Summer's Here!

The boys broke up for the Summer Holidays on Thursday and are off for six whole weeks!  I spent Wednesday and Thursday afternoons stitching on the grounds that they were my last two days on my own at home.  And then Friday and Saturday afternoons stitching on the grounds that the holidays have started!  Great excuses.

What was I stitching?  Mostly Gathering Honey.  I completed all the flowers in the central garden areas, except the French Knots which I will leave until the end so they don't get squashed.  There is quite a lot of backstitch in these sections to do and the instructions are not clear at all.  They suggest there are different lines for the different colours.  There are not.  They also suggest Dark Chocolate Brown for most of the bs but I'm thinking of a very dark green instead.

I've been making great progress on Ghostly Mandala by Ink Circles too.

Here it is on Tuesday 19th:

And on Saturday 23rd:

stitched on 32 count Autumnal Woodland by Crafty Kitten

That design was in Just Cross Stitch's Hallowe'en Special in 2014 and by chance the 2016 issue arrived yesterday.  The small designs didn't really grab me this year but I just love this sampler:

It's by Louise Henderson of Cherished Stitches and is charted for 36 count linen.  There's some over one stitching and some speciality stitches too so I think I'd stick with the 36 rather than go for 40 which was my first thought.  This could be my evening stitch when I finish the Ghostly Mandala.

If you haven't seen Louise's work before, check out her website.  As well as a great Hallowe'en Quaker she has done two lovely monthly series of birds and flowers.  The birds in particular is quite unique.  September is a peacock, I rather like that one for my Birth month.

As it was the fourth Friday this week I picked up The Stitcher's Alphabet by Brooke's Books and stitched almost all the M motif!  I'm saving it for the Alphabet Club so here's a sneak peek at the little Mouse:

Apart from stitching I have been working my way throught this folder, it's The Small Boy's Learning Journal.  This is the folder of assessment which has followed him throughout his first four years at school.  Now he's going into Key Stage 2 we get to keep it!

It's an incredible record of how much he's achieved, full of "wow" moments; where he's done something which makes the staff say "wow"!  Every milestone is noted, every activity documented.  Examples of his work and staff observations pack the folder.  Here's a recent piece of work which shows how you test a non-verbal person's reading skills.  The sheet has the pictures printed on it and he has to match the word with the picture.  The adult does NOT read the word out loud or identify the picture.  He only got two muddled round.  Pretty impressive!

As usual, there's lots going on in the online world of stitching; as well as Measi's Olympic WIPocalypse Challenge, I've joined in with Stitch Maynia's Olympic Challenge where they have a theme a day.  My son has a daily Art Challenge which I'm going to try do with my stitching.  I've also launched a Linky Party of my own - The Tenuous Shoe-Horn!   The theme is Summer Holidays and basically all you do is make a post on or near 8th August and then link-up on my blog.  The post must show some stitching, past or present with a link, however tenuous, to the theme Summer Holiday.

Here's a picture of a shoe-horn to advertise the Party!

Finally, I still have a few spaces on my Big Birthday Blog Hop so if you want to join in, leave a comment asking for more details.