August Stitch from Stash and Pie

Well, August turned out to be a very productive month, with no fewer than 5 finishes!

Here is the Pie:

Yes, those couched lines on the Discworld Mappe took nearly 2 weeks to stitch.  To be fair, some of those days were very short because it was sometimes difficult to get the enthusiasm to start on them.  I also stitched the lovely silver stars around the edge of the Mappe.  I intend to do a full post this week dedicated to the Mappe, so I will show lots of photos then.  In the meantime, here's another full picture of it:

stitched on 32 count Murano custom-dyed by Sparklies

Holly Noel by Just Nan was the first finish at the start of the month and then it took 20 days to get another finish.  This is the Alice freebie from Passion Creative:

stitched on 28 count linen from a Crafty Kitten grab bag

The original is charted in two shades of grey but I knew I wanted blue for Alice.  Originally I planned to use the dark blue for all the darker stitching but having done her eyes I realised it was just too dark.  So I used the intended lighter blue for the rest of the dark stitching and chose a new light blue.  I love the way this turned out and hope to scrapbook it very soon.

The next finish up was my Summer Sampler SAL with Leonore.  We have both been stitching Just Nan's Morning Meadow over the last eight weeks.  Here's my finish:

stitched on 32 count pale green linen (matches DMC 772)

I didn't have all the charted threads or beads so I substituted blended DMC for the Caron Waterlilies, standard DMC for the Perle and beads which I did have in my stash.

I also made those bunnies darker so they would show up better

This is a very early Just Nan - JN013 copyright 1993, the year I started stitching.  She uses some absolutely wonderful speciality stitches in this sampler.  Some I was familiar with and some that were new to me.  The butterfly stitches are fantastic and I like the satin stitch flowers too.  She uses Mosiac Stitch to great effect, there's so much texture in this piece.  I do wish she would do more band samplers but I have several in my collection so I can't complain too much!

Another Just Nan was the final finish for the month.  This is Jasmine Mix, 49 x 49 stitches but 17 colours and 1 kind of bead:

stitched on 32 count Vintage Country Mocha linen

I absolutely love this one.  The way the B5200 just pops off the fabric and those gorgeous dark pinks, the splashes of yellow.  Great little design.

I did purchase a little treat this month.  I saw a former shopowner selling off some Just Nan exclusive kits from when she owned a shop, for a bargain price and had to snatch one up!  Then the Just Cross Stitch Hallowe'en Special came out so that's an essential purchase.  It is very good this year, now I just have to figure out how to fit a couple of the designs into the rotation!

August
Just Nan Regency Roses	£8.50
JCS Halloween mag	£7.50
Total	£16.00

Finally, with only 2 days left in the month after completing Discworld I decided to pick up a very old project.  So old, it's not even on my WIP list as I didn't discover it until I was stash-diving for old finished pieces to FFO.  This is Bramble Harvest from Needlepoise charted by Judith Stanley in the days of hand-written charts.  This is just the cover, I literally have some blackberries and a row of Fly Stitches and it's a finish!

look at that price tag - £7.50 for an entire kit!

August Smalls

The Smalls SAL is hosted by Mary's Thread

This year my Smalls will be my JBW 12 Days of Christmas ornaments which I started on Boxing Day 2019 for the 12 Days of Stitchmas.  I completed the Eighth Day in August: 

stitched on 40 count White linen, 1 over 2

(Beads will be added at the end of the set of three

I am slowly ticking along on my current Just Nan, Jasmine Mix:

stitched on 32 count Vintage Country Mocha

I even started a new small project.  This is a weekly SAL from the Lin Pulsion blog entitled Bulles de Bonheur or Bubbles of Happiness.  I have been saving all the charts while I decided how I wanted to stitch them.  In the end, I decided over 1 on 25 count and using rainbow colours:

stitched over one on 25 count white evenweave

My final small will be for Aimetu Clare's Christmas Tree.  Her theme this year is "Flowers".  Can anyone guess which flower this will be?

stitched over one on 28 count white evenweave

I'll tell you when I finish it!

Finally, my Just Cross Stitch Hallowe'en Special arrived today!  So I will keep this brief as I want to peruse and make lists this evening.

 

August 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.

I have been focusing on my Discworld Mappe this weekend, adding the Longitude and Latitude line which is extremely tedious and leads to much procraftination - doing anything to avoid stitching those lines!

stitched on 32 count Murano custom-dyed by Sparklies

So what was I procraftinating with?  I did some FFO'ing which I will show on the 10th for Rachel's FFO Gallery.  I also did some tidying-up on my Happy Dance blog, added a few photos there.  And started writing my "21 in '21" list too!

This one is my current Just Nan small, Jasmine Mix.  There are 17 different colours in this piece just 49 x 49 stitches!  I still have to add two shades of yellow, some pink and quite a lot of white.  And beads!

stitched on 32 count Vintage Country Mocha

I reached the final row of Just Nan's Morning Meadow, my Summer Sampler SAL with Leonore.  This is a pretty motif and once it is done I only have to add beads.

stitched on 32 count pale green linen

I'm doing very well with my bath-time stitching so I will only show this portion of her face.  It's amazing how a few stitches in just three colours can be so effective.

stitched on 28 count linen from a Crafty Kitten grab bag.

Finally, the next IHSW will be 18th-20th September 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.

July Smalls, Stitch From Stash and Pie

The Smalls SAL is hosted by Mary's Thread

This year my Smalls will be my JBW 12 Days of Christmas ornaments which I started on Boxing Day 2019 for the 12 Days of Stitchmas.  I completed the Seventh Day in July:

stitched on 40 count White linen, 1 over 2

(Beads will be added at the end of the set of three)

I haven't beaded my Holly Noel yet but I did make good progress on the next Just Nan. This is Jasmine Mix:

stitched on 32 count Vintage Country Mocha

On to Pie:

The July Pie looks rather different to previous months as the Discworld Mappe does not take up half the pie.  I reached a great place to stop and move on to Joan Elliott July.  Here's where I finished Discworld:

stitched on 32 count Murano custom-dyed by Sparklies

I should be able to complete it in August now.

My Joan Elliott project got ten days but they were very short days in many cases and over-one skin is incredibly time-consuming.  So I went from here:

to here:

stitched on 28 count Snapdragon evenweave from Crafty Kitten

I am going to carry on with her in August to get her finished.

The freebie Alice in the Pie was an impulse start.  I was looking through my freebie folders and thinking "I really should stitch some of these".  I used the random number generator to choose one and up popped Alice from this blog - Passion Creative - French Blog

stitched on 28 count random linen from a Crafty Kitten grab bag

I am using an Anchor thread in medium blue.  The original intention was that this would be the lighter shade but the darker one I choose was too dark, so I have just left that as her eye and will choose a different blue for the lighter parts of the design.  She has been coming to work with me for lunchbreak stitching and she also comes out at bath-time.

Leonore and I are halfway through our Summer Sampler SAL now.  We are both stitching Morning Meadow by Just Nan:

stitched on 32 count pale green Belfast linen

Stitch from Stash started a new reporting period at 1st July.  Stephanie's rules state that you can treat any profit from the first period as a gift and spend it penalty-free.  But I don't do that, in the same way I don't credit myself for finishes.  I follow the original rules set on the blog back in 2014.

July
Crafty Kitten Fabric	£8.00
Total	£8.00

Every so often, Dawn from Crafty Kitten has a Sale Album on Facebook.  She includes mis-dyed pieces, pieces with dye spots or faults in the fabric and some left-over pieces.  Each person bids with "me please" for the ones they want to buy and she randomly picks names to get them.  I "won" the perfect fabric for the Hallowe'en design from Autumn Lane Stitchery that I showed you in my WIPocalypse post - how's that for Serendipity?  I'll show you when it arrives!

Finally, the lovely Clare from Aimetu's Stitching is asking for some help with her smalls.  Each year Clare decorates a tree for her church's Tree Festival with stitched ornaments.  I have donated ornaments in the past and this year she is asking us to join in again.  The theme is A Bouquet of Flowers.  All she needs is the stitched piece, she will fully-finish it for you.  Just leave a comment on Clare's blog to get involved.   (I include this each month as a reminder for myself!)

July 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.

I started the weekend by working on Friday, since we have reopened Friday has become my "set day" as that is when the Small Boy was at school, until the end of term anyway.

I did get to stitch on a Just Nan Small in my lunchbreak as well as at bath-time.  This one is Jasmine Mix:

stitched on 32 count Vintage Country Mocha

For Saturday and Sunday I worked on Discworld Mappe for my focus piece.  Then this happened:

Yes, I completed the final corner of the Mappe!

I made one small change to the design, the original has the credit to the person who drew the original artwork so I changed that to "Stitched by me".  I also believe that is a Murder Hornet from the Cataclysmic Year of 2020:

The little boat was the last motif to be stitched:

All I need to do now is go over all 30 pages and make sure I haven't missed anything and then backstitch the Longitude and Latitude lines.  Or whatever the Discworld has instead.  Lots of couched straight lines.

I also started Week 3 of my Just Nan Summer Band Sampler SAL with Leonore.  We are both stitching Morning Meadow:

stitched on 32 count pale green linen

I made the bunnies two shades darker as the charted colour didn't show up so well.  The next band down is Rice Stitch in the same colour as the strawberries.  I am using a blend of 3687/3688 which is coming out a bit dark for this band.  I am going to start at the other end doing the main X in the darker shade and the corner stitches in the paler shade and see how that looks.

Finally, the next IHSW will be 21st-23rd August 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.