Time to Dust off the Sewing Machine

As Summer fast approaches Autumn, I'm pleased to say that our weather here in the UK has finally gone back to what's normal for this time of year, instead of the prolonged heatwave we have had.  As I'm getting older, I'm definitely finding it much harder to cope with the heat, Lol!

The hot weather didn't stop me from stitching though and August proved to be a productive month. 

My stitching diary shows that I worked on 3 wip, had 2 new starts, finished 3 projects and managed to fully finish 4 projects.

The first wip that I stitched on was Bluebird of Happiness from Cottage Garden Samplings, which was last worked on in back in May.    This is where it was left.

I stitched on it for another 8 days and this is where it is now.

Just love the little houses in this series!

The next wip was Coffee Shoppe from Dimensions.

I stitched on this for a total of 7 more days.

The final wip I worked on you have already seen because it only took another 4 days to completely finish it.

That was 'Santa Claus is coming to Town' by Historische Stickmuster.

The two new starts you've also already seen and they were both finishes too.

'8 Maid's A-Milking' - 12 Days of Christmas - from Bothy Threads

And 'Bristol Berries 2' from Erica Michaels, which is also the first of my 4 fully finishes.

I think I may have caught the ‘Berry Bug’ because I can’t wait to stitch the other two on the chart and I’m finding myself looking for more to stitch………….I’m sure I’m not the only one to go down that particular rabbit hole, Lol!

When it comes to fully finishing, I always find it a bit of a task, because despite having a dedicated craft room, it’s sadly small and doesn’t have enough room to leave my sewing machine out all the time.

So for that reason I tend to leave them until I have a few projects that need attention and this time there were a couple of other items that needed attention too, (a pair of curtains that needed taking up and the sleeves of a beach cover-up needed shortening) so the time had finally come!

I dealt with the two ‘boring’ projects first and then tackled the fun stuff.

I had the final 3 panels from ‘Beach Rules' by Primrose Cottage that needed sorting.

 ‘Build Sandcastles'

‘Roll with the Tides'

and finally ‘Make Memories’ 

I decided to make this pillow with a little pocket.........because I have a plan and a story!

You have to go back to my childhood and also think forward to a trip I have coming up in a couple of weeks.

From the age of around 5 (in the early 60's) my parents took myself and my two brothers down to Woolacombe, North Devon for our summer holidays, on five consecutive years, so as you can imagine, I have many memories of those trips.

I visited there again once in the late 70’s with friends, but haven't been back since.  

I'm sure you'll have already guessed, but for my late summer break I'll be going back for another visit, and I'm looking forward to seeing how much it's changed over the last 50 years.

The little pocket is destine to be filled with some 'Now & Then' photos and other little trinkets I might find. 

 Here’s my final display of ‘Beach Rules’

lay of ‘Beach Rules’ I don't know how much stitching I'll get done during September because I have a Big Birthday (70) coming up and as well as a few celebrations planned I also have two short breaks away.  

So we'll play it by ear and see where my needle takes me.

Happy Stitching!

Sue

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Eight Maids A-Milking – Bothy Threads – 12 Days of Christmas

It’s the eight day of Christmas and the 1^st day of a new year for Emily and still the gifts from Edward keep coming.

At last this time he seems to have listened to Emily, when she said no more birds.

But look what turned up this morning, prompting another letter.

Jan 1

Frankly, I prefer the birds. What am I to do with eight milkmaids? And their cows! Is this some kind of a joke?

If so, I'm afraid I don't find it very amusing.
Emily.

Happy Stitching!

Sue

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12 Days of Christmas

Designed – Bothy Threads - Kit

Fabric – 14ct Zweigart Aida - White

Threads – Standard Cotton, Pearl Cotton and Gold Thread

‘Bristol Berries 2’ – Erica Michaels

 I can’t believe that we have already reached the last month of Cross Stitch Camp,  and Sheri, the  Colorado Cross Stitcher  has set our final challenge, which is the same as it is every year:- 

to try something new - a new count, a new linen, a new designer, a new finish, a new colour scheme - whatever stretches our stitching journey in some way.

After giving it some thought, I decided to make a strawberry.

Apart from the Hindeloopen Strawberry that I stitched back in

January and was finished in a totally different way, I have never stitched and finished a ‘traditional’ one before.

I already had ‘Bristol Berries 2’ by Erica Michaels in my collection and had never stitched any of her charts before either,  so decided that I would stitch one of the three berries included in the chart.

I’m still continuing to work from stash when I can, so I’ve stitched this piece on a piece of 36ct mystery Evenweave and used a Roxy Floss Co thread, ‘Suitable’ that was left over from the 2024 Christmas Countdown

Tomorrow will be a fully finishing day and I have a few pieces that need dealing with, so it should be fun.

 Happy Stitching!

Sue

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Santa Claus is Coming to Town - Historische Stickmuster

At the end of my July round-up, I mentioned that I was so engrossed with stitching on this project that I carried on stitching beyond the two days I had in my plans and continued stitching until the end of the month.

At that point I was getting so close to a finish, so decided instead of putting it away again until the end the month,  I would keep going until it was done.

Just four days later I had my first finish for August and what’s more, the finish of my first project from Historische Stickmuster.

When it was done, I added my initials and the year amidst the snowflakes.

Here are all the details:- 

Design by  –                                 Historische Stickmuster

Fabric –                                        32ct unbleached Linen

Threads –                                     Soie d’Alge silks

Start Date -                                 25^th December 2025

Finish Date -                               4^th August 2026

Number of days stitched on -    42 days

At this time, I’m still not sure if I want to frame it or make it into a pillow for the chair in my sewing room, but whatever I decide, it will be done into for Christmas.

Happy  Stitching!

Sue 

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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

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