June Round Up!

Summer rolls on and I’m not one to complained, but I’m pleased that the weather has cooled down just a little.  

We hit 37.7C in some places in the South East, exceeding our June record and we are not used to those kind of temperatures.  I’m just happy that I don’t have to go out to work and am fortunate enough to have a patio and I nice big awning to sit under and stitch.

 

Which brings me to my stats for June:-

I had another productive month and I worked on 2 wip :- 'Ride the Waves'  and 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town'.

I had 5 new starts. :- 'A Stitch for all Seasons', 'Six Geese A-Laying', 'Build Sandcastles', 'Collect Sea Shells' and  'Make Memories'.

There were 5 finishes :- 'A Stitch for all Seasons', 'Ride the Waves', '6 Geese A-Laying',  'Build Sandcastles' and  'Collect Seashells'.

And a total of 8 FFo’s,- 5 of which were finishes from last month.:- 'A Stitch for all Seasons',  'Ride the Waves', 'Beach Rules', 'Soak up the Sun', 'Floral Etchings 2', 'Angel with Lantern', 'Patterned Pretties 4'  and  'Collect Sea Shells'.

As you can tell from the details above, I’m still working my way through ‘ Beach Rules’ from  Primrose Cottage,  and speaking of FFO’ing, I’m always keeping an eye out for interesting finishing pieces to use with the remaining panels.

I knew as soon as I saw this little frame in ‘The Range’,

that with a little bit of jiggling around with the chart, it would be perfect for my next panel, ‘Collect Sea Shells’.

I did a 90 degree flip, making sure that all the elements of the original are still in there and I added a seagull, stitched on perforated paper to hide ‘Home’.

So with ‘Build Sandcastles’ waiting to be FFO’d, I now have

 just two more panels to go and have already made a small start on ‘Make Memories’.

The wip I pulled out and continued to stitch on was ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’ from Historische Stickmuster  and is the project I always stitch on the 25^th and 26^th of the month.

This is where I left it

And this is where I am now.

I actually carried on stitching on this until the end of the month, so managed quite a bit of the top left side and I'm now almost 3/4 done.

Looking forward,  July’s stitching will as always consist of my ‘Christmas’ stitching and the second month of  ‘Cross Stitch Camp 2026’,  which involves stitching something patriotic, or something with the colours of your country’s flag.

There’s lots of red white and blue patriotic charts out there but very few with Union Jacks or the flag of St George, so in the end I decided to forget stitching something with an actual flag on it and just go with Red, White and Blue.

I’ve downloaded ‘July Garden’ from The Sub Rosa Design   and am ready to go!

 Happy Stitching!

Sue 

x

Beach Rules

Designer – Primrose Cottage

Fabric – 36ct Hand Dyed Linen – Coffee Craft Fabrics

Threads – 

Classic Color Works

Black Coffee

Blue Corn - sub to How Do You Blue (Roxy Floss Co)

Caribbean Waters - sub to Take A Bough (Roxy Floss Co)

Cherry Cobbler

Deep Blue Sea - sub to Mountain Range (Roxy Floss Co)

Peanut Brittle - sub to Tahiti Orange (Classic Colorworks)

Sassy Brass - sub to Colonel Mustard (Roxy Floss Co)

Storm Lake Sunrise - sub to Oink(Roxy Floss Co)

Trail Dust

DMC

B5200

503  - sub to Whistler (Roxy Floss Co)

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Designed – Historische Stickmuster

Fabric – 32ct unbleached Linen

Threads – Soie d’Alge silks

 

Six Geese A-Laying – Bothy Threads – 12 Days of Christmas

 It hard to believe that I’m already half way through stitching this and have added another 3,249 stitches this month, bringing my total so far to 19,494.

This panel is Six Geese A-Laying

And I don’t know about you, but I’m having a giggle at the letters that Emily is sending her Beau:-

She sent him another on the 30th December and by the sounds of it, I think things are getting a little tense, lol! 

Dear Edward,

Whatever I expected to find when I opened the front door this morning, it certainly wasn't six socking great geese laying eggs all over the porch. Frankly, I rather hoped that you had stopped sending me birds. We have no room for them, and they've already ruined the croquet lawn. I know you meant well, but let's call a halt, shall we?
Love,
Emily.

Happy Stitching!

Sue

x

 12 Days of Christmas

Designed – Bothy Threads - Kit

Fabric – 14ct Zweigart Aida - White

Threads – Standard Cotton, Pearl Cotton and Gold Thread

 

FFO Frenzy

During my last post I said that my sewing machine was coming out and that I would be ffo’ing some of my finishes over that weekend. 

Well that didn’t happen for one reason or another and since then I’ve had some more new starts and finishes, so yesterday I eventually pulled out everything I needed and got stuck in at long last.

First off, I did the quick and easy finish of the Mill Hill Ornament ‘Angel with Lantern’,  by  making a beaded hanger with the left over beads and then covering the back with some sticky backed velvet.

The next ffo was also a simple one because it was going into a frame that I’m going to change out each season. 

That was ‘Floral Etchings 2’ from Heart in Hand. 

It involved lacing three flat pieces.

And they have been put into this frame for the Summer season.

This was Spring (Floral Etchings)

The third thing I had waiting to be ffo’ed was ‘Patterned Pretties’ by Jeanette Douglas, which was a Christmas gift from Stasi, over at Bee-mused and Bee-stitching.

It was a kit which came with the wool backing fabric, and I added some cream cotton lace around the edges.

Then, I as I was looking through my bits and bobs from my scrapbooking days, I came across a little oval frame that I thought might look ok on the back, with my stitched initial in it.

Then it was onto the three finished panels of ‘ Beach Rules’ from Primrose Cottage,.

Beach Rules

Soak Up The Sun

And 'Ride the Waves' which I had just started and mentioned in my last post.

With four more panels to stitch, last night I finished another new start, ‘Build Sandcastles’, so that's already in the pile to ffo with the next batch!

Here’s my little display so far

My final new start and ffo was my Cross Stitch Camp piece for JUne, ‘A Stitch for all Seasons’ from the summer 2026 edition of Just Cross Stitch.

Originally I was thinking I would make all four panels into pillows and I may still do that with the other three but when it came to the Summer panel, I decided to make a thread bed.

I still have to stitch this year’s camp badge and will be doing that with the same threads that I used for my June project, so until next time…

Happy Stitching!

Sue x

May = Cross Stitch Mania

 As I look back over what I stitched on last month and my stats,  I’m very pleased that I completed everything I had set out to do, and that was to have five new starts – one for each weekend in the month.

In actual fact I did better than that and managed 6, five of which were finishes. 

I also stitched on one of my wips too, not bad when you consider that I also had a four day break away and for the first time in ages I didn't take any stitching with me, so I only stitched on 27 day this month.

You have already seen the progress on my wip – Bluebird of Happiness from Cottage Garden Samplings. 

You have also seen the first of my new starts, which was also a finish. 

’5 Gold Rings’ , one the panels from  Bothy Threads, ’12 Days of Christmas’.

New start and finish No.2  was Floral Etchings 2 from  Heart in Hand Needlecrafts,

I’m calling these the summer panels, and when they are 

ffo’d they will be swapped into the gold ornate frame which currently has Floral Etchings 1 in it.

New start and finish No.3  was the first of the two Christmas ornaments that I stitch each year for my goddaughter’s two girls.

This is the Jim Shaw kit ‘Angel with Lantern’ which is a  Mill Hill Kit from 123 Stitch.

The final 3 new starts, two of which were also finishes, were panels from  Primrose Cottage, ‘Beach Rules’ ,

that will be ffo'd into pin pillows.

Beach Rules,

Soak up the Sun,

And a small start on 'Ride the Waves'.

I’m hoping to get my sewing machine out over the weekend and try and get some of this little lot ffo’d!

My next new start is already lined up and ready to go because now we are into June and that can only mean one thing…..

Cross Stitch Camp 2026, hosted by Sheri,  Colorado Cross Stitcher.

As always, Sheri has designed a free camp badge which I will

stitch and add to my camp project bag.

As you can see, I've participated in Camp for a good few years now and the back of my project bag is full, so this will be the first badge on the front.

Our task for June is to stitch a chart from a magazine and I’ve decided to stitch ‘A stitch for All Seasons’ from the Summer 2026 issue of Just Cross Stitch.

I thought these little quilt inspired pin pillows were so cute and I think I will eventually stitch all four of them, but for now I’m going to stitch the summer (blue) one.

I’m using a piece of 14ct unknown Aida and various thread from stash.  Some are the called for and others are substitutes.

See you all by that camp fire!

 

 

Happy Stitching!

Sue x