Stitching Friends Summer Blog Hop 2020

Regular followers will know that I host a number of Blog Hops throughout the year, each with a different theme.  Four of them are the same each year but the Summer one varies depending on what I feel like!  This year I felt it would be nice to see how well we know our Stitching Friends.

Several years ago I designed a little ornament for an exchange on this theme - Stitching Friends are Friends who Count.  It's a pun on being important to us and counting crosses!  This year, more than ever, we have found the value in our stitching friends who have kept us company online when we couldn't meet up with our real-life friends.

I had 11 people sign up for the Hop and assigned each one a blog for them to visit and write a little piece about their stitching friend.  I asked them to choose a design they thought their friend might like.  Christine then had the idea that we should try guess who each person was, so I asked people not to reveal the name until the end of the post!  So why not see if you can guess each one as you go?

These are the participating bloggers, in no particular order:

A Patchwork of Crafts

Tiffstitches a Blog

Needle, Pen and Sword

My Blog by Margaret

Le Coeur Celtique

Aimetu's Stitching

Elfin Stitches

The Alchymyst's Study

Jocondine

Stitching in the Mid West

Life Outside the Washing Basket

I thought I would join in with a surprise for one blogger.  She didn't sign up for this Hop but has taken part in the several other Hops over the years so see if you can guess who she is.  Let's see how long it takes her to identify herself too!

The blogger is a mother.  Mother of dragons, mother of cats and mother of boys.  

She lives in America but has a European heritage.

She is definitely a collector - cross stitch charts, Disney memorabilia, dragons, pets, beer.

She is a very sociable, she enjoys meeting friends, going to retreats, doing charity work, supporting her sons and going to the drive-in cinema.

There's always some lovely stitching going on, at the moment we are looking rather spooky.  Maybe a project for my Hallowe'en Blog Hop?

I thought of two projects I would share that she might like.  The first is one I stitched:

These are the 12 Dragonlets of Christmas, a series of freebies from Dragon Dreams on their Facebook page.

The second design relates to what is probably my favourite post of each year:

Strutting Tom by Lindy Stitches

"I am not a turkey, I am Strutting Tom,

I am a model and I strut my stuff

on the turkeywalk.  Oops I mean, the catwalk"

If that doesn't give it away, then head over to this post to discover the blogger and what on earth I am talking about!  I am not a Turkey

Finally, I have finished another week on my SAL with Leonore.  We are both stitching Morning Meadow by Just Nan.

stitched on 32 count pale green linen

I added three more bands of speciality stitches this week.  Band 9 were star eyelets, band 10 were small butterflies and band 11 was a rice stitch with a vertical cross.  There are beads to be added in the final week.  These band samplers are great for learning speciality stitches, the diagrams are clear and the rows are just the right width to perfect each stitch.