June Stitch from Stash and Pie

 It's time for Pie!

My main Focus piece for the month was Stitchy Princess' Alice in Wonderland.  I started her on the 2nd and completed her after 13.5 days of stitching.  The half day was part of the Longest Week Marathon.

stitched on 32 count Millenium Blue fabric

I used a darker fabric than the charted so had to change the blues.  The charted light blue just looked white on this fabric so I swapped it for a darker shade.

This was a nice quick stitch and all I need now is a square frame and it will be on display.

After stitching on Alice for 13 days, I switched to my Marathon.  This usually takes place as close as possible to the Longest Day in June.  But I couldn't clear a single whole day so this year I decided to spread it over a week and stitched two projects per day.  You can follow the fun on this post - Longest Day/Week Marathon

Alice wasn't the only project finished during the Marathon.  I also completed the beading on Circle Cross' Art Nouveau Tarot Zodiac Signs:

stitched on 28 count sky blue evenweave from Silkweavers

More photos:

Each of signs align with the elements shown above

The final project of the Marathon was Mirabilia's Fairy Idyll which I enjoyed so much I decided to finish IHSW on the Monday and give her another day.

stitched on 32 count Vinyard Murano from Crafty Kitten

I spent the last 6 days of the month working on my evening project - Living on the Rainbow's 3D Haunted House which is nearly finished!

stitched on 32 count purple linen

I stitched on it every evening too, so here's the evening pie:

Finally, Stitch from Stash.  I did spend some money this month.  I want to own all the fabrics for the Zodiac Girls from Nora Corbett so ordered the next three colours for the Fire signs - Aries, Leo and Sagittarius.  Now I am nagging Kate to dye the Air signs so I can get them too.

I also had my Cross Stitcher magazine sub come out this month but that doesn't count for SFS.

June WIPocalypse Half Year Goals

         

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 "24 in '24" for this year. This month I stitched on 5 of them and had one finish.

12. Living on the Rainbow 3D Haunted House

13. Joan Elliott Faces SAL

14. Stitchy Princess Alice in Wonderland - Finish!

21. Cottage Garden Sampling Year in the Woods The Swans

24. Cottage Garden Samplings Halloween Sampler

Finally, Measi always gives us a topic to discuss:

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

My goals are doing very nicely, thank you!  Out of the 24 on the list, I have 8 finishes so far plus 2 partial finishes where the pieces are part of a set.  Every project has been started in the month it was called for except the Spot of Autumn which was called in May and will be rolled over to another month.

I didn't quite finish the 3D Haunted House in June but it's very close.

Here's how my WIPGO Board looks at the end of June:

June Smalls

     

The Smalls SAL is hosted by Rachel

For my Smalls stitching this year, I have chosen 12 smaller designs and numbered them for my WIPGO Board.  Each month one Small will be stitched in the evening timeslot and hopefully finished within the month.  

After the excitement of my Just Nan-athon in May, I have returned to a focus piece for June.  The WIPGO Board chose the 3D Haunted House from Living on the Rainbow and I've been working steadily on that each evening.

Here is the front and back, blurry but completed:

Here is my progress on the sides and the roof:

I've got the purple fill-in and backstitch to do on the sides.  For the roof, I have made the decision not to fill it all in as charted but leave the purple fabric showing.  So I'll stitch all the way round the edge and mount it on some dark card before sewing it to the building.

Finally, you can see it's not going to be finished by the end of June so this will be a roll-over to next month!

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 - IHSW on Facebook.

This year I am trying something different for IHSW - an A-Z Challenge!  These usually take place in April and people stitch one letter every day except Sunday.  I don't want to swap projects daily so thought I could do 2 or 3 letters per IHSW instead.  

June is L and M.
I didn't have an active project for K so I'm skipping that one!

IHSW also coincided with my Longest Day/Week Marathon so I contrived it that the weekend projects all fitted the L and M letters.

Chatelaine - Gardens of LONDON - before:

After:

MRS Peggotty - Queen of Hearts - before:

After:

Steady Thread - Tree of LIFE - before:

After:

LIVING on the Rainbow - 3D Haunted House - after

MIRABILIA - Fairy Idyll - before:

I continued stitching Fairy Idyll into Monday so here's the final photo of her:

 

And the whole piece so far:

Next month will be N and O.  I don't have an O, so I might skip that and go straight to P.  We shall see!

Finally 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 by leaving a comment on my post.

Longest Day/Week Marathon 2024

 

My annual Longest Day Marathon usually takes place as close as possible to the Longest Day of the Year which was 20th June this year.  I had planned to stitch all day on the 19th June but unfortunately had meetings that day and there was literally no other day when I didn't have something planned.

So I decided to do a Longest Week and stitch 2 of my WIPs each day for 8 days, starting on Sunday 16th June and finishing on Sunday 23rd June.  That way I would get at least an hour on each one, some got even more time!

I started on Sunday with my usual Sunday morning catch-up on The Steady Thread Tree of Life Temperature SAL.

Before:

After - added 7 leaves and some roots

The rest of the day was dedicated to my two oldest projects - first was the Art Nouveau Head from Craft Collective.

Before:

After - added some pink border

Then The Coffee Fairy from Yiotas XStitch - before:

Added some more of the cup - after:

Monday started with Around the World in 80 Stitches from Papillon - before:

Outlined two more shapes - after:

This is the English Transitional Sampler from The Scarlet Letter - before:

More Holbein Stitching in blue - after:

On Tuesday I decided to do some beading on Circle Cross' Zodiac - before:

And completed it all!!

You can just see the sparkle in each constellation

The Faces SAL from Joan Elliott was next up - before:

The Peacock is progressing nicely - after:

On Wednesday I was feeling festive and worked on Bothy Threads 12 Days of Christmas - before:

I did a lot on this and finished all the red then started the gold metallic - after:

Which didn't leave much time for last year's Temperature SAL from Stitch It Picasso - before:

Just a little bit of brown shelf - after:

On Thursday I took Stitchy Princess' Alice in Wonderland out for coffee - before:

And finished her - after:

When I got home I picked up The Swans from Cottage Garden Samplings' Year in the Woods - before:

Managed quite a bit of cream stitching so not very visible - after:

Friday was a work day so I took Halloween Sampler by Cottage Garden Samplings in with me - before:

And got most of the G done in my lunchbreak - after

On Saturday I had time and space for my Chatelaine Gardens of London - before:

Unfortunately, my PB25 has gone walkabout so I couldn't complete the gold backstitch.
Instead I worked on the border and filled all the current row - after:

I also worked on possible my least favourite project, Mrs Peggotty's Queen of Hearts - before

I think it's all the columns of stitching, so I worked on the leaf and a rose instead - after

We're back to Sunday and the second time around for Steady Thread's Tree of Life Temperature SAL - before:

7 more leaves added:

Saved the best for (almost) last - Mirabilia's Fairy Idyll - before:

Got a piece of flounce stitched - after

This one was stitched every day throughout the marathon as it's been my evening stitch.  
This is where I finished the two sides of the 3D Haunted Mansion from Living on the Rainbow:

What did I think of doing it this way?  I got more progress on most of the WIPs which was good and it was more relaxed rather than constantly clock-watching to change every 30 minutes.  But it's not the same as a proper one day marathon so hopefully I will be able to manage that next year again.

Finally, here's how many projects I worked on for the previous marathons:

2024 - 17 WIPs

2023 - 17 WIPs

2022 - 18 WIPs

2021 - 22 WIPs

2020 - 17 WIPs

2019 - 19 WIPs

2018 - 26 WIPs

2017 - 24 WIPs

2016 - 21 WIPs