July Round-Up

Before we start, I suggest you grab a beverage of your choice, and had full or two of tasty snacks and find a nice comfy chair, because this is going to be a long one.

Are you ready?

Right, I'll be honest, there’s been lots of boring,  mundane stuff this month, like my car insurance, MOT and service needing to be done, hair and podiatrist appointments, all  interspersed with doctor’s appointments and  blood tests to monitor for my diabetes and underactive thyroid……… as I said, boring stuff that had to be done, but there was still time for good stuff happen too, so read on.

First up, are you sitting down, because I went back to my youth and became a rock chick for the night again….at almost 70 years of age, Lol!

I used to go and see lots of bands back in the day, but haven't been to see a band live for many years, so when the opportunity arose to go and see the ‘ Illegal Eagles’ on their ‘Hotel California’ 50 year anniversary tour, I jumped at the chance.

If you’re a fan of Country/Folk Rock music and love Eagles as I do, then this band is a must to see.

In my opinion they are far too good to be considered a ‘tribute’ band, being every bit as good, if not better than the Eagles themselves.  

We couldn't have had better seats, being in the first and second rows and we were on our feet with the rest of the audience, 

  singing along to old favourites like ‘Peaceful Easy Feeling’, ‘Lyin’ Eyes’, ‘Take it Easy’ and of course ‘Hotel California’ to name but a few.

One of the highlights of the evening was when they brought three of the original founding members from 30 years ago on stage.

Wow.........what an evening!

Another highlight of the month was the few days I spent in Norfolk visiting friends who live in the historic market town of Swaffham.

We had arranged the trip to coincide with the RHS Sandringham Flower Show and while we ladies spent the day enjoying the flowers, the boy went Clay Pidgeon shooting.

We had a wonderful time, but as with all of these big flower shows, it was a long day and very hard on the old feet.  The unprecedented heat didn’t help either, but seeing the show gardens and all the beautiful plants made it all well worth the effort.

Here are just a few of the photos from the day:-

First stop was the Floral Marquee

I hadn't noticed, but clearly I was drawn towards the blues and purples as usual!

And then it was on to the show gardens, which included some which were a little quirky.

Ever wondered what to do with that old bathroom you're ripping out?

I wish my garden looked like that!

We didn’t have time to go into Sandringham House on this occasion, but we did go and take a look at the church. 

St Mary Magdalene, is where the Royal Family go on Christmas morning and you always see photos of them standing on the steps and greeting well-wishers.

It dates back to Tudor times and is beautiful inside, as you can imagine. 

.All in all we had a wonderful time and we finished the day off with a lovely dinner at Sculthorpe Mill

.Now……….I can hear you saying that you thought this was going to be an update on my stitching ………well it is, and there was plenty of time for that too. 

My stats show that I touched seven projects in all and stitched on

29 of the 31 days, which wasn’t bad going.

I worked on three wips, had four new starts and finished five projects, but sadly I didn’t find the time to FFo anything, so I’ll have to knuckle down during August and get some of the pieces done and dusted before the pile grows again.

The first wip I picked up was ‘Coffee Shoppe by Dimensions, and I worked on that for just two days, as my usual 25^th and 26^th of the month stitch.

The second wip was ‘Make Memories’ from Beach Rules by Primrose Cottage, which I finished in two days.

 And the third wip was Santa Claus is Coming to Town by Historische Stickmuster but this one turned into a bit of a saga.

I stitched for four days, until the end of the month, and realised I had lost the skein of Dark Brown silk I was using for the reindeer.  I really didn’t want to pay around £6(inc postage) just to get one skein of silk and I didn’t need anything else, unusual, I know,   so in the end I decided to frog the reindeer I had already stitched and use  ‘Dark Chocolate’ a Roxy Floss Co thread (not silk)  that was left over from my 2024 Christmas Countdown instead.  

At that point, I also decided to change their noses to brown, except for Rudolf at the front.  

Then, in all the kerfuffle,  I forgot to take a picture of where I left off,   so the ‘after’ photo is a bit of guess. 

You’ll understand the significance of that, when I tell you that I didn’t want to put it down and carried on stitching into August.

So here’s sort of where I got to. 

  Now we come to the four new starts, which were all finishes, and they were:-

Roll with the Tides, the final panel of ‘Beach Rules’ by Primrose Cottage.

Seven Swans A-Swimming - from the Twelve days of Christmas by Bothy Threads

July Garden by Sub Rosa Designs (for cross stitch camp)

And lastly the 2026 Cross Stitch Camp Badge by The Colorado  Cross Stitcher.

So that was  what my month of July looked like in a rather large nut shell!

My plans for August are as unorganised as usual.

The only certainty is that I will be stitching ‘8 Maids A-Milking’ from the 12 Days of Christmas  and do my 25^th & 26^th stitch on ‘The Coffee Shoppe’ by Dimensions, oh, and fit in some ffo’ing, but apart from that, who knows what will find my hoop next.

So until next time………

Happy Stitching

Sue

x

More Beach Rules

 As you know, over the summer I have been stitching ‘Beach Rules’ from Primrose Cottage.

But instead of stitching it as the model was stitched, I decided to stitch individual panels and make little pin pillows to fill my tier tray.

My 6^th panel, ‘Make Memories’, which was a wip from last month is now stitched and ready to be ffo’d,

along with ‘Build Sandcastles, which was stitched last month.

I then started and finished ‘Roll with the Tides’, the final panel of the project.

I’m not sure I’m ready to start stitching for autumn just yet, but I do know I’m in need of a break from the sea side theme after that little lot.  

So my plan is hold back the other three charts, ’Salty Kisses’, 'Beach Quaker’ and 'Sea, Sand & Stitching’, that I purchased from Primrose Cottage at the same time as ‘Beach Rules’, until next year and for now just FFO the final three panels and leave it at that.  

 But don’t forget to keep an eye out for the final unveiling of my little collection.

 

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)

‘July Garden’ from Sub Rosa Designs

 July 4^th this year was very special for my stitching friends ‘across the pond’, because they were celebrating 250 years of independence and as I'm sure you'll have seen, Facebook and Instagram  has been awash with all the amazing stitching everyone has been doing, from big beautiful samplers to little pin pillows.

To  mark such a special occasion our 'Cross Stitch Camp' leader, Sheri, the  Colorado Cross Stitcher decided we should stitch something patriotic, in Red White and Blue or in the colours of our own country’s flag for the  July project.

Sadly, we don’t seem to be quite as patriotic over here, or at least there's not many charts around  with our Union Jack or the flag of St George on them, so, just sticking with the Red, White & Blue theme  instead, I came across  and downloaded  ‘July Garden’ from Sub Rosa Design.

I did my own floss conversion from stash and stitched it on a scrap of 36ct hand dyed mystery linen.

I made a slight adjustment to my stitching by leaving off the row of white birds along the top.

I also still had to stitch the camp badge that Sheri designed for this year, so I used the same threads as my main project and stitched it on a mystery piece of 14ct mystery Aida.

You'll notice that thanks to some nice easy straight stitches, I've changed the flags to cute little Union Jacks.

 I've still to add it to my camp project bag, but it's turned out to be much larger than all my other badges, not that that really matters.     All the others were stitched on 36ct!

Happy Stitching!

Sue

xxx

Now where are the rest of the marshmallows for toasting!!

Seven Swans A-Swimming – Bothy Threads – 12 Days of Christmas

 It's month seven of stitching on 'The 12 Days of Christmas' from  Bothy Threads, and I hope you are all enjoying reading about Edward's Christmas gifts to Emily as she receives them.

Her latest gift, that arrived on the 31st December has definitely left  poor Emily in a fraught state, because her home and garden  appear to be overflowing with no less than 23 birds!

Here’s her latest letter to Edward:-

Edward,
I thought I said NO MORE BIRDS. This morning I woke up to find no more than seven swans, all trying to get into our tiny goldfish pond. I'd rather not think what's happened to the goldfish. The whole house seems to be full of birds, to say nothing of what they leave behind them, so please, please, stop!
Your Emily.

 I can't help wondering how this is all going to end, Lol!

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

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