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.