My summer has been set to random mode

Here's my latest new start, Lizzie Kate "A Little Boo". I love love love the colors on this one, Halloween is kind of my thing! I hand-dyed my own fabric for this one, using RIT Pearl Gray. It doesn't show as well in my picture, but the fabric turned out nicely variegated/mottled.

 I also did some finishing this week. These two were a Hands on Design, from Just Cross Stitch (the 2016 Ornament issue, and the November? regular issue). I loved the two different fabrics sewn together, but wish I had sewn the wording further up on the bottom. I'll just keep reminding myself it's supposed to look primitive.

And another finish this week, Lizzie Kate "Liberty". These were her seasonal designs for this year. I already stitched the St. Patrick's day piece, and the Halloween one should be in my mailbox sometime this week I hope. The little button on this one was supposed to be stitched in white, but yet again my white was not showing up as well on the fabric. I liked the button, and used it on my other LK finish this week "Let Freedom Ring" also (in the bottom left of the photo below). So i'm going to do that one as a smaller matching pillow. 

 Here is what Friday night at my dining room table looked like. I pulled out all of these recent (and some not so recent) finishes, and got out my sewing machine so I could finally display them. I am stingy with my fabric sometimes, and will stitch multiple smalls on the same piece, so I have to wait to finish them until I have them all stitched. I also don't like stitching on small scraps which is why I don't cut them apart first. Below is the bottom of the ornaments I just finished, stitched in between a few of the Year in Chalk series from Hands on Design. I didn't finish any of the Year in Chalk designs yet, but really should since they should be so easy to do as a flat fold.

So that is all my random stitching for this summer. I did manage to move one more WIP off of my list. As the small WIP's get done, the list of large WIP's has started looming bigger. I think once I have made it through all of my smaller ones, I may start doing a rotation of working on one big WIP a month. Or I may just continue stitching like a hyper-active spider monkey-who knows!

A little of this and a little of that

 My mom was kind enough to finish my July wordplay pillow for me. I actually made the pillow, but I rely on her for all of my zippers and trim. I am more of a "creative" sewer (read I can't sew a straight line to save my life), while she is more of a practical sewer and actually has some skills with a sewing machine. I love how this one turned out. I originally had in mind the crab fabric on the right in the photo below, to match the little crab down in the corner of the design. But I am so glad I went with the more primitive look of the stripes. I used the red stripe on the front, and the blue stripe on the back of my pillow,

I also ordered fabric for my August pillow, but am not loving it, so am on the hunt for something with a smaller bee themed print on it. I may still use this one for the back of my pillow, but didn't want the pattern to overwhelm the cross stitching. I am still torn on it, but hoping I can find something I like a little better. 

 And here is my other stitching this week, the bonus chart from Lizzie Kate's Mystery Sampler (from 2013 I think). I want to stitch all three of these, but did not plan for the odd shape of my fabric very well. I probably have room to do all three charts vertically if I wanted to. This was a piece I hand dyed from stash, and you can see I had already cut pieces off of it for other ornaments. The color was a RIT dye "Hibiscus" that came out a very dark violet, so I wound up bleaching to this kind of dusty medium purple. Sorry for the wrinkly fabric, I haven't had a chance to iron it out yet.

 And just a close up of the first design. I used WDW "Kohl" and like it better than "Onyx" for an all black chart.

Not reading much this week, but I do have a movie recommendation. We watched "Passengers" this weekend, which just came out last year I believe. It has Jennifer Lawrence (Hunger Games), Chris Pratt (Guardians of the Galaxy) and Lawrence Fishburne (Matrix) as pretty much the only characters. But it was really good, not a total action movie but not slow either. I really liked the characters (though the bartender reminded me a lot of the Stephen King movie "The Shining"- I wonder if that was intentional). I also took my girls to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie, which was ok- about what you would expect for a movie franchise that has lasted this long. We went on a Thursday afternoon, and had the whole theater to ourselves which was kind of fun in itself.

Tuesday happy dancing!

Guess what I finished? Yep, after five years "Thine is the Trick and the Treat" is DONE!

I liked stitching this one with just the one color, but sometimes it got tedious and I wound up using this as a filler project between my other more colorful WIP's. I am so glad to move this one out of my stitching basket, and I still love the design as much as when I started it. I was lucky to buy this chart when it first came out, as now I don't think I'd be able to afford it. 

Here is what else I have been working on this week. Our "Health" board at work had sat unloved for a while since the last person in charge of it went to another department. So I took over the project, and plan to try and update it each month. This hangs in our break-room, and I tried to include not just weight loss articles, but also clippings about stress and sleep and exercise. Hopefully it will at least motivate me to be a little healthier. 

Here's what I am reading this week, and actually just finished. "Gwendy's Button Box" by Stephen King and Richard Chizmar. It was almost more of a short story, but I really liked this one. You couldn't really tell where one author's sections began and the other one ended. I love Stephen King books, so will be looking for some of Richard Chizmar's books now to see how they stack up. This one was not a typical horror story, no real monsters, but SK seems to have moved away from those lately in all of his stories. 

Here's my deal of the week. I found a few Wichelt Jobelan evenweaves at Hobby Lobby for half off, and 3 rolls of the Charles Craft evenweave for only $2 each. I am not super picky about what I stitch on, but do prefer evenweave over linen or Aida, so I was super happy to add these to my fabric stash.

And my girls wanted to dye their hair again for the summer. Their school requires uniforms and "neat" hair during the school year, so last summer we went wild and did bright pink on the ends of their hair. This year my youngest chose "mermaid" hair instead, and I think the turquoise turned out really pretty. My oldest wanted pink again, and I even did a small streak in my hair!

Happy June!

 "August" Word-play is done. I changed the colors of her dress to a slighter brighter blue, and stitched the accents in blue instead of white. Since this linen was lighter the white was not showing up at all on it. I am going to add two bee charms, instead of stitching them as called for. I know I already have some little gold bees that will work perfectly on this, I just need to find them in my craft room. Who knows how long that will take. Actually I am in the process of looking for 2 other charts I know I purchased, but didn't get filed away correctly so this weekend I may take some time to spring clean my crafting stash.

I also started and finished this one on our Memorial weekend road trip North. It is of course a Lizzie Kate, "Liberty". I think I used only one of the called for colors from the chart, and the rest I used whatever looked close from my thread stash. I am also sure I have a flag button somewhere in my button jar, so plan to use that instead of stitching the called for heart. 

I've made some good progress on "Thine is the Trick and the Treat" this week, and am optimistically hopeful this will be done for Halloween. I made a goal chart of each of the quaker designs, and have been checking them off as I get them done. My goal was four a week. This helped me power through, cause the random stitching bits here and there was not getting me anywhere. 

Some cute puppies came to visit our home this week. They were brought into my work as strays and were going to be picked up by the pound. Instead they got to visit with us until they could be reunited with their owner (which was only a few short hours). My girls were so excited to have cute little puppies in the house I think they thoroughly wore these dogs out.

And here is part of our weekend trip up North. We went to Bearzona, a local wildlife park. Mr. Wolf  what sharp teeth you have! He's actually yawning in this photo. You could drive through each enclosure of the park, and the wolves walked right alongside our vehicle as we drove through. They did warn us though that the bears had been being naughty and taking off people's bumpers and mirrors so we shouldn't stop in their enclosure. It was very fun getting to see them up close, and well worth the trip. 

As I mentioned before, I am trying to organize my craft room a bit more. And I have come to the conclusion that even after 25 years of stitching, I may never stitch all of the charts I have. Especially if I keep buying more! But the benefit of this, is I am now sorting through my stash and hoping to share it with all my stitching friends. I created a separate page at the top called Stash Unload, and so far have only gotten through one of my binders but found 37 charts that I have either stitched already, or are no longer my cup of tea. Mind you I still have 4 more binders to go through, I organize my charts by season and have a binder for each plus a separate binder just for Halloween. If you are interested in any of the charts email me your address (bluestarstitcher@gmail.com) and I will happily send them on their way. I will try and post on my main page when I add new items, and will try and delete the photos of charts that have been claimed.