June Stitch From Stash and Pie

Let's do Pie first and talk about how the month shaped up including a new challenge I took part in.

Once again I managed a full 2 weeks on my Discworld Mappe and got a load of progress, thanks to not working on IHSW.  The Mappe went from here:

to here:

stitched on 32 count Murano custom dyed by Sparklies

I am delighted with my progress and the lack of frogs this month.  Next month I will head to the right hand side of the Mappe, starting at the frozen wastes in the middle there.

After I completed my 14 days on the Discworld I decided to continue with My Lovely Sewing Tools by Marie Suarez.  As I mentioned in my previous post I am focused on finishes this year and it would be amazing to see this one completed.  

stitched on 40 count white linen

I didn't complete a full page this time around.  I only had 6 days and that quilt is full coverage!  You can see from the whole piece just how close I am now:

The final page is "I Love Embroidery" so it's more like the 4th page for coverage.  Then I have the border to finish, the beads, buttons and charms to add.  Maybe an end of August finish?

The new challenge I mentioned is from the Facebook group #24 Hours of Cross Stitch.  In June they had an acrostic challenge where you has to stitch projects connected with the letters in TWENTY FOUR.  Shoe horns are quite acceptable but thanks to the Marathon I managed it without a shoehorn in sight.  July might be a different matter!  Here are the projects I used:

T - Typography  - Just Nan Summer Typography
W - World - Lyndisfarne Designs Discworld Mappe
E - Enchanted - Lavender & Lace Enchanted Alphabet
N - Needlebook - Just Nan Butterfly Needlebook 2
T - Transitional - Scarlet Letter English Transitional Sampler
Y - Yiota - Yiota's Coffee Fairy
F - Flowers Just Nan Butterfly Needlebook 1
O - The letter O  - Ernie Bishop NOEL Letters
U - The letter U - Marie Suarez My Lovely Sewing Tools
R - Raven - Nora Corbett Raven

Photos on various posts this month, mostly on the Marathon post.

This was a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to July's challenges.  One is another acrostic, this time spelling out TEAM 24 HOUR.  There is a "Stitch for a total of 24 hours in July" which isn't much of a challenge to be honest, it's less than an hour a day!  The third one is a total shoehorn festival.  They have chosen a different holiday for each day and you have to find stitching to fit that holiday.  For example 1st July is Creative Icecream Flavour Day!  I am going for Mrs Peggotty's Queen of Hearts and her famous Jam Tart Flavoured Ice Cream.

The first half of the Stitch from Stash year came to a finish this month and I was so happy to get another zero spend month (except for a magazine subscription which is allowed) and a final imaginery balance of £103.85 that I decided to treat myself to a couple of charts in a series I want to collect.  These are the first three charts in the Scary Apothecary series by Hands On Designs.

June
Cross Stitcher sub	£8.72
HoD Scary Apothecary x 3	£14.25
Total	£22.97

Finally, there will be a Summer Postcard Blog Hop this year.  Previous posts have all the details.  There is still lots of time for people to join in and the first card will be going out next week!

June WIPocalypse Half Year Recap

WIPocalypse is hosted by Measi's Musings

Each month we have to share the projects we want to complete before the End Of The World.  

Since 2011 I have chosen a number of projects to focus on that year, starting with my "11 in '11" and increasing to "19 in '19" for this year.  You can find the full list here.

This month I stitched on seven of my list, thanks to the Longest Day Marathon! I will start with the ones I stitched outside of the Marathon:

1. Enchanted Alphabet by Lavender & Lace

 stitched on 32 count Murano in Tiger Lily from Sparklies

2. Discworld Mappe by Lyndisfarne Designs

stitched on 32 count Murano custom-dyed by Sparklies

3. Summer Typography by Just Nan - Day 235

stitched on 32 count Pink Linen

4. My Lovely Sewing Tools by Marie Suarez

stitched on 40 count White linen

And the rest?

5. Chatelaine Designs - Gardens of London

stitched on 32 count Cotton Clouds Belfast by Crafty Kitten

6. Nora Corbett - Gathering Eggs

stitched on 35 count Vintage Country Mocha

7. Nora Corbett - Raven

stitched on 32 count Nebula by Crafty Kitten

Measi always gives us a topic to discuss too.

June – Half-year recap: How are you doing with your goals so far this year?

This is full list of 19:

1. Lavender & Lace - Enchanted Alphabet  - WIP
2. Chatelaine Designs - Gardens of London - WIP
3. Lyndisfarne - Discworld Map - WIP
4. Nora Corbett - Gathering Eggs - WIP
5. Mrs Peggotty - Alice and Flamingo  - Finish
6. Just Nan - Summer Typography - WIP
7. Nora Corbett - Raven - WIP
8. Satsuma Street - Nest Egg - Finish
9. Marie Suarez - My Lovely Sewing Tools - WIP
10. Cottage Garden Samplings - Hallowe'en Alphabet
11. Primitive Needle - Mystic Sampler
12. Just Nan - Wee Witchy Mice
13. Mirabilia - 25th Anniversary Cameo
14. Just Nan - Summer Night
15. Mill Hill - Easter Egg - Finish
16. The Sweetheart Tree - Merry Christmas Bell Pull
17. Dragon Dreams - Never Too Big
18. Sue Hillis - Victorian Christmas Tree
19. Ink Circles - Poinsettia - Finish

So far this year I have four finishes, seven WIPs and eight unstarted.  Out of those eight, three are the monthly Christmas ornaments so they will be started and finished in their relevant months.  Three more are Hallowe'en pieces which I will start in October for Dark October stitching, along with Raven as the focus piece for that month.  The other two may possibly be started after I finish My Lovely Sewing Tools.

At the moment I am really focusing on finishes and the Discworld Mappe.  If that means I don't start all my 19, that is perfectly fine.  Out of that list I can pretty much guarantee another six finishes which will be over half the list.

My other goals are going great.  I am keeping up with my 10-a-Day and my Just Nan Smalls.  I have completed 6 Christmas Ornaments and stitched six different sorts of motifs on my Hallowe'en piece.

Finally, there will be a Summer Blog Hop this year.  We will have an International Theme for the Postcards this year.  Each person emails me a photo of something they have stitched on an International theme which is suitable to send to a fellow stitcher along with a short message of the kind you write on a postcard.   I will forward the photo to another participant who shows it on their blog.  The photo can be anything which fits the International theme, let's see which countries we visit this Summer.   If you'd like to take part then leave a comment or send me an email.

A couple of people have asked "what do you mean by "International"?"

To which I replied "Use your imagination!   If you don't have something which represents a country or an area of the world, how about a mode of transport?  Or something designed by an international designer?  Or gifted by an international friend?   Or stitched on French Navy fabric? LOL!!"

The Hop will run over the whole of the Summer with a few cards going out each week.   Final deadline will be the end of August, just in time for Back to School!

June Smalls SAL

The Smalls SAL is hosted by Mary's Thread

For this SAL I am showing the monthly project for the Christmas Ornie Blog. I am choosing from the back issues of the Just Cross Stitch Ornament Specials. This month we could chose any ornament from any issue from 2001 to 2010.  I went for a Just Nan design from 2002; A Little Joy.

stitched on 28 count Platinum linen

The fabric next to it will be the backing fabric for the ornament finish.  The original was charted so the small design in the centre was stitched over 1 on a separate piece of fabric and then put into a tiny frame attached the main design.  But as I don't have a tiny frame, I stitched it direct on the fabric and added a little gold backstitched frame around it.

This was a lovely design to stitch, some speciality stitches, some metallics and some beads as well as the tiny over one scene in the centre.

The other regular project for the SAL is my spooky conversion of Lavender & Lace's Enchanted Alphabet.  I finished the letters a while back and now I am adding various spooky motifs each month.  This month I added some little ghosts:

I am also stitching a Just Nan small each month.  This is side 1 of Butterfly Needlebook.  I am calling this a finish although there are some initials to be added in the centre of the motif.  I want to complete both sides before I add them.

stitched on 28 count hand-dyed pink linen

This is side 2 of the Needlebook:

Finally, a less pleasant subject - Spam.  I have had a rash of spam comments just lately.  Fortunately they have not appeared on my blog as I moderate comments, so for those of you who do not moderate - check your comments daily to delete them.  Most are quite obviously spam although there was one that seemed to be a real person "Millie", until you followed their link and they were not!

June IHSW

IHSW or International Hermit and Stitch Weekend always starts on the third Friday of the month.  It's a chance to lock yourself away and focus on your stitching for the weekend.  You can take part on your blog or via the Facebook page.  Links at the bottom of this post.

I kicked off the weekend with my Longest Day Marathon where I successfully stitched on every single one of my WIPs - 19 in all.  Here they all are:

For the rest of the weekend I focused on my Discworld Mappe.  I am determined to get 2 weeks every month on this project.

Here's where I was on Friday morning:

Here's the part I worked on this weekend:

And here's the piece right now:

Llamedos is a hilly and permanently rainy country on the main continent. It is the home of druidism and druidical music and lots and lots of cold, exceptionally wet rain (It even has rain mines). It is also home to some dwarf clans, who mine coal in its hills. 

Famous inhabitants include: 

Rhys Rhysson, who would become Low King of the dwarfs 

Imp y Celyn, a.k.a. Buddy, lead singer and guitarist of The Band With Rocks In, during the Music With Rocks In fever in Ankh-Morpork(see Soul Music), 

and Sgt. Dai Dickins, a stalwart in the Glorious Revolution (see Night Watch.) 

Evangelist and explorer Llamedos Jones, reputed to have discovered the Brown Islands, was also a native. 

The main town would appear to be Pant-y-Girdl.

The odd tendency of local placenames to spell strange things backwards in Morporkian does not arise from any jocular attitude on the part of the Llamedosians. They are known as a rather dour and humorless group. The Compleat Discworld Atlas hints that it even rains indoors and books have titles like How Damp Was My Mattress. Sheep do not need to be dipped so much as regularly wrung out, for instance.Source: L-space


I'm also making steady progress on my evening piece.  This is the project I stitch while The Small Boy is in the bath.  The current project is The Queen of Hearts by Mrs Peggotty.  Here's where she was last IHSW:

And here is where she is now:

stitched on 22 count white hardanger

A few people have said that they don't do Facebook and asked if I could host a link-up for them, so here it is! Just add your name and the link to your actual IHSW post, not just your blog home page.

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The next IHSW will be 19th - 21st July so make sure you note the date in your diary or come and join us in the Facebook Group - IHSW on Facebook. If you don't do Facebook then you can check in here.

Finally, there will be a Summer Blog Hop this year.  We will have an International Theme for the Postcards this year.  Each person emails me a photo of something they have stitched on an International theme which is suitable to send to a fellow stitcher along with a short message of the kind you write on a postcard.   I will forward the photo to another participant who shows it on their blog.  The photo can be anything which fits the International theme, let's see which countries we visit this Summer.   If you'd like to take part then leave a comment or send me an email.

A couple of people have asked "what do you mean by "International"?"

To which I replied "Use your imagination!   If you don't have something which represents a country or an area of the world, how about a mode of transport?  Or something designed by an international designer?  Or gifted by an international friend?   Or stitched on French Navy fabric? LOL!!"

The Hop will run over the whole of the Summer with a few cards going out each week.   Final deadline will be the end of August, just in time for Back to School!

Longest Day Marathon 2019

This is the fourth year I have attempted my Longest Day Marathon.  This year I was able to stitch on the actual Longest Day itself as it fell on a Friday.  My younger son is at school all day and the older one has just finished his 16+ exams (GCSEs in the UK) and went out with friends for the day.  He usually goes to my parents on a Friday but they are away so my evening stitching was a little truncated compared to previous years while I spent some time with him.

Fortunately I have fewer WIPs this year - down to only 18.  I don't include all my Just Nan ornies that I started for Maynia in this challenge.  That's for another day, maybe the new 24 Hours of Cross Stitch challenge on Facebook and FlossTube?   I'm already taking part in their Letters Challenge.  More of which in another post.

On to the Marathon!  As usual I spent time the day before finding all the projects, charts, fabrics and threads and laying them out on the bed.  Thanks to previous year's Marathons this is a fairly simple task as I put them all away together after the Marathon.

As ever, the first piece to be worked on is my current 10-a-Day project: Just Nan's Summer Typography:

I added the orange centre to the flowers in the top left corner

The Small Boy went off to school and the marathon started in earnest.

9.10am Project 2 Just Nan Butterfly Needlebook side 1:

There was hardly any stitching left, as I am adding the beads and initials after I finish the second side:
.

so at 9.25am Project 3  I moved on to the second side of the Needlebook:

I completed the border and added some green vine:

10.00am Project 4 Lavender & Lace Enchanted Alphabet Spooky Conversion:

I gave the existing ghosts eyes and started a fourth ghost:

10.30am Project 5 Lyndisfarne Designs Discworld Mappe:

I filled in the darker green of the landmass:

11.00am Project 6 Chatelaine Designs Gardens of London:

I added some Algerian Eyelets to the inner border:

11.30am Project 7 Nora Corbett Gathering Eggs:

I added the purple ribbon to her skirt:

12.00 noon Project 8 Nora Corbett Raven:

I added some light purple to the left of her dress:

12.30 break for lunch and laundry

1.30pm Project 9 Just Nan A Little Joy:

Another finish!  I wouldn't usually bead on a Marathon day but there were only 16 beads in this.  Hopefully I will FFO it this weekend:

2.00pm Project 10  Kustom Krafts Little Snap Dragon:

Added some blue to his wings.  I love this picture but the stitching reinforces my dislike of computer generated charts, he is so pixellated:

2.30pm Project 11 Joan Elliott Faces:

Added some blue ribbon:

3.00pm Project 12 Scarlet Letter English Transitional Sampler:

Added some Holbein, got visited by a frog, restitched the Holbein!

3.30pm Project 13 Papillon Around the World in 80 Stitches:

Added green border:

4.00pm Project 14 Yiota Coffee Fairy:

Added more yellow in the coffee cup.  Another CGI chart:

4.30pm Project 15 Samplermakers Spring Sampler:

Started the second tree.  Those trees are the reason this is currently a UFO:

5.00pm Project 16 Marie Suarez My Lovely Sewing Tools:

Added some of the cream border.  This will be my focus once I have completed 14 days of Discworld this month:

5.30pm break for Teatime

7.00pm Project 17 Craft Collection Art Nouveau Head:

Added some brown at the top:

7.30pm Small Boy wants to run around the garden for a while.

8.00pm Project 18 Ernie Bishop NOEL Letters:

Finished the O:

8.30pm break to wash-up and spend time with the Large Boy.

10.00pm Project 19 Mrs Peggotty's Queen of Hearts:

10.30pm filled in some of the blue stripes:

And so to bed!

Previous years -

2018 - stitched 26 projects

2017 - stitched 24 projects

2016 - stitched 21 projects

It's good that I have managed to get my WIPs down to less than 20.  This is my plan going forwards, to only start new projects when I have completed an older one.  Other than the monthly Ornaments of course.

Thanks to everyone who joined in on Facebook, whether you stitched or just watched. It was fun to see all the "likes" over the course of the day.


Finally, here's a little video clip of me talking about my set-up: