June TUSAL

It's TUSAL time!

Here is my TUSAL jar with my new finish:

And here is the project in close-up:

stitched over 1 on 32 count Lavender Murano

This was one of the freebie designs released for the Be Well SAL at the beginning of the corona virus pandemic when we were all advised to stay indoors and stitch.

I love this little Quarantine House by My Fanny Designs and you can find it here on her Instagram account.  She has designed a few projects in cloches and they seem perfect for people in lockdown.

I finished this one as part of my Longest Day Marathon, which this year had to take place over two days so became my Longest Weekend Marathon.  I'll be sharing all the photos tomorrow and my thoughts on how well it worked over two days.

Finally, this is a little something I made for a friend who has a Birthday today.  It's an Alice in Wonderland Exploding Book.  I got the papers and stickers from Papermaze and the fabric and ribbons for the front cover from my stash.

Front Cover:

Back cover:

Inside

Reverse:

The greeting was written inside the square with the border frame.

June Gifted Gorgeousness 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.

My main project for Gifted Gorgeousness has been my Discworld Mappe by Lyndisfarne Designs, which will be a gift for my son.  This is the portion I have been working on in June, finished The Blowing Man, stitched some border and started the final turtle flipper:

stitched on 32 count Murano custom-dyed by Sparklies

I have shown a picture of the first shop in my Spooky Conversion of Main Street by Country Cottage Needleworks before but here are some more close-up photos of the details:

I changed the name from "Books" to "Grimoires"

and made the chimney a little bit crooked:

This is a photo of the original shop:

CCN Main Street - Bookshop

I kept the basic colour scheme of yellow and purple but changed it to a more limey-green yellow and darker purples.  The window and door frames are dark brown and the fence went black.  While the tree became an autumnal tree using DMC 4130, a variegated red/orange/brown.  For the books, I followed the original colour scheme but went dark and added black labels instead of yellow.  One final touch was to add the number above the door - 98.  The same number which appears on the door of the shop where I work.

stitched on 32 count Murano in Charcoal Slate from Sparklies

Four of my Just Nan Smalls were gifts from Brenda and one from Mary:

Pansy Basket

Special Delivery

Spring Spell

Tiny Bunny Biscornu Side 1

Tiny Bunny Biscornu Side 1

Winter Roses

The final gifted project for this month is the 12 Days of Christmas by JBW.  Two of my friends bought two charts each for my Christmas present.  I started one design per day for the 12 Days of Stitchmas and have completed the Sixth Day: 

stitched on 40 count white linen, 1 over 2

, and added the beads to Days 4 - 6:

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, it is IHSW this weekend and also The Longest Day on Saturday.  As I mentioned before, I will not be able to stitch my usual marathon on that day.  The plan instead is to stitch for half an hour on every active WIP throughout the weekend.  I will be posting as I go on the IHSW FB group and do my usual round-up on Monday.

If you want to join in, please do!  Just leave a comment and I will come and visit you next week.

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).

The first piece I fully finished was from 2018, one of my Just Nan Smalls.  Here's where you saw it last:

I knew I didn't have all the recommended charms so I used random ones from my stash:

There's a bee, butterflies, flowers and a little fairy at the very top:

The colours in this scrapbook page matched perfectly:

Then, when I was looking for something else, I found another piece from 2018:

I bought a black frame for this and painted the mount black to match.  Then I couldn't find where I had put the finish!  So I thought I'd better get this one done straight away before either element went missing again.

That's it for the FFO pieces this month but I did have a Flurry of Finishes as well.

First of all, I finished Just Nan's Garden Maze which has been my focus small from before Maynia:

stitched on 28 count green evenweave

I added one of the buttons I am going to use for Summer in the Square:

This will be scrapbooked for next month.

The next finish up was the second in the Scary Apothecary series from Hands On Design; Bitter Brew:

stitched on 28 count linen in Radioactive by Chromatic Alchemy

 I used the DMC conversion again, including a blended orange for the main cartouche:

The black is Weeks Dye Works Kohl:

And the metallics are DMC rather than the charted Kreinik:

The contents of the bottles are satin-stitched which makes them look a bit wonky!  Hopefully when I fully finish these they will straighten up a litte bit.

Finally, I finished the first shop in my CCN Main Street Spooky Conversion.  I'll save all the details for my Gifted Gorgeousness post on the 15th:

stitched on 32 count Charcoal Slate from Sparklies

The People Chose Dragonflies

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 - Dragonflies

July - The Designer You Have Stitched the Most
August - Freedom

Usually when I start typing one of these posts, I put the key word into the search box and find some relevant posts on my blog.  I found hundreds for Dragonflies and then realised why:

Needles, Pins and Dragonflies

The lovely Gracie has a blog with the word "Dragonflies" in the title!  So do pop over and visit her today to be in keeping with the theme.

So I tried the singular "Dragonfly" and this lovely project came up:

Dragonfly Summer by Just Nan

Unfortunately, I did not have a dragonfly charm so I replaced it with a butterfly.

Scrapbooked with Butterfly Lace:

Just Nan have two more Dragonfly themed projects which I don't have:

Gilden Dragonfly Scissor Purse - Limited Edition from 2008

Miss Kitty's Dragons

I do have this design in my magazine stash: 

Joan Elliott's Dragonfly Fairy

She was part of the Garden Fairies series which also included Ladybird Fairy, Lavender Fairy, Butterfly Fairy,  Sweetpea Fairy and Snowdrop Fairy

Now it's over to you.  All you have to do is make a post on the theme of Dragonflies, 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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Next month is going to be a little bit different.  I realised that The People's Choice in July is going to be a special numbered post for me, so I thought we should do something special!  The theme is going to be

"The Designer You Have Stitched the Most"

Which may or may not be your favourite designer!  Have a look through your WIPs and finishes and find out whose work you turn to more than any other designer.  Should be interesting reading and a theme everyone can take part in too.


Finally, I need your suggestions for the next poll. Any thing, 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 Blue, or Holidays, or Warmth etc. Really anything which could be illustrated in cross stitch.

Looking forward to reading them all!

May Stitch from Stash and Pie

The Mania of Maynia is over and it's time to recap how the month went.

First of all, here is my Pie:

15 days of Discworld, all spent on The Blowing Man, from here:

to here:

stitched on 32 count Murano custom-dyed by Sparklies

I have his legs and wind to finish and then I will work on the red/white border to make sure that all meeets up alright.

In my WIPocalypse post I showed my finish of Just Nan's Winter in the Square which had been my 20-a-Day project so far this year.  Once I completed that I decided to start another Just Nan seasonal design.  This one is Small Delights - Spring!  with the exclamation mark as part of the name.  I'm using a lovely pale green linen which is incredibly difficult to get the colour right in photos:

stitched on 32 count pale green linen

The Tiny Decisions app was used once again to decide on my project for the rest of the month after I completed 15 days of Discworld.  A new start came up, I was very excited about this one.  Regular followers will remember my Spooky Conversion of Lavender & Lace's Enchanted Alphabet - Happy Dance.   I had been following Ms Oh Sew Crafty's Christmas Village and also Michelle Cozyegg's Halloween Village and wanted one of my own.  I decided to use the County Cottage Needlework Main Street as the basis and convert each shop to a Spooky version.  Kerry in Stitches has done a Gilmour Girls version and when I won her Sparklies Giveaway I decided to use the voucher to purchase the fabric and make this a 2020 start.

Unfortunately 8 days wasn't quite enough to finish it so I am going to pop it into the Bath-Time stitching slot which is vacant thanks to the end of Maynia.

You can see there is very little left to do:

stitched on 32 count Murano in Charcoal Slate from Sparklies

(this fabric photographs perfectly almost every time)

I will list my conversion colours when I finish this shop.

And on to Maynia.  Here are the final three designs:

29th May - Tiny Toile Heart

30th May - Winter Roses 

31st May - Wintery Mix 

And here are all 32 Maynia projects together:

Finally, Stitch from Stash:

May
Nothing	£0.00
Total	£0.00

Not very exciting, but very necessary.