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.

As usual, I worked on Friday so the only thing that got stitched that day was my Temperature Chart from Stitch It Picasso.  I am way behind with this, still stitching April!

stitched over 1 on 25 count tea-dyed evenweave

On Saturday morning I got out my Art Nouveau Tarot from Circle Cross which you saw in my TUSAL post.

The plan for the afternoon was to stitch Little Snapdragon which had unfortunately gone missing.  The storage tube was there, but there was nothing inside.  Rather than waste too much stitching time hunting for it, I decided to pull out the other WIPGO project for this month which is Bothy Threads 12 Days of Christmas.

Here is Day 5:

stitched on 32 count grey linen

The next IHSW will be 21st - 23rd 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.

But before then, I have my annual Longest Day Marathon on Wednesday 21st June.  This is the day where I attempt to stitch on all my WIPs and remind myself how much I still like each one.  Here is the collection ready for the Big Day:

Finally, the good news is that I did find Little Snapdragon!  The fabric had fallen on the coffee table and gone down behind some books so I couldn't see it until I moved everything off the table and then the table itself!  All's well that ends well.

June TUSAL and Stitching Library

             

It's TUSAL time!  

Here is my TUSAL jar with my current project, the Art Nouveau Tarot from Circle Cross:

I completed the four elements last week so now I can start on each of the star signs underneath the relevant element.  This is Gemini underneath Air:

stitched on 28 count sky blue evenweave from Silkweaver

What's on my Shelf?

This is a feature I'm going to include on my TUSAL post until I run out of books! I started a Page on my Happy Dance blog for my Stitching Library and realised what a huge task it was so decided to break it down to one book per month. For the next four years...

Title: Cross Stitch Characters

Author: Adele Welsby

Publisher: David & Charles
ISBN: 9780715312063

This book is absolutely going to be a test for my overseas followers!

The one above is possibly going to test even British stitchers - 

The Large Family from the Jill Murphy books

Wedding Sampler from Brambly Hedge by Jill Barklem

(there's a Birth Sampler too)

above and below are from Percy the Park Keeper by Nick Butterworth 

Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeese Gromit!  
Wallace and Gromit from Nick Park's animations

above and below are from Harry and his Bucketful of Dinosaurs by Ian Whybrow

And of course, Roger Hargreaves' Mr Men

The book was published in 2002 and these were all very popular at the time.  Some have been made into television series since then.  

So please be honest - how many did you know without looking at the names underneath?

Finally, IHSW got off to a bad start with the project I wanted to stitch going MIA.  Luckily I have a second one for WIPGO this month so Bothy Threads' 12 Days of Christmas will get a couple of days before my Longest Day Marathon on Wednesday 21st June.

Gifted Gorgeousness June Link-up Post

     

Welcome to the June Gifted Gorgeousness link-up. The link-up date continues to be the 15th and I will keep the link-up open until the end of each month so you have plenty of time if you are late posting.

The format remains exactly the same, there is a list of rules on the main sign-up page if you want to check what is required but basically anything connected to the word "gift" is allowed, whether it was a gift TO you or is a gift FROM you.

Once again, for the first fortnight my focus has been Halloween at Hawk Run Hollow.  The plan is to stitch this for two weeks each month until it is finished.

Block 11 was finally completed at the start of the month so I could move on to Block 12, the last block of all  

stitched over 1 on 25 count Cassia Rose evenweave from Chromatic Alchemy

I am continuing with my Dark 13 project which is Mani di Donna's Halloween Sewing Basket.  The plan for this one is to stitch it on the 13th of every month.

stitched on 32 count grey linen

I made some lovely progress on the Elements from Circle Cross' Tarot design and completed the fourth one - Water.  

stitched on 28 count sky blue evenweave from Silkweavers

Now I intend to stitch each Zodiac sign in the relevant month underneath their Element.  We are currently in Gemini which is an Air sign to that will be the next one I start.  Probably over IHSW which starts this Friday.

Now it is your turn to show us your Gifted Gorgeousness for the month.  Please use your name or your blog name in the field and NOT the words "June Update" so I can easily see who has linked up this month.  And link to the actual post, not just your blog.  It is easier if you copy and paste the link, rather than typing freehand.

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Finally, a gifted papercraft project for our lovely friend June, also known as Butterfly or the Queen of the Garden!  I made this hexacard following a tutorial by a YouTuber called 4GirlsStoleMyHeart and used black cardstock and an old calendar of RHS gardens.  I added some little butterfly stickers and then (after I took my photos) I added some Flower Fairies but you can't see them here!

Finally Fully Finished Fun for June

     

Hosted by Rachel the Ten Hour Stitcher

This 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 month was another last minute FFO, I have been spending my spare time papercrafting rather than FFO'ing!

This is part of a SAL on FB called Discworld Objectiva.  Last year a friend asked our DW group what item we would associate with each book in the series.  I said "this would make a great cross stitch" and she replied "you guessed it"!

She started designing the individual motifs and I model stitched them so she could see what they looked like and make adjustments as needed.  Almost all of the first ones were adjusted!  When she was happy with all 41 of them, she released them on FB and people have been SALing.

I've stitched the first 14 but then got distracted by other projects.  So this month, I thought that FFO'ing them might inspire me to get on with stitching the rest of them.

Last year I also made a junk journal with some friends and decided this would be the perfect place to put the Objectiva.  Here's the cover:

The inside cover and page 1 - The Colour of Magic

Page 2 - The Light Fantastic

Page 3 - Equal Rites and Mort

At the moment I am using what embellishments I have to hand but when I have finished the book I intend to go back and print off things to fill any gaps.

Finally, here's a papercraft thing I can't show you yet!

And a link to one that I can show you - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LK93EOvsKR4

 

The People Chose Rainbow

    

This SAL is all about what you want to see on the blog.  I asked for suggestions for themes from followers of my blog and then put them up to the members of the IHSW Group on FB to vote for their choice.  We are currently working our way through the choices.  This is what was chosen:

June - Rainbow

July - Abstract

August - Fairies

I've always liked rainbow colours in order and used to use them in my colouring when I was younger,  There's something very soothing to the eye to see the colours run in the correct order and something very jarring when they are switched over or something random added like brown or beige!

We will start with a design with a rainbow in the name, this Just Nan - Noah's Rainbow:

Then two designs that used rainbow colours.  I stitched the yellow and orange band for Sophia:

This one is called Bubbles of Happiness from Lin Pulsion:

Now for one stitched with rainbow threads.  This was a SAL from Threadpickerz and I used a gorgeous but slippery rainbow silk to stitch it:

Now let's see if I can find something for every colour of the rainbow, starting with red:

Bandes des Dragons by Dessins DHC

Orange

Various Halloween designs

Yellow

Nest Egg by Satsuma Street

Green

Green Goddess by Joan Elliott

Blue

Blue Sampler which I adopted half-stitched from my Mum

Indigo/Violet

Blackwork in Purple, my own composition from motifs in a sample book

Star SAL by Periphaeria

Now it's over to you. All you have to do is make a post on the theme of Rainbows, mention The People's Choice SAL (you can copy the picture I used at the top of this post and in my side bar) and my blog.  Please link up using the URL of the actual blog post, not the home page of your blog. I look forward to seeing what you all post.

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Finally, I need your suggestions for the next poll.  Anything, no matter how obscure, weird or random will go into the poll.  Keep the theme suggestions to a single word or two - so you could have Cats, or Green, or Holidays, or Warmth etc.   Really anything which could be illustrated in cross stitch.

May Stitch from Stash and Pie

 It's time for Pie:

I stitched my full fortnight on Halloween at Hawk Run Hollow again.  Here's where I started the month:

Here's the progress on Block 11:

And here's the whole piece:

stitched over 1 on 25 count Cassia Rose from Chromatic Alchemy

So far the number of days is:

Block 7 - 13 days

Block 6 - 16 days

Block 2 - 19 days

Block 3 - 20 days

Block 4 - 15 days

Block 1 - 19 days

Block 5 - 25 days

Block 8 - 15 days

Block 9 - 27 days

Block 10 - 31 days

Block 11 - 29 days and counting

I moved on to the next shop in my Spooky Conversion of CCN's Main Street and finished the Flower Shop which now sells Herbs:

stitched on 32 count Charcoal Slate Murano from Sparklies

My Evening Stitching was all for the Just Nan-athon and once again I stitched on 32 Just Nan smalls, one per day.  Except the Bunny Biscornu where I stitched a bit on each side to get the round number of 32 smalls.

Here they all are:

There are some that are pretty close to a finish so next year I am thinking of stitching each one during the day and try to finish a few.  So I can start more the next year!  Yes, there are more smalls I have not started yet.

According to my list, I have 91 Small Charts of which I have stitched 49, started another 31 and have 11 left unstarted.  

Finally, Stitch from Stash and another lovely Zero spend!  All my money is still going on papercraft at the moment...

May WIPGO

  

I thought I'd do a little recap of my WIPGO progress so far this year.  WIPGO is basically Bingo for WIPs.  Each person makes their own board of 25 squares with various WIPs and goals for each number.
Two numbers are called each month and we work on those projects.
The centre square is a bonus, if 13 is called then another number is called in addition so you could have three projects that month.  I use 13 for my Longest Day marathon.

Here's my board at the end of May:

I'm doing well at ticking off the boxes each month so far.  My goals are quite simple,  Work for at least one week on Halloween at Hawk Run Hollow each time it is called and work on the other projects for at least one day!  I do try get a full week on those too but it doesn't matter if I don't quite manage it as long as they get some love in the month.

This month the "other" project was my Spooky Conversion of CCN's Main Street.

I've been gradually converting all the shops to a witchy equivalent and this month was the turn of the Flower Shop.  Which became Herbs, what every witch needs for her spells and potions.

I changed the shop from pastel blue to a darker turquoise

The plant baskets became more leafy but then I added French Knots to represent the smaller flowers you see on herbs

I added some bunches of herbs drying from the ceiling 

and lots of French Knots to the basket outside

I was really pleased with the sign which I charted from a photo I found online.
It's a hand sickle with a mortar and pestle.

The whole piece so far:

stitched on 32 count Charcoal Slate Murano from Sparklies

Finally, here's what the original looked like: