July Stitch from Stash B

Well, it's almost the end of July (can you believe it?) and I almost missed my first reporting for Stitch from Stash B.

Month: July
Spent: $64.00
Earned: $6.00

Hmm, yes it seems I blew my first two months budget out of the water.   But I'm hoping to earn a good chunk of that back soon!

Let's start out with the good news.  I had two finishes to count for July, my Tropical Drink magnet and Fish Pond square for Love Quilts.  Pictures of both can be found on my Finishes page if you haven't seen them yet. 

As far as stash purchased, I have discovered the dangerous world of Facebook stash selling groups, which in addition to eBay was my downfall this month.  But I plan on stitching my way out of the red the next few months at least.

Here's a breakdown of what I bought:

$10 - Lizzie*Kate Sweet Tooth Boxers, Cupcake and Ice Cream

I guess this is a series of four designs, so now I need to track down Pie and Candy, which I have found on eBay, although both are the same price each that I paid for these two together.  These are sort of like kits in that they come with the fabric and embellishments, but not the threads to complete the design.

$20 Mill Hill Nutcracker set

Someone on Facebook was selling her entire set of Mill Hill Nutcracker Ornaments.  If there's two things I love about Christmas is the Nutcracker and 12 Days of Christmas, and I love Mill Hill kits too, so I jumped on the deal.  I am contemplating stitching these up and turning them into a wreath.

$12 Mill Hill Mask kits

Did I mention Mill Hill kits?  These larger ones are usually upwards of $13, so when I found 2 for $12 I was so happy.  I've been eyeing these mask ones for awhile.  Not really sure why, but something about the designs and colors just catch my eye.

$7 Bobbie G Designs

Starting in September I will be joining another Round Robin group (since our Frosted Pumpkin round is coming to a close soon).  This one is sampler themed, so I've been especially focused on sampler type patterns the past few weeks.  I contemplated doing this kitchen one from Bobbie G Designs, and the seller was offering them as a set with these two other designs.  In the end I chose something else as my RR piece, but I'm excited to stitch these patterns up eventually.

$15 Facebook closeout group

This was a set of several charts and kits I picked up from a lady who was closing out her Facebook albums because she was getting ready to move.  Sadly, I forgot to take a picture, so I will have to share those with you all at a later time.

Starting balance from June: $0.00 (new start!)
July budget: $25
Finish bonuses: $6   
Total:  $31 to spend in July
- Total stash purchases: $64.00

Ending balance: -$33.00

I definitely don't want to see that red sticking around too long! 

Rapunzel Update

I know the blog has been really quiet lately, but I haven't been stitching as much the past two weeks, mostly for 2 reasons.  The first is another crafty project I've been working on but can't reveal yet, and the second reason is this:

Yes, somehow we ended up with a new kitten in the family.  She wandered up from the pasture about 2 weeks ago and just started rubbing our legs and purring all over.  Poor thing was skin and bones, so how could we not take her in?  It's been over 20 years since I had a kitten and I've forgotten how energetic they can be (and need to be watched CONSTANTLY!).  This little girl is especially a bit of a spitfire.  I had to take Brownie to the vet last Saturday (dislocated knee and feline asthma, but he's doing a lot better now fortunately), and so I figured I'd kill 2 birds with one stone and take the kitten in for her first exam as well.  Well, since I only have 1 cat carrier, the kitten got relegated to a cardboard box with airholes cut in the sides, which she proceeded to rip open to get out of the box while on the drive to the vet.  Sheesh!

Anyway, despite the many challenges life has brought these past two weeks, I have managed to do a bit of stitching.  No new progress on Sunshine, mostly because I've been trying to finish this Rapunzel block for the Frosted Pumpkin Round Robin so I can send it off to the next person.  Last time I showed it, it just had a bunch of trees, but now it looks like this:

In case you can't tell, that lettering is done with 2 strands over 1, and it's black so it is HARD.  I've had to concentrate super hard on that section, so progress there especially is slow.  I just need to finish that, add another cloud, another bird, flag on the top of the tower, flower basket hanging out the window, stitch Rapunzel and her hair, and put in backstitching and details.  Not too much, right?  Hoping to have her done and ready to go out Monday...

Free Pattern Friday: Jane Austen

Well, today is Friday, so it's time for another free cross stitch pattern post.

Today's feature is a very quick pattern you could easily stitch up in a day or two, and it would make a great gift for any book loving friends you have.  I'm a big Jane Austen fan myself, so this little pattern was a great find.

You can head over the designers blog, My Hobby Gallery, to download this free cross stitch pattern in picture format.

Happy stitching!





If you ever come across one of my posts that contains a chart that breaks copyright law, please email me and let me know right away. In picking and posting my free cross stitch pattern posts, I make every effort to ensure the designs I share are legitimately free charts.

Why I do what I do

For those of you who've been reading my blog for awhile, you know I do a lot of charity stitching.  Well, I thought it might be fun to show off some of the quilts that were recently finished with my contributed squares.

By the way, both charity organizations I stitch for are always looking for new stitchers and always have new themes coming up, so if you think you'd like to donate a square or two, check out their linked websites from this link.  The quilts go to such good causes (sick children and needy seniors) and it's kind of addicting searching for the right pattern to stitch for an active theme.

First up is a quilt featuring my Rainbow Mandala pattern and finished by World Of Charity Stitching.
This quilt featured the same pattern done in many color palettes by each stitcher. My block was a neon rainbow contribution, and you can see it here in the finished quilt top outlined in red.

Next up is another WOCS quilt.  This one featured the same mitten outline with different fill patterns.  (Incidentally, WOCS is currently doing another quilt along these lines, this time with butterflies.)  I contributed two squares to this one, Leopard Print Mitten and Giraffe Print Mitten .  These were actually my very first finishes for 2015.  Both of them made it into a single finished quilt, and you can see both here in red.

The other organization I usually send squares to is Love Quilts (the USA branch).  Unlike WOCS, which stitches by theme and then finds a recipient, Love Quilts takes signups for individual children whose parents have chosen a theme for the squares of their quilt.

That Baby Tinkerbell pattern I worked so hard on showed up nicely in this Disney princess themed quilt.  This is going to a 7-year-old girl who has already gone through surgery and chemo for a rare type of tumor 3 years ago, and is currently undergoing a second round of treatment for a baseball sized tumor in another area of her body.

The last quilt I have to show you today was the one I finished my Friends for Life square for.  The theme was realistic cats and dogs, and I admit my square is a little small next to a lot of the other contributions, but it ended up being a necessary evil due to time.  This is going to a teenage girl who has quadriplegic cerebral palsy.

By the way, you can click on all of the quilt pictures to see them larger if you wish.  

If you take a gander at my Finishes page you'll see several more finished squares for both organizations that have been sent in, but they haven't been made into finished quilts yet.  If you enjoyed reading this post though, I'll do another one when a few more quilts have popped up.

I've made a bit of progress on my newest WOCS stitching project too.  Here's where Sunshine by Satsuma Street is currently at:

It's coming along nicely.  The main sun is almost done, except for I still need to get more of the yellow I ran out of.  Once I finish the inner ring (that's what all the gaps in the rays is for) I'll start on the larger outer ring, and it will be ready to send off.

And I made a pitful bit of progress on my latest square for the Frosted Pumpkin Round Robin.  Still now tower for Rapunzel yet, but the forest below her is finished...

Free Pattern Friday: Watermelon Welcome

Well, now that I'm back into the swing of things, and it's Friday, it's of course time to post about a free cross stitch pattern for you to download.

I don't know about all of you, but here in Mississippi we're fully and squarely in the summer heat.  And there's something about being hot in the summer that really makes me want watermelon.  So I went looking for a good free watermelon design and came across this patchwork watermelon welcome sign.  I can't wait to stitch this one myself. 

This is available for download in PDF format from the Glory Bee Stitch website.  You can download this free cross stitch pattern from there, and then get happy stitching!






If you ever come across one of my posts that contains a chart that breaks copyright law, please email me and let me know right away. In picking and posting my free cross stitch pattern posts, I make every effort to ensure the designs I share are legitimately free charts.

Well, I'm Back...

Hey everyone,

So I kind of disappeared for a lot of June, didn't I?  As I mentioned in my last stitching update post, things were a little difficult for me health-wise.  Add to that a crazy stressful month at work, and things have been sparse on the blogging front.  I even missed most of my check-ins for the last month including TUSAL, WIPocalypse, Smalls SAL, and Stitch From Stash.  I'm definitely feeling better from the almost-pneumonia, and although I have some additional health things I'm waiting to sort out, things are doing better than they were, so that's progress.  I'm hoping to get back on top of things this month.

Although I may not have been blogging much, I still have been doing some stitching, so I do have progress to share with you.

I finished my fish pond square and sent it off to Love Quilts in time for the end of the month deadline:

This ended up being a pretty quick and easy stitch.  It was done with charted DMC threads, 2 over 1 on white 14 count Aida.  It is a free pattern from Happy Stitch, which you can find over at that blog.  There's even a matching cat pattern as well. 

Moving right along, there is of course the always progressing Frosted Pumpkin Round Robin project I'm participating in via Facebook.  This month brought the Once Upon A Time sampler to my door.  This one will be interesting because the owner of the pattern actually made quite a few of her own conversions to the originally.  I'm stitching Rapunzel this time around, and here's my progress so far:

Yeah, so I haven't done much yet.  Mostly just the two borders, and then that bit of tree you can see over there on the left.  I'm actually struggling with this fabric.  Most of the other round robin pieces have more or less got me used to stitching on linen/evenweave, but I don't know if it's the color of this particular one or what, but I'm having a very hard time with the over 2.  I've had to pick out a lot of stuff so far.  The color is beautiful though, so I'm loving that. 
 
In other news, Sunshine by Satsuma Street is moving right along.  I almost finished the sun side of the face, but ran out of the yellow, so I moved on to starting some of the rays while I wait for a chance to obtain more of the yellow floss in the meantime. 

It's actually turning out a little smaller than I pictured it, but that's okay.  This will be a square for World of Charity Stitching, so although it's technically "deadline stitching" the due date is pretty flexible, so I'm taking my time and enjoying it. 

June Check In for 2015 Flower of the Month SAL

Welcome to the latest check in for the Flower of the Month SAL.  Once again, I've been a very bad hostess and don't have any progress of my own to show this month.  Due to some health issues, I kind of fell off the bandwagon this month, but hopefully all of you made good progress in June!

Remember, if you are not currently a member of the SAL and want to join us, it's never too late to join!  The rules and official sign ups can be found on this page.  

Important Notes For Current SAL Participants: 
To earn an extra prize entry for this month, you must submit a check in (even if it's showing only progress and not a finish).  Your check in can be about the June pattern specifically, or any other month you are working on/have finished. 

If you have done a blog post showing your progress, please use the linking widget below to add a direct link to your check in post.  If you are a member of our Facebook group, you can also check in via that page.  You do not have to check in at both places, but you are welcome to if you wish. 

If anyone has any questions, please let me know.  I will leave the link widget open for a week (until July 14th), so please check in by that date.