OhSewCrafty Blog

I was really excited for July to start, midyear and a few of my favorite events, Joan Elliott July & Christmas in July.   I was also looking forward to making a big chunk of progress on my full coverage piece, for the Tour de France event with Full Coverage Fanatics.  

I started July with my first big finishing goal, the Mill Hill Christmas Village.  It took only 3 days, to finish the entire piece with beads & buttons.

After that, I had to address my magical stitches HW.  One of the prompts was to stitching something “faceless” for the dementors.  It was a great opportunity to work on Save the Stitches.  I managed to finish Part 7 in an hour or two.

On the 6th, the Stitching Tour started.  The idea was to match the daily distance, in km, with stitches.  I hoped to get the full distance (3600 km) in the 5 day rotation, but I only ended with about 2500 (representing stages 1-17) in those first five days.  Most of the work was tent stitch, which only counts for half.   That week the magical stitches HW was based around the WIP album, so I had to work on Spring Bellpull and Christmas Teddy.  Spring Bellpull got a few hours while my son napped and that was enough for 500 stitches, which doesn’t look like much on the 18 count Anne cloth.

On the 14th, I had a stitchy meetup at the library, which was well attended, a great success and lots of fun, and I took my Christmas Teddy.  Though I didn’t stitch much at the library, later that evening, I buckled down and got over 700 stitches and it was almost ready for french knots & beads.  Overall, it took 2 days to finish Christmas Teddy.

After that I decided it was time to finish the Stitching Tour with Twilight Bridge, and also gave a day to Ginny.  Previous progress on Ginny:

I gave her 3.5 days throughout the month as I had multiple reasons to work on her, Magical HW twice, EC once, my last Ultimate Challenge, even the District Games with Semisane Stitches.  I did a bead conversion since I changed the scarf colors to red & gold (Gryffindor colors) and the regular seed beads looked huge & ungainly on this fabric.  So I’m using petite beads in four colors: rich red, Victorian gold, royal plum, & autumn flame.  

I had a few more days in the rotation so I decided that Gingerbread Grove could use some progress and the District Games challenge was to stitch on something made from animal products so Gingerbread (eggs, butter) defintely fit the bill.  Yeah, I had a new start in July!  All through the month, I was playing bingo with Semisane Stitchers, I was not particularly lucky, but on July 11th DMC 989 was called, so it was definitely time to start Gingerbread Grove by Glendon Place, which had that color in the tree on the left edge.  

Over 3.5 days, I basically finished the first page with the exception of Kreinik & beads.  This pattern has a ton of both!  It’s not very tall, so I can get the full height in my scroll frame, and I may as well do the Kreinik & beads as I go… if I had them in stash.  Guess it’s time to go shopping!  

On the 21st, it was time for my last 5 day rotation,and I decided to start my stitchy gift for the retreat August 2nd.  It took 1.5 days to stitch, Let Your Light Shine freebie by Nessie Lynn’s, on a scrap of PTP “Haven” cashel (from the FQ I’m using for Gingerbread Grove).  I did a color conversion since the colors didn’t work well on my fabric, and wound up using a few more colors overall (2 pinks and 2 blues though the chart called for only one of each).  This fabric is the most beautiful blue and I have a difficult time photographing it.  The photo below, below my Mighty Bright booklight, is more true.

I decided to work on Twilight Bridge some more and knock out my penultimate Ultimate Challenge for Magical Stitches. And I kept pulling it out throughout the month as the floss #s were called in bingo. Previous progess:

So, as of July 30th, I gave it 11 days througout the month and got somewhere around 5k stitches, or actually more than that since a lot of it is half cross.  

Overall, I am pleased with the progress, though it remains sort of patchy since I was waiting for floss numbers to be called in Bingo (and they never were).  I think I’m well on the way to finishing the lower right quadrant, so that will be a goal for this year.  

Magical HW that week was “detention”, the choices were 1000 stitches in blue or black (for ink) or 1000 on words.  I opted to work on Save the Stitches again, since it’s all blue.  I actually gave it two days, and that was enough to stitch part 8 and start part 9.  I got 1500 stitches in all, enough for HW and EC.

How do you get yourself out of a stitching drought?  I give myself “permission” to do something else, like read, diamond paint, frame, or knit.  If, after a few non-stitchy days, I don’t have any desire to work on my projects, I might watch Flosstube for inspiration, and besides, what else will I do while watching Flosstube, besides stitch?

My focus pieces for August include Spooky House, TW Fantasy Triptych, Spring Bellpull, Twilight Bridge, and Save the Stitches.  First, there is Arlene’s retreat in New Jersey this weekend, where I may or may not do much stitching, but it’s all good!