Stitching Friends Summer Blog Hop 2022

 

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!   Most recently we have been connecting with our Stitching Friends across the globe.

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!  Who else understands the excitement of a new "must stitch" chart or the sheer joy of a Happy Dance for a finish.

I had 10 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.  Just for fun, 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:

Dragon Stitches and Stuff

Beth's Needlework Stash

A Patchwork of Crafts

Count it *All* Joy

Needles, Pins and Dragonflies

Jocondine

Needle, Pen & Sword

Le Coeur Celtique

Tales of a Stitching Mouse

Life Outside the Washing Basket

As previous years, I am going to feature a surprise friend myself!  This blogger did not sign up for this particular Hop but does take part in some of my other Hops and also in Gifted Gorgeousness.

This year's blogger is British multi-crafter who does cross stitch, knits, quilts, makes bags, dolls and assorted other gorgeous items.  She is the proud owner of a WIP sampler which is now considered an adult, having been started in 2004 and celebrated it's 18th Birthday last April!

I had a think of what I might show that she would like and also what might give you all a clue as to who it is.

Here's a clue from My Lovely Sewing Tools by Marie Suarez:

Another clue in Home of a Needleworker by LHN:

Final (and biggest) clue:

Patrick Wood Rabbit

So we have The Lovely Homely Bunny?

Or maybe it's something which appears in each of those designs?

Keep thinking - it might come to you in a flash!

If not then click here for the answer.  Do pop over and ask to share a cup of cocoa with her!

Finally, I hope you enjoyed hopping around and trying to guess who each stitcher was talking about.  My next Hop will be the Hallowe'en Trick or Treat Blog Hop at the end of October so stay tuned for sign-ups.

Stitching Friends Summer Blog Hop 2021

 

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!  Last year I felt it would be nice to see how well we know our Stitching Friends, the Hop was such a success I thought we'd do it again this year.

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!  Over the last 18 months, 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 8 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.  Just for fun, 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:

Goofin' Off Around the Block

Dragon Stitches and Stuff

Beth's Needlework Stash

A Patchwork of Crafts

Jocondine

Needle, Pen & Sword

Le Coeur Celtique

Life Outside the Washing Basket

As per last year, I am going to feature a surprise friend myself!  This blogger did not sign up for this particular Hop but does take part in some of my other Hops and also in Gifted Gorgeousness.

She comes from "A Land Down Under"
She loves to stitch for Christmas

She has a forest of Christmas Trees in ornament form

She stitches more ornaments than anyone else I know

She has a wide extended family with lots of new babies, it seems

When she does stitch a larger design, she goes for a giant full coverage design!

She takes part in our 12 Days of Christmas SAL

So, the piece I would choose to share with her would be this one - 

This is my monthly Stoney Creek 12 Days project.  We have reached the Eighth Day and a Maid A'Milking.

Have you guessed yet?  

It's Elfie from Elfin Stitches and here's a link to that giant Santa design - Christmas Dreams

Finally, I hope you enjoyed hopping around and trying to guess who each stitcher was talking about.  My next Hop will be the Hallowe'en Trick or Treat Blog Hop at the end of October so stay tuned for sign-ups.

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.

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 "20 in '20" for this year.  This month I stitched on all of the active ones thanks to The Longest Day Marathon.  I also managed to finish 2 of them.

Ernie Bishop - NOEL Letters

(Project 1)

Joan Elliott - Faces
(Project 2)

Brooke's Books - Stitcher's Alphabet

(Project 3 - a Finish)

Chatelaine - Gardens of London

(Project 4)

Lyndisfarne - Discworld Map

(Project 5)


Nora Corbett - Gathering Eggs
(Project 6)

Mrs Peggotty - Queen of Hearts

(Project 7)

JBW - 12 Days of Christmas

(Project 10 - Book 2 finish)

Amanda Butler - Alice in Wonderland SAL in Cross Stitcher magazine

(Project 17)

Finally, Measi always gives us a topic to discuss:

June  – Half-year recap: How are you doing with your goals so far this year?
I am doing very well so far thanks to The Art of Setting Achievable Goals!  Out of my 20 WIPocalypse projects I have completed 8 so far this year with another 6 on target for completion by the end of the year.  The rest are up for debate at the moment but hopefully some will get done.

Here is my current WIP list in total  I started the year with 15 WIPs.  The first column of numbers shows the year they were started.  The second column is how many I have now.  I have also started 18 projects this year and completed 15 of them.  The remaining three will all be completed this year.  My goal is not to start anything which doesn't have a finishing deadline within the year.

Prior 2017	9	8
2017	3	3
2018	0	0
2019	3	1
New 2020	18	3
Finish 2020	18
Total of WIPs	15	15

Of course, you could add in my Just Nan smalls from Maynia but I don't count them until I pick them up to focus on.  I currently have 27 of those.

Finally, the Summer Blog Hop.  Anyone want to do a Summer Blog Hop this year?  I thought we could do a Know Your Blogging Friends Hop.  I allocate you the name of a fellow blogger and you make a post about them, showing something you think they would like to stitch.  Could be something you have stitched or something you found online you think they would like to stitch.

So, for example, if you got me as your Blogging Friend you would write a post about my Blog Hops and show a dragon design (or 2!).

To take part, leave a comment here.  I'll take sign-ups through to the 28th July and then allocate names with the posts going up on 8th August (It was my Nana's Birthday).

Finally Fully Finishing Fun for September

Hosted by Rachel the Ten Hour Stitcher

This new SAL is designed to motivate us all to do something with that box of Finished pieces instead of just storing them under the bed.  We will all be linking up on Rachel's blog on or after the 10th of each month (10 Hour Stitcher - 10th of the month).

This is what I was supposed to be showing as my FFO this month; The Sweetheart Tree Holly 'n' Hardanger:

I had a circular polystyrene shape which was the perfect size.  I cut the original fabric into a circle and drew a circle a bit bigger than the polystyrene shape.  Then I used sewing cotton to make a running stitch all the way around the pencil circle.  Place the fabric over the shape, pull the cotton drawstring, adjust it a little bit, smooth out wrinkles, pull a little bit tighter, adjust again, pull tighter, get the Large Boy to hold it while I knotted the cotton thread and call it done.

Whip stitch a piece of circular felt to the back and cover the edge with a ribbon.  That's where the problem started.  All my ribbons were too wide or too narrow.  The only piece that was the right size was the wrong colour.  So it's off to the Haberdashery to find the perfect width of ribbon.

At least I will have an FFO'd Ornament for next month!

But I still needed something for this post.  Luckily I have had a bit of a finishing flurry over the last few days so I had another project ready and waiting to be framed.  I just had to hope I had the right frame in my stash.  My luck held!

Back at the start of the Summer Holiday I completed my 10-a-Day project which was a Just Nan design called Summer Typography.  I decided that rather than start the next 10-a-Day design I would have a slightly more challenging Summer Stitch.  A sampler in six weeks.  The Random Number Generator chose Summer Night by Just Nan and I divided it up into 42 segments with a row of speciality stitches or colour per day. 

Here's the daily progress pictures:

You can really see the difference in lighting conditions each day with the change in the fabric!

The first 36 days were spent doing the DMC stitching and the final few days adding beads and ribbon.  I couldn't get the Soie Tressage recommended but did get some narrow sparkly silver ribbon which was perfect.

stitched on 28 count Jobelan in Dragon Shades from Polstitches

Trying to capture the beads and the ribbon sparkle

You wanted lots of photos?

The Final Fully Finished Framed piece:

Finally:

All the postcards have been sent out in the Summer Postcard Blog Hop. Thanks to everyone who sent a card in and who posted their card on their blog.  The links go direct to the posts so you can catch up with any you missed!

Aimetu's Stitching

Needle, Pen and Sword

Miniz Diary

Ariadne from Greece

Jocondine

Jeremiah's Mom

June TUSAL

And now it's TUSAL time, the Totally Useless SAL where we all show our ORTS and link-up on Daffycat's blog (if she makes a post, she's gone very quiet again).

Here is my TUSAL jar with my current projects:

On the left we have Just Nan's Butterfly Needlebook:

stitched on 28 count pink evenweave

This is a lovely thick hand-dyed fabric which was a gift from Mouse.  However, it's not quite an evenweave.  It's actually 29 count in one direction and 31 in the other, so the "squares" are not quite square.  But the way I have oriented the central motif means it will still look square.  That was lucky!

The other project is also a Just Nan.  This is A Little Joy from Just Cross Stitch 2002 for the Christmas Ornament Blog:

stitched on 28 count Platinum linen.

This fabric is a total contrast as it is very loosely woven.  The original design called for the central motif to be stitched over one on a separate piece of fabric and inserted into a tiny frame charm then attached to the main piece.  Which would have looked lovely if the tiny frame charm was still available.  So I'm just stitching it over one right onto the main design.

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.

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!

August Pie and Stitch from Stash

August was a much more successful stitching month than July thanks to the school holidays and me taking some time off work.  My Toddler Group only meet in termtime so that gave me some extra time too.  What did affect my plans was a friend's idea for a project which I couldn't resist joining in with.  The Donna Kooler Tinies are part of this project so they became my focus piece for the month.

The pie will show you what else I worked on:

That big old house on Happy Hallowe'en Night took up a few extra days this month.  There were also 7 days when I either worked or we had days out so the only thing I stitched was my Just Nan Small or Mrs Peggotty's Alice at bathtime.

Here are the Tinies so far:

All stitched on 22 count hardanger

I totalled up my Stitch from Stash spending this morning and it was a bit of an Oops what happened there moment?!

JCS Hallowe'en mag	£8.50
Mira Cameo chart	£2.20
CGS Chart	£9.00
CCN 2 Charts	£11.00
Fabric offcuts	£20.00
Total	£50.70

The JCS magazine and the Mirabilia Cameo were all I planned to spend this month.  The Cameo comes in a special celebration booklet for the Mirabilia 25th Anniversary.  Nora Corbett has been designing as Mirabilia for the exact length of time I have been stitching.  This is a small chart and will look lovely on a piece of hand-dyed fabric I have in my stash.

So far, so good.  Then I saw that Cottage Garden Samplings have re-released a chart which was on my Wishlist until it went OOP.  Of course I had to snap it up!

And the rule is No Chart Must Travel Alone, so these two came as well.  I have a conversion in mind for the series.

So I had blown the budget for the month (£20) so why not well and truly blow it?  Emily from Lyndisfarne Designs announced that she had a box of fabric offcuts for bargain prices.  So I spent £20 on this little lot.  There is a LOT of 28 count white which will be ideal for dyeing and experimenting with for smalls

Good job it's my Birthday next month so that will be a zero spend.  Hopefully I can then resist buying anything for two months and then December's spending is covered by Christmas!

I have sent out all the Summer Postcards.  Here is the full list of participants which will be updated as each person posts their card:

Ariadne from Greece

Butterfly Wings

Jeremiah's Mom

Mein Allerlei Hobby

The Alchymyst's Study

Tickled Pink in Stitches

A Stitcher's Story

Stitching Friends Forever

Kitten Stitching

Dragon Stitches and Stuff with Astrid

Needle, Pen & Sword

Jocondine

Remember my Five Peaks Blog Hop Challenge?  You have to either participate or comment in all five of my Blog Hops this year to win your Medal in the Five Peaks Challenge!  Obviously the 12 people listed above have already conquered a Peak this Summer but now it's the turn of the commenters.  To have this Blog Hop count as one of your Five Peaks you must comment here using the words "Summer Postcard" in whatever sentence you like.