchwork Rabbit,  a needlework shop I had never heard of at the time.   

Now that alone was the start of a slippery slope as you can imagine, Lol,  but a story for another time.

On that occasion I used the voucher to purchase the 12 charts from the series and started stitching the first one at the end of the year.

Since then I’ve averaged one a year.

As you can see, it’s not difficult falling in love with  Vinniey’s  designs, especially this series, because of her beautiful birds, flowers and tiny houses.

My latest finish is ‘Sing For Joy’.

I started it on New Year’s Eve 2023 as part of my 12 new starts in 12 hours and features a pretty   House Finch  and Cone Flowers.

Time to look for a frame now and decide which one to stitch next!

 Happy Stitching!

Sue

x

 

Chart – Sing For Joy

Designer – Cottage Garden Samplings

Fabric -  36ct Linen – Nicolas Flamel Designs ( Putty)

Threads – Weeks Dye Works

Log Cabin Quilt – Log Cabin Christmas - Little House Needle Works

I’m finding it hard to believe that we are almost ¼ of the way through the year already, with tomorrow being the 1^st of April and it reminds me of my mum telling me that as you get older the time seems to fly by so much faster. Well she wasn’t wrong because it only seems like five minutes ago we were celebrating the New Year!

So as we look forward to the prospect of ‘April Showers’ we can also enjoy the lighter evenings now the clocks have been put forward and we are into British Summer Time and hopefully some warm and sunny weather and stitching out on the patio, enjoying the garden.

I did manage to get one last new start and finish in this month and that was the centre square of Log Cabin Christmas, and that was Log Cabin Quilt.

This one took a little longer than the rest to stitch because to all intense and purposes it is full coverage.

So now I’m passed the half way mark and just have four more charts to stitch to finish the whole thing.

There is also one final wip that I put some stitches into, ‘Sing for Joy’ from Cottage Garden Samplings.

I finished filling in the little house, put some more stitches into the big flower above it and you may remember the last time I shared it, I was saying that I had picked out a slub in the fabric. I had to fudge my way around the leaf that the house sits on, making it fatter, because picking the slub out left white threads showing.  Well, I finished off filling it in and although I can still see where the pulled thread was, I don’t think you would notice if you didn’t know what had happened.

Now for a little re-cap of my stitching for the month of March, because it’s always fun to see written down in one place what I actually achieved.

To start with, I managed to get some stitches in every day during the month.

5 new starts

8 finishes

3 Fully Finishes – two of which were old pieces that I framed.

And I worked on 3 other wips.      

Plans for April………..well, I don’t really have any but I fancy having a new start or two, aside from the sal segments, Christmas ornament and squares for Log Cabin Christmas, so I’m going to have a sort through my charts and see what I have kitted and ready to go.

Happy Stitching!

Sue

 

Project Information

 

Chart- Log Cabin Christmas – Part 5- Log Cabin Quilt

Designer – Little House Needleworks

Fabric – 32ct Zweigart Linen – Raw

Threads – Called for Classic Colorworks

 

Chart – Sing For Joy

Designer – Cottage Garden Samplings

Fabric -  36ct Linen – Nicolas Flamel Designs ( Putty)

Threads – Weeks Dye Works

This week I became a monogamous stitcher again!

 After working on every one of my Wips last month, I made the decision to become a monogamous stitcher for the past week, working on 'Sing For Joy' from Cottage Garden Samplings.

This was one of New Year's Eve starts in 2023, but after having a tiny start that evening, I didn't pick it up again until last month and this is where I left it.

I don't about you, but the more stitches I get into my fabric, I get excited for a finish and I learnt while stitching ???previous designs in this series, that they are quicker to finish than you might first think.

So, when I picked this up again at the start of last week, I made so great progress.

I did hit a bit of a problem though.

As I was stitching the leaf and the little house, down in the bottom left corner, I encountered a nasty slub in the fabric and it was in a place that was going to show when the piece is finished. 

Now, I know it's a bit of a risky thing to do, but I decided to pick out as much of fluff from the slub as I could, taking care not to break the threads underneath which was fine but the fabric was a hand dyed piece and the dye hadn't gone completely through, leaving a white thread.

It all turned out ok in the end, because with a tweak of the chart, I made the leaf slightly larger, covering most of white thread.

Happy Stitching!

Sue

x

Chart – Sing For Joy

Designer – Cottage Garden Samplings

Fabric -  36ct Linen – Nicolas Flamel Designs ( Putty)

Threads – Weeks Dye Works

Hand Knitted Socks and a Wip Parade of sorts.

I started knitting this pair of socks using the ‘Seeing Stripes’ sock pattern from West Yorkshire Spinners and Rico, Supeba Fair Isle 4 ply, back in February last year and almost made it 

 down to the toe on the first sock.  But because I wasn’t particularly happy with my choice of yarn, I put it to one side and couldn't bring myself to pick it up again.  That feeling didn't go away and lasted for the rest of the year, so it wasn't until I set myself a challenge for January, that I went back and picked them up again.

So what was the big challenge?

I decided that I was going to work on every wip (work in progress) that I have during the month, something I’m able to achieve because I only had 7  brought forward from 2024 and the plan was to put at least one thread  in each of the six cross stitch projects and finally finish the part knitted socks.

I won’t lie, I had to force myself to pull them out, but once I did, I finished the first sock and completely knitted the second sock in just two days.

But can you spot the mistake?

Silly me started the first sock with a 1 x 1 rib and the second sock with a 2 x 2 rib, but fortunately they are for me and there’s no way I’m going to pull one out and re-knit it.

 Moving on to the cross stitch wip’s that I carried over; 

The first thing I pulled out was the ‘Bee Contained Stitching Box' by Betsy Morgan from the Inspirations ‘Helping Hands 2’ book.

I started this in August 2023 and didn’t pick it up at all last year.  I think the 1 over 1 stitching was putting me off but once I got back into it, I really enjoyed working on it and have nearly finished the largest piece of the stitching.

Next, I worked on Log Cabin Christmas from Little House Needleworks, which I started in April last year.  

This is a 9 part piece, so I had a mini new start for this and stitched on part 4 – In The Woods Bear.

The next project was another multi part piece and that was ‘ A Gathering of Samplers’ from the Ackworth Collection, which consists of 12 little Quaker Samplers that go together to make a book.

Again, it involved another new start and that was pages 5 & 6 of the book.  I came very close to a finish on this too.

Sing For Joy from Cottage Garden Samplings was next up

and I had not stitched on it since starting it as part of my 12 in12 New Years Eve starts in December 2023.

Project 6 was another Christmas stitch, ‘Toy Shopee’,  which is a Diamentions Kit.

I started it November 2024 and got to here,

but it’s hard going as anyone who has stitched one of these kits  knows, …….the changes of stitches and number of threads used for those stitches can be a bit confusing sometimes.

None the less, I made some good progress on it.

Last up was ‘My Stitching Box’, another multi part project from Jeanette Douglass.

Again, it involved another mini start for part 2, which was the lid of the box.

If I had to choose a favourite designer, I think hands down it would have to be  Jeanette.  I just love how delicate her designs look  and the subtle colours she uses.

So, it's not been a bad start to the year, but that wasn’t it for January.   I also had 3 other new starts, one of which was the year long stitch-a-long ‘ All Year Round Sal.

Then there was my 12 in 25 Christmas ornament

and my new Chatelaine

and last but not least I had one fully finish, which was the Country Charm Cushion.

I wonder if I can keep the pace up during February…..you’ll have to watch this space!

 

Happy Crafting!

Sue

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Santa's House - Cottage Garden Samplings

A year ago today, I decided to join in with the 12 x 12 Sal, which in my case equated to  12 new starts in the 12 hours leading up to midnight on New Year’s Eve. 

Up until now I had finished 10 of my 12 stitches with just 'Sing For Joy (which incidentally I haven't picked up since starting it) and Santa’s House still needing to be completed.

But today I put the final stitches into Santa's House, bringing my total to 11, which I'm very happy with.

 This is where it was when I last stitch on it.

And here it is finished.

I’m not joining in with the Sal again this year because I’m not really happy having so many Wips, but I will be having a new start later today, so pop back tomorrow to see what it is I start.

Happy Stitching!

Sue

X

Updated -  25/3/25 to show finishing

Santa’s House

Designer – Vinniey P. S. Tan- Cottage Garden Samplings

Fabric – 36ct Linen – Grey Sand – X Ju Designs

Threads – Cottage Garden Threads & DMC

Log Cabin Fox - Little House Needle Works

 Time for my November round-up.

Sadly, I didn’t get around to stitching my 12 in 24 Christmas ornament in November, so to keep up with the sal, I’m going to try and stitch two this month.  Having said that, I still won’t have all twelve to hang up, because the two Mill Hill ones have already been given to my Goddaughters two girls, so they can hang them on their own trees.

I did manage quite a bit of stitching though, despite a busy month, including a couple of short break away.

To start with, I had three new starts, Log Cabin Fox from Little House Needleworks, the third part of Log Cabin Christmas, was also a finish.

My other new starts were Country Charm by Fiona Baker and Toy Shoppe from Dimensions Gold Collection Petites.

Country Charm is definitely not for those who are not a fan of back stitching because there’s a ton of it this one.

The original was stitched on Aida but I decided to stitch mine on Linen and love th way it’s looking.

As for the Dimensions kit, I’m asking myself why I wanted to stitch another one of these after the fun and games I had with ‘ A Kiss for Snowman’ last year.  

If you’ve ever stitched one of these, you stitch with varying numbers of threads throughout and I had to frog so many times while working on it.

Long story short, nothing had changed with this one either;

The frog has visited several times already!

I’m still loving it though and have yet another one in the wings, waiting to be stitched.

My second finish for the month was ‘Dream of a Winter Garden from Modern Folk Embroidery.

The only other wip  I stitch on in November was 'Santa’s House' from Cottage Garden Samplings, which I made some great progress on.  This is where it was the last time you saw it.

And here it is now.

So all in all I got through quite a bit last month and am looking forward to an equally productive month of December.

 

Happy Stitching!

Sue

x

 

Log Cabin Bunnies

Designer – Little House Needleworks

Fabric – 32ct Belfast Linen – Raw (called for)

Threads – Classic Color Works (Called For)

 

Country Charm – from The World of Cross Stitching Magazine

Designer – Fiona Baker

Fabric – 36ct Linen – Parchment – Nicolas Flamel Designs

Threads – DMC’s

 

Toy Shoppe  

Kit - Dimensions Gold Collection Petites

 

Dream of a Winter Garden

Designer – Jacob de Graaf – Modern Folk Embroidery

Fabric – 36ct Linen – Doubloom – Picture the Plus

Threads – Roxy Floss Co