I'd rather be stitchin'

5 Jun 2026

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

14 May 2026

Five Gold Rings – Bothy Threads – 12 Days of Christmas

‘Mania’ is going well and so far I’m sticking to my plan of five new starts, one each weekend during May.

On the first weekend I started ‘Five Gold Rings’ from Bothy Thread, and it’s also my first finish of the month.

And I also another letter from Emily to Edward to share with you:-

Dec 29th
Dearest Edward,
The mailman has just delivered five most beautiful gold rings, one for each finger, and all fitting perfectly! A really lovely present! Lovelier, in a way, than birds, which do take rather a lot of looking after.

The four that arrived yesterday are still making a terrible row, and I'm afraid none of us got much sleep last night.

Mother says she wants to use the rings to "wring" their necks.

Mother has such a sense of humour.

This time she's only joking, I think, but I do know what she means.

Still, I love the rings.
Bless you,
Emily.

For my second new start, I decided it was time to start on some summer stitching, because I have very little in the way of summer décor.

I’ve started ‘Beach Rules’ from Primrose Cottage, which I purchased as a kit, along with some curated extras from Coffee Craft Fabrics but decided to use threads I already had, so there are several substitutes, which are listed below.

The plan is to stitch the bands individually instead of all as one piece, so I’ll have several pin pillows to fill my tire tray.

I’ve also stitched on one other project so for this month, and that was ‘Bluebird of Happiness’ from Cottage Garden Samplings, which is coming along nicely.

Happy Stitching!

Sue

12 Days of Christmas

Designed – Bothy Threads - Kit

Fabric – 14ct Zweigart Aida - White

Threads – Standard Cotton, Pearl Cotton and Gold Thread

Bluebird of Happiness – Songbird’s Garden

Designer – Cottage Garden Samplings

Fabric – 36ct Powder Puff – Evertote / Roxy Floss Co

Threads - Weeks Dye Works

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)

1 May 2026

April Round-Up!

April just flew by, but I still managed to have a productive month of stitching.

My stats show I stitched on 6 projects in all, working on 3 wips and 3 new starts and I ended up with 4 finishes and 2 FFO's.

The 3 wips were :-

Bluebird of Happiness - Cottage Garden Samplings

'Santa Claus is Coming to Town' Historische Stickmuster

and 'Patterned Pretties' - Jeannette Douglass Design.

This one ended up being one of my 4 finishes and will be fully finished into a pin pillow.

The 3 new starts, brought the total of finishes to 4 for the month.

Four Calling Birds from Bothy Threads '12 Days of Christmas'.

I love how this piece is coming together!

Quick Quaker Sal from Modern Folk Embroidery.

Jacob designed this chart to celebrate his 15 year anniversary of working with Caroline from Evertote and Kerri from Roxy Floss Co.

The final new start was 'Floral Etchings' from Heart in Hand, which you will see I have stitched as individual panels instead of all as one piece.

The reason for this was that around 7 years ago I purchased a large mirror for my hallway and they had this picture frame matched it.

Ever since I've been on the lookout for the perfect design and I struck lucky when I came across Floral Etchings. I purchased all four designs, with the intension of swapping them out each season.

At first I was going the stitch the chart as is and discard the photo mount, but in the end I decided to stitch them individually as you see above, which also saved wasting a lot of the linen and then mounted them behind each of the apertures.

My final FFO was the month long 'Quick Quaker Sal' from Modern Folk Embroidery which I popped into a custom made from Picture Frames Express.

Plans for May might well change because I tend to be spontaneous with my stitching, but I'm going to try the May phenomenon that is known as 'Mania'.

Stitchers perceive this in many different ways, from new starts every day, only work on wips, or focus on finishing, but I'm going to try and have a new start on every weekend during the month, meaning a total of 5, although at the moment I have no idea which charts I 'll pick up.

As well as that, I still plan to do my 25th & 26th Christmas stitching as usual, and finish the next '12 days of Christmas' panel which will be '5 Gold Rings'.

So that's it for now...........I hear my needle calling, Lol.

Happy Stitching!

Sue

Bluebird of Happiness

Designer – Cottage Garden Samplings

Fabric – 36ct Powder Puff – Roxy Floss Co / Evertote

Threads – Weeks Dye Works

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Designed – Historische Stickmuster

Fabric – 32ct unbleached Linen

Threads – Soie d’Alge silks

Patterned Pretties #4 - Kit
Designer – Jeannette Douglas Design
Fabric – 36ct Mystery Linen
Threads –NPI & ColorWorks Silks

12 Days of Christmas

Designed – Bothy Threads - Kit

Fabric – 14ct Zweigart Aida - White

Threads – Standard Cotton, Pearl Cotton and Gold Thread

Quick Quaker

Design by – Modern Folk Embroidery

Fabric – 32ct ‘Dune’ Hand Dyed Linen from Chromatic Alchemy

Threads – Hand Dyed Cotton from Roxy Floss Co

Frame - Express Picture Frames

Floral Etchings

Design by – Heart in Hand

Fabric – 28ct 'Inca' - Fox & Rabit

Threads – Own Conversion - Roxy Floss Co, Anchor & DMC.

22 Apr 2026

Four Calling Birds – Bothy Threads – 12 Days of Christmas

On the fourth day of Christmas my truelove gave to me……..

Four Calling Birds.

and this prompted another letter from Emily to her sweetheart Edward:-

Dec 28
Dearest Edward,
What a surprise! Four calling birds arrived this morning.

They are very sweet, even if they do call rather loudly - they make telephoning almost impossible - but I expect they'll calm down when they get used to their new home.

Anyway, I'm very grateful, of course I am.
Love from Emily.

You'll notice there are some beads on this panel.

I continued to stich on 'Patterned Pretties' again

last week too ………

and boy is that some intense stitching!

I have one final thing to share and that’s some photos from a day out I had last week........I do love a good day trip!

My cousin and I visited Arundel castle, down by the south coast, near Brighton, for their Tulip Festival and what a beautiful day we had.

We had heard reports about them being very worried about the unpredictable weather we have been having lately, because the wind and heavy rain flattens the tulips, which are blooming about two earlier this year.

We were very lucky though and it stayed dry but cold while we were walking around.

Just to be clear, it was very busy and there were loads of people there but with the aid of some AI editing, I was able to remove them from my photos, so please don't think we had the castle and grounds to ourselves, Lol!