I had grandkids every single day this week. YEP, every single day…and two overnights. That leaves little time for stitching or sewing which is totally okay. I love the kids and so enjoy time with them…but that explains a bit why I didn’t accomplish as much as I typically might have.
Last week, I was working and trying to catch up on my Blessed Stitch Along piece. Rather than fill in the pumpkins as I went, I decided to leave them as-is. Then when I had grandkids and needed to sit with them at naptime, I could fill in a pumpkin without having to worry about counting or changing colors.
That worked out great. I was able to get three of the pumpkins filled in. That means I’m officially caught up with the month of April. I’ve got a start on the May assignment.
I left it here and decided that I’d work on it next week. I feel better that I’m not behind anymore. I know it’s not a race but let’s be honest, if I’m hosting a stitch along, it’s a little embarrassing to be behind. I know you all understand that my life gets pretty crazy and won’t hold it against me…but still, if I’m hosting, I do like to be “on time.”
My hope is to finish this over the next week…or at least by the end of the month. That way I’ll be ready for the new stitch along. For those wondering, the new stitch-along starts on June 1st.
I’ve heard that most people already have their kits and are chomping at the bit wanting to start. I don’t blame them, I’m excited about this too!! If you missed the info about it, you can find that HERE.
I went back to working on… All Creatures Great and Small. I’d really like to get this finished by the 4th of July. I think that’s a fairly reasonable goal…but things do get busy around here with the upkeep outdoors and gardening this time of year so who knows.
I decided to try to finish the house that is in the middle of the sampler. I did pretty good considering I didn’t have much stitching time. I got it all done except the roof.
I almost changed the colors of the house so many times. The gold and gray together really didn’t do anything for me…but once I see the whole sampler laid out, I feel better about it.
Full coverage stitch like the house really takes up a lot of time. I have a giant full coverage section below the house coming up.
Here’s a picture of the chart. You can see the shepherd and the animals…that is all full coverage stitching.
The picture below isn’t the best but you can see on the bottom left there is a lot of full coverage too.
I don’t mind doing it…just don’t love that it takes so long and I don’t see progress. I’ll keep plugging away.
My goal for next week is to finish the roof and get the two big flowers on each side of the house finished…and to get a couple of lengths of gree thread into the border leaves.
I’m really getting the itch to do a few small stitches after I’m done with this. Brenda of Brenda and the Serial Starter on Youtube has a floss tube channel and she is focusing on smalls as she says her walls are getting full of samplers. It’s been fun to watch her start and finish some projects in just a short period of time. It made me want to do a few smaller projects.
I ended up pulling this out…it’s Keeper of the Pins by Brenda Gervais of With Thy Needle and Thread. It was one of the market releases I bought. I think these would stitch up kind of quickly and I really like them. The quilter in me meets the cross stitcher with these projects. If you are new to cross stitch, these would be great for a beginner.
Did you notice the shower rings in the picture? I started using them to keep my threads together. I previously used binder clips but they are more expensive and they seem to wear and the clasp doesn’t hold together as well as I wish they would.
I thought I would share this with you. I saw it on Instagram. If you are stitching faces in a cross-stitch piece and you want to change the skin tone colors, here is a guide for you. They show it using both DMC colors and Anchor Colors.
I know when I was stitching an angel in my Heaven and Nature piece by Teresa Kogut, I was having trouble finding a color for the angel bodies. What was called for didn’t show up on my linen.
It took me a long time to find something that would work. I don’t remember what I ended up using. This guide would have been so helpful. I am printing this off and keeping it with my DMC chart.
You can read about this finished piece HERE.
That wraps up my cross stitching for the week. I didn’t get lots done but that’s the way it is around here…I seem to have time in spurts and this week was my week with not a lot of extra time.