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

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

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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.

Bluebird of Happiness – Cottage Garden Samplings

 When I first discovered Patchwork Rabbit  back in 2018 after a friend sent me a gift voucher, the first thing I did was to sign up for a monthly subscription for ‘The Songbirds Garden’ series from Cottage Garden Samplings.

Over the years I have completed and framed seven of them

and I’ve now pulled out my eighth,  ‘Bluebird of Happiness’ because all those cherry blossom are crying out spring to me.

I’ve only made a small start, but did complete the first of the two birds.

The model on the chart was stitched on darker pink linen but I’ve decided to stitch mine on ‘36ct ‘Powder Puff’, which was one of the colours from the Roxy Floss Co  / Evertote, linen club.

 

Happy Stitching!

Sue x

Chart – Bluebird of Happiness – Songbird’s Garden

Designer – Cottage Garden Samplings

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

Threads -  Weeks Dye Works

Quick Quaker Stitch-a-Long

So here we are, into April and already a quarter of the way through the year! 

Not only that, we have a 4 day long weekend, so before I go any further I would like to wish everyone a very Happy Easter.

We had a fun sal start on the 1^st of the month, because Jacob from Modern Folk Embroidery is marking  15 years since he started designing with Evertote,  and he has designed the ‘Quick Quaker’ so we can stitch-a-long too and celebrate with him.

I decided to go with a blue/grey theme, so I pulled a piece of 32ct ‘Dune’ hand dyed linen from Chromatic Alchemy from my stash and some Roxy Floss Co threads  that were left over from various holiday countdowns.   Thin Air, Mountain Range, Yonder, & Blue Moon from 2023 and  How Do You Blue from 2024.

Jacob is also doing daily floss tubes, showing his daily stitching and other fun stuff.

My plan is to just keep stitching until it’s done as opposed to just doing the daily amount of stitches, and this is where I am at the moment.

Happy Stitching!

Sue x

Quick Quaker

Designed – Modern Folk Embroidery

Fabric – 32ct Dune Linen from Chromatic Alchemy

Threads – Roxy Floss Co

Francis 1863 – La-D-Da - ‘Some you Win, Some you Lose’!

Having stitched 'Sampler Hare' from La-D-Da, back in April 2024, I decided it was time to stitch the other two charts that were in my collection.

Sampler Hare was stitched on 32ct evenweave, so she was small and quite fiddly to finish, especially as she was to be my first stand-up.  So taking that into consideration, I decided that  I would used 28ct evenweave for the next two, so they would be a little bit bigger and hopefully a little easier to finish.

First up was  ‘Sweet Pea’, stitched on Antique White evenweave, with the called for threads and a substitute for dmc 844, which I was missing. 

 ‘Francis 1863’, came next, again using the same fabric and the called for threads.

It was all going well until I decided to fully finish them and that was things went awry.

I tackled Sweet Pea first and didn’t think she turned out too bad…..or at least that was what I thought at the time.

But sadly, when I got to 'Francis' and turned her the right way out after sewing, I realised I had trimmed the edges too close, the Evenweave had badly frayed in several places and she was beyond saving.

That made me go back to take a closer look at Sweet Pea and sure enough there were also one or two threads that were pulling apart. 

I'm not sure there's anything I can do to rescue her either, so I'm thinking the only thing I can do now is to re-stitch them both and may be use Linen or Aida this time instead of Evenweave.

Oh well, it's so frustrating, but I'll have to put it down to a steep learning curve and next time remember not to trim so close to the stitching!

My next new start was this darling kit 'Patterned Pretties #4 from Jeanette Douglas. 

This was a Christmas gift from my stitchy friend Stasi, over at   Bee-Mused and Bee-Stitching, who knew that Jeanette is my favourite designer, so thanks so much Stasi.

Jeanette loves her specialist stitches and this piece is all done in Bargello with beautiful silk threads.

You've gotta love this colour combination too!

Happy Stitching!

Sue

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