April Pie and Stitch from Stash

For my final post of the month I thought I'd do a look at my focus piece for April - Gardens of London by Chatelaine Designs.  I started this one February 2017 and plan to make it my focus piece for five months this year.  In an attempt to see some real progress on it!

I stitched a lot in February 2018 and here is how it looked at the end of that month:

And here is where we are now:

stitched on 32 count Cotton Clouds Belfast from Crafty Kitten

And some close-ups:

Top Left Garden

I am using a mixture of the recommended silks and some substitutions.  Some are the plain DMC recommended on the chart and others are variegated from Jodyri Threads.  Sometimes I am blending two DMC shades to make a subtle effect too.

The gaps in the centre part are all for beads.  The gaps in the border of the small garden are mostly speciality stitches and some beads.  I plan to stitch all the xxx first and then the speciality and metallics.  The beads I will leave until the end.  Because I haven't bought them yet!

And now the part you have all been waiting for - Pie!

I managed nearly half a month on Gardens of London which is about average for this year.

Now on to to Stitch from Stash:

April
Cross Stitcher sub	£8.72
JCS sub	£22.94
Beads	£8.00
Total	£39.66

The RoEx has worked in my favour because my Just Cross Stitch subscription has gone down in price this year.  I think Cross Stitcher have made an error because their subscription was due in May not April.  I have emailed them.

The beads were a real bargain.  A local crafter had a table at our Friday Coffee Morning and was selling various scrapbooking items and multipacks of beads.

These are not Mill Hill, maybe a little bit bigger than standard Mill Hills but great for making hangers for ornies or trimming them.  And at £3 for a packet of four, that's a bargain!

Finally, here's the progress on my Temperature SAL by Hetti:

You can see the warmer days we had at the beginning of the month on the right hand side, some nice yellow there.  In the bottom left you can see the mini heatwave too.  That bright orange is 26 degrees Celsius or 79 F, phew what a scorcher!   Now down to a chilly 7 C or 45 F to finish the month.