June IHSW and F.N.S.I

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.

The third Friday is also the Friday Night Sew In or F.N.S.I. which Kaye introduced me to.  You can find out more about it here - Sugarlane Designs

It looks like Friday is going to be my regular day for work so I take my current Just Nan Band Sampler in to stitch at lunchtime.  This is Follow the Needle:

stitched on 28 count lilac Brittney evenweave

The rest of the weekend was dedicated to Just Nan's Scream House:

stitched on 28 count Smokey Pearl Cashel linen

You can see how close to the edge I had to start to ensure it will fit on this smaller piece of the fabric.  But at least it is 28 count and not shrunk to 30.  It says it is Cashel but I am not convinced this is Zweigart because of the shrinkage and the yellow stitching in the selvedge rather than orange as you usually get.

I also had a finish at bathtime, this is Litha a freebie from The Primitive Hare:

stitched on 35 count cream linen

Litha is the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year and I finished this just in time because it is tomorrow - 21st June.  And what do I do on the Longest Day of the Year?  I have a Longest Day Marathon where I stitch on all my WIPs.  I thought this year had worked out perfectly falling on a Monday as my son goes to the gym after school so I would be able to stitch uninterrupted until 4.15 when he comes home.  But no, I have to go into work just for the morning!  And it's time-sensitive so I can't move it to Tuesday which would be a lot more convenient.

So my new plan is to start before work, stitch one project, go to work, come home and stitch as many as I can until bedtime.  Then on Tuesday, stitch all the ones I couldn't fit in on Monday.  I made a list with timings and if I am lucky, I can get 12-14 stitched on Monday.

Finally the next IHSW will be 16th -18th 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.

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.

Deb sent me the charts for the Stoney Creek 2019 Ornaments which were my Stitchmas project this year. I started all 12, one per day and will be completing one per month.  June was Six Geese a Laying (OK, just one goose!).

stitched on 32 count Lime Green evenweave

I also added the backstitch to the Five Gold Rings which look so much better now:

My Chatelaine got 6 days in May, this was a gift for my Big Birthday in 2016 and many of the threads were gifts from stitchy friends. It's a great way to kit up a Chatelaine with the silks, ask people to donate one skein as a Birthday gift.

stitched on 32 count Cotton Clouds Belfast by Crafty Kitten

Scream House by Just Nan came up on my WIPGO board this month.  I stitched the inside walls on 28 count purple linen last year and managed to get some nice grey 28 count Linen to do the outside walls.
The Linen was rather creased along the fold lines so I damped it and ironed it as I usually do. Fortunately I measured the top row next to the top row on the inside walls before going any further.
Just damping it has made it shrink to 30 count!  For a sampler this wouldn't matter much but for this project size if vital.

Luckily for me, I had cut the fabric to size and had a slightly small piece which hadn't been wet.  That is still 28 count, yes I have checked it in several places!   The walls and roof pieces will fit but I may have to use a different piece for the floor which won't show anyway.

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, I'm going to be taking sign-ups for my Summer Blog Hop on the same theme as last year - Stitching Friends are Friends Who Count.  Have a look at this post for last year and let me know if you'd like to take part this year.

Stitching Friends Summer Blog Hop 

Finally Fully Finishing 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).

It's been a framing festival this last month.

First of all, a professional frame job.  I wanted Snowfire Christmas by Just Nan to coordinate with another sampler I had in my collection so I took the original to my framer and asked her to match it.  

Here's the other sampler for reference:

Elizabeth Designs - Joyeous Noel

To make up for the expense, the next two are charity shop frames!

Just Nan - Morning Meadow

A 2020 finish

One of the members of the JN FB group always stitches the name of the sampler at the bottom and I thought this was a brilliant idea and will do it from now on.

This is a recent finish and FFO'd within the same month too!

Just Nan - Nan's Garden

In the JN FB group we have started choosing a sampler to SAL every two-three months.  Nan's Garden was the choice for Spring and we allowed ourselves two months to stitch it, a band or two each week,

Here are some close ups of the bands:

I managed to get a copy of the chart which included the embellishment pack and the cute frog charm

The chart also came with a Just Nan charm which I fitted inbetween the hedgehogs.

The fabric is actually a nice reed green 28 count linen which is very hard to photograph.  There is so much natural light at the moment everything is bleached out.

Our current sampler is Follow the Needle and I have stitched Band 1 so far:

stitched on 28 count Lilac Brittney evenweave

Finally, I'm going to be taking sign-ups for my Summer Blog Hop on the same theme as last year - Stitching Friends are Friends Who Count.  Have a look at this post for last year and let me know if you'd like to take part this year.

Stitching Friends Summer Blog Hop 

June TUSAL and my Stitching Library

   

It's TUSAL time!

Here is my TUSAL jar with my current project:

Slightly washed out photo of the fifth Scary Apothecary from Hands on Design.  This one will be Cauldron Cleaner and is stitched on the same 28 count Radioactive linen from Chromatic Alchemy as the rest of the series.

Last week I finished my oldest WIP, the only one from the 20th Century!  I started the NOEL letters from Ernie Bishop in about 1999 and only really stitched on them at Christmas time.  I have done my best to work on them in recent years and this year they made the WIPocalypse list.  I decided to simplify the hardanger and just do plain wrapped bars rather than curved corners and fancy eyelets.

That big chunk of white in my TUSAL jar is the snippings from making the hardanger!

Here are all four of them together:

stitched on 28 count white linen

Hopefully I can FFO them before this Christmas!  If I can find the dowels I put in a safe place...

What's on my Shelf?

This is a new 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...

I chose this month's book to go with my Christmas finish of the NOEL letters.

Title: The Best of Teresa Wentzler Christmas Collection
Author: Teresa Wentzler
Publisher: Leisure Arts
ISBN: 9781574863871

The front cover shows the largest project - Angel Procession:

And the back cover shows the other nine projects, eight of which are pictures:

One is the beautiful Byzantine Ornaments set:

I have stitched three of these but totally changed the colour scheme to red and gold on a burgundy fabric:

Something else that needs FFO'ing!  I stitched these in 2016 and intended to stitch the next three and finish them all together.

The book is a great way to get a range of Teresa's designs in one place.  I think all of them are still available as individual charts from Patterns Online.  Most of them are computer drawn charts but there are a couple of hand-drawn charts which are actually lovely to see.  There are some gorgeous borders you could use for any project or make a band sampler.  Most of the faces are charted for over one stitching with clear, enlarged versions of those parts.  And of course, thread lists that cover two pages with all the blended threads used!

Finally, I'm going to be taking sign-ups for my Summer Blog Hop on the same theme as last year - Stitching Friends are Friends Who Count.  Have a look at this post for last year and let me know if you'd like to take part this year.

Stitching Friends Summer Blog Hop 

The People Chose Butterflies

This SAL is all about what you want to see on the blog. Each month I ask for suggestions for themes and then put them up to the members of the IHSW Group on FB to vote for their choice. This is what they have chosen:

June - Butterflies

July - Houses

August - Books

Butterflies is a lovely topic for the summer months.  Who doesn't love a butterfly, surely the prettiest insect?

Joan Elliott certainly likes them and I stitched part of her Butterfly Fairy for a Round Robin back in 2012:

I also added some of her butterflies to the centre of my Faces SAL:

I stitched them over 1 so they would fit in the centre block.  I will add some beads when I finish the blocks on either side.

As you might suspect, rather a lot of my Just Nan's feature butterflies too!  Some in the title and some just have butterfly charms added:

Butterfly Bouquet

Butterfly Rose

Butterfly Lace

Dragonfly Summer with added Butterfly!

Painted Lady (a type of butterfly)

Butterfly Welcome

Butterfly Needlework Book

The magazines like to include butterflies in their cover kits:

Cross Stitcher issue 237

World of Cross Stitching issue 175

Cross Stitcher issue 356

A close friend of mine used butterflies as part of her wedding theme, so I had to include one in the sampler I made for her:

Now it's over to you. All you have to do is make a post on the theme of Butterflies, 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, we have remember our dear blogging friend June, AKA Butterfly Wings.  A fantastic stitcher, a good friend to us all and the owner of the most beautiful garden too.  A little butterfly also told me she is celebrating a Birthday this month!  So Happy Butterfly June to June Butterfly!

🦋

May Stitch from Stash and Pie

 It's the end of the month and time to look back at my Pie:

It's been a very even month with 6 days to each of my focus projects and 5 on the Just Nan sampler we have been SAL-ing in the Just Nan Junkies group on FB.

You've seen the first three projects for my WIPocalypse post already so I won't show them again.  When I picked up the NOEL letters at the beginning of the week they looked like this:

All the stitching was done and I had started cutting out the threads for the hardanger.

Now, three of them look like this with all the bars wrapped:

This is the best one out of the three!

I have one more to do and then just have to fully finish them.  I have an idea if I can remember where I put the dowels to make the hangers!  They are in a safe place somewhere.

Stitch from Stash was good this month:

I did buy some scrapbook stuff though.

Finally, I completed my Just Nan-a-thon for Stitch Maynia.  I started this for March Madness a few years back with a different Just Nan Small for each day.  Throughout the year I work on them OAAT until I finish them.  Then the following May I get a new start if I finished the design from the previous year.  The list currently stands at 16 started in 2018 and 7 started in 2020 which left 8 new starts for this year.  

Here are the 32 pictures.  There are 32 because Day 28 has two parts to it and I stitch them on the same day.