Mish-Mash May

Mish Mash: noun- a confused mixture or jumble. 

I feel like that perfectly describes the end of the school year at our house, and my crafting this month.

I finished July Word-Play, and love it! I plan on making it into a pillow for one of my stitching chairs, and am on the hunt for some anchor fabric to back it with. I changed some of the colors on this one, but tried to stay close to the photo on the chart.

 I have already jumped right into the next chart for August, and have made some good progress. All of the words are done on it, and the gardener's dress. I have all of the little areas now to finish. I plan to also do this as a pillow, and am picturing some sort of bee themed fabric for it.

 I also managed a finish this week putting my total number of WIP's at 29. Yay, I am officially under 30 WIP's. My goal for the next 3 months is to finish 5 more. By the end of 2017 I would like to have less than 20 WIP's, so I am inching my way towards that lofty goal. This one is Birds of a Feather "Schoolhouse Sampler". I loved the lettering on this one, but have no idea how I am going to finish it.

 Here is how I spent last weekend. In addition to reducing my total number of WIP's I am also trying to be a little more organized in my crafting. I have been gifted several peoples stash over the years, and wound up with a ton of DMC floss, some of which is probably as old as I am. Well I started taking it to work with me and winding bobbins while at my desk. I filled a 5 gallon ziploc bag with bobbins. So I spent Saturday night sorting them, and putting them in my thread cases. I now have 11 thread cases in numerical order, and should NEVER have to go buy thread again.

Here is my May wall. I decided it was time to take down all the cute spring, but wasn't quite ready to move on to patriotic summer stitches yet. So my theme this month is flowers. Several of these stitches are ones I did when I first started stitching years ago.

This one is a more recent finish. Cricket Collection "Violets"

An older one, that was out of a kit. No idea what the name of it was, and I think it may be older than my oldest child. 

This one was not stitched by me, it was an Ebay purchase. Sorry I couldn't manage a better photo without all the glare. I love the navy fabric this was stitched on. 

 Another kit I did many many years ago. It's funny that when I first started stitching I had no idea there was anything other than Aida fabric and kits from Michael's or Jo-Ann's. Now there are so many patterns online, and so many beautiful hand-dyed fabrics to stitch them on.

 Another kit from long ago. I love the ombre blue background on this one. All of these frames are Goodwill finds, that I framed myself at home. This one was from Ikea, and was already painted blue when I bought it. I think it suits this piece perfectly.

And my last kit is a Dimensions one, called "Watering Can Geraniums". I at least ventured away from  plain white Aida on this one, as the kit came with a very pretty light green Aida. 

And here are my menfolk helping with the framing. Anytime my husband is working on something, my little boy runs to get his toolbox to help. I have to share a funny about my husband. He went with me to Attic Needlework last weekend for more threads, and has been vicariously watching floss tube with me. So as we are in the store, he points to a Hawk Run Hollow piece on the wall, and says "that's the one the lady changed so the cemetery wasn't next to the school". I actually heard another  woman in the store hold back a giggle at his needlepoint knowledge. I was impressed he recognized the design, as most of the time he doesn't watch floss-tube with me, but listens while he is doing his own thing. 

First finish of Summer

Yay! I finished LK "Summer" banner last night while watching Project Runway with my husband. He grumbled over watching it, but then got into the episodes and which designers we thought would or should have won the challenges. I giggled a bit hearing his opinion on women's fashions, but it was a fun way to spend a Saturday night. As usual I changed most of the colors on this one to whatever I had in my stash. I also changed one of the fish to a clown fish, we watch Finding Nemo and Finding Dory a lot in my house! I stitched it on a scrap that I think is big enough to fit at least two more of these on, so I may wait to actually display it until I have the other ones done. 

A little more progress on July Word Play by Country Stitches. I am a little confused on these charts. They are designed by Brenda Gervais of "With Thy Needle and Thread". They didn't come out that long ago so I don't know why they are "Country Stitches" instead of "With thy Needle". I bought the little charms to the left at Michael's and plan to use the anchor charm instead of stitching it.

I did find more of the charts on 123 Stitch, all I am missing now is February and August. So I will be on the hunt for those, as I would definitely like to stitch all of them. I love December with the cute Santa, and April with the bunny in the wagon. One thing about the charts that irked me though, was she uses many of the same colors but changes the symbol for them between the charts. Why not just use the same symbol throughout? 

Lastly here is my progress on Ashley. I feel like I got a lot done this last week. All of the flowers above her to the left are new, and I did more of her skirt. The big difference is of course her face, I couldn't wait any longer, and did all of the back-stitching on her neck/shoulders and face. She is so pretty! Makes me excited to finish her.

And lastly a shot of our summer bird feeder. I know I have posted pictures of the lovebirds in our neighborhood before, but I think it's so funny to have flocks of wild parrots in our neighborhood. They are not much bigger than parakeets, and are bright green with red faces. From what I understand they were originally from Africa, and are well suited to the heat. They live in pretty large flocks, and we always see them in groups of two or three at the feeder.

What I am reading this week: I just finished "Lost in a Book" by Jennifer Donnelly. If you have a tween-teenage daughter in your house, I highly recommend this book! I loved it. It is based off of the Beauty and the Beast story. I bought it for my oldest's daughter, and I borrowed it from her after she had read it. I finished it in one night it was so good. Very imaginative addition to the original fairy-tale. 

What I am watching: Well besides old Project Runway episodes, we watched "The Boy" this weekend. A PG-13 horror movie starring Lauren Cohen (of Walking Dead fame). She is a nanny hired by an older couple to care for a doll who they treat as their son. It was creepy, and actually a well-thought out horror story- not just blood and gore (actually really not much blood-more just creepy old mansion and creepy looking doll). Both my husband and I thought it was a good scary movie.

I've also fallen into watching floss tube and love it! I can listen/watch while stitching, and who doesn't love seeing other stitcher's gorgeous finishes! I had to giggle to myself when I realized I had been pronouncing Lugana wrong all these years! I've been saying it La-goona when apparently it it Lew-ghana, after all these years stitching I still have lots to learn. Now I am trying to think back if I have ever gone into my  LNS and asked for it that way.

Goodbye Spring, Hello Summer!

Teensy bit of progress on Ashley this week, mostly more filling in of the white on her dress. Boring! But still loving her all together, and hopeful to actually finish her this year and not banish her to the WIP pile. I refuse to call anything I have stitched on a UFO as I remain determined to finish them all someday. 

 Here is what has been distracting me this week from Ashley. I started on Country Stitches "Wordplay-July". I won four of the months on Ebay, and love them. I did hedge my bets though, and instead of starting May started a little further out with July. Most of the colors are the ones charted, but I did change the Merman's tail to a greener blue (the chart had a weird stripe in his tail that I didn't love, and I changed the water to "Caribbean" by WDW. So all the words are done on this, I just have the ship in the middle and the fish along the sides.

These two I purchased from another blogger "Nicole's Needlework". I thought they were both so cute, and the Bent Creek chart I already had in my stash, but it was low on the new project list. It is a very cute winter pattern, and the LK I plan to finish into a little pillow ornament. The pink gingham linen she stitched it on is adorable!

So here in Arizona we are saying goodbye to Spring and rushing headlong into summertime with temps in the 100's today. I dipped into our pool for the first time last week, and the girls have been swimming the last few weeks already! But I realize I didn't post any pictures of my spring display for Easter, so wanted to show them before taking it all down and replacing it with summer stitching. 

Here is all of it, this wall is in our dining room. I like to change it out for the different seasons.

This is a "With thy Needle and Thread" piece I stitched two? years ago. Just a simple square frame from Michael's for it. 

This one was not stitched by me, but found by my husband in an antique mall in Kentucky five years ago. According to the date on it, this one is turning 21 this year!

A Prairie Schooler I just got framed last spring. Love the rows of baby chicks on it. I did not get glass put in on it and now I kind of wish I had. 

This pillow was stitched for me through the HOE blog for a spring exchange some years ago. The little LK pillow I stitched, and my mom was kind enough to do the finishing for me. It has a purple eyelet trim around the outside of it. 

Bent Creek "Hip Hop", stitched at least 6 years ago by me. 

Another Bent Creek "Uber Egg", I messed up somewhere in the middle so my egg is a little lopsided!

A little LK pillow, and a quilt kit done by me years ago. My finishing skills were not that great for quilting, but I love the colors of it. 

And all of my little ornaments underneath. "Happy Spring" and "Happy Easter" by LK. Bent Creek bunny changed from brown to white, and "A Spring Day" from Heart in Hand I think? 

Rats, Cats and Ravens

I took a mini-break last week from Ashley's Roses, and pulled this one from the bottom of my stitching basket. I enjoy the simplicity of just stitching one color sometimes, kind of a palate cleanser. This one is many, many years old, i've been working on it about 5 years I would guess. So this round I managed to finish the cat, the raven and the little rat at the bottom. Please excuse my ankles in the above photo, I tried to crop it but for some reason it wouldn't save that way, but at least I shaved my legs today (it's shorts weather already here).

And I am back to working on Ashley's Roses. I did more of the roses above her, more of the grass below her, and a little bit of her skirt. 

Sweet Spring is also coming along. I finished the row of vegetables under the bunny. 

My oldest turned 14 last week, and her cousin turned 8. She loves Batman, so I did my best with the cake. I used food coloring to make the chocolate frosting black, but didn't realize it would also turn everyone's teeth black also!

What i'm reading this week: Mary Kay Andrews "Summer Rental", another fun read from her. I have been on a streak reading her books. I also finished "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood. I read it in one night, it was a short book but the story was interesting. They are coming out with a television series based on it shortly, starring Elizabeth Moss. 

What i'm watching this week: "Into the Forest" starring Ellen Page (Inception/Juno) and Evan Rachel Wood. It's an end of the world story, about two sister trying to survive alone in the woods once the power goes out. No zombies or anything, so the film wasn't overly scary. But they made such bad decisions trying to survive that the story was disturbing.