Floss Friday -- A Finish, A WIP and Retreat Gifts

Happy Friday, Friends!

So excited to share my finish of Melisa’s Pinker N Punkin’ Quilting and Stitching Summer Stamp Sampler.

The last two stamps were stitched this past week.

In the Apiary and Canning Season

I already had the frame and knew I wanted to use it for this sampler. It is a little tighter than I usually like but anything else would be too big. I am trying to do my own framing when I can and avoid custom work.

Chart: Summer Stamp Sampler by Melisa at Pinker N Punkin’ Quilting and Stitching

Fabric: 28 count lugana (evenweave) by Zweigart in the color Mushroom

Floss: The called-for DMC threads

Stitch count: 107 x 132

Started: 4/9/26, Finished: 6/23/26

Thank you, Melisa, for generously sharing your designs with us. I enjoyed this stitch along very much!!

Once that was finished, I picked up American Sampler by Crocette a GoGo.

This is where I left off…

This is where I am as of Thursday evening…

I finished the house and started on the right side border.

The goal was to stitch ½ a page each month beginning last August and to have a finish by July 4^th. Clearly, that is not going to happen. I am going to keep it going until the stitching is complete.

I mentioned that while we were on the cruise I participated in a cross-stitch retreat hosted by Elayne of Anabella’s and the featured designer was Priscilla from Stitching with the Housewives. That post is here  in case you missed it.

I made gifts for Elayne (host), as well as for Priscilla and Chelsea.

Quilted bags with their initials machine embroidered on them. I attached zipper pulls/scissor fobs to them and then filled the bags with small gifts.

I also put together small gifts for my tablemates.

They received the same fob, a machine embroidered tissue cover, a waxer, small scissors, flavored Chapstick and a skein of Classic Colorworks floss in the color Priscilla’s Peppermint. (Yes, Classic Colorworks custom dyed floss for Stitching with the Housewives.)

All the other attendees received a fob. There were 40 attendees in total.

The gifts I received were plentiful. Candy and small stitching tools were very popular.

One of the first things I do when I return from a retreat is sort the gifts.  The candy goes in a jar on the Hoosier. I have a box of small bins that will hold stitching tools, stickers and other miscellaneous items.

Our host gave the attendees a bag filled with patterns, fabric, floss and other miscellaneous items. 

Included in the bag were raffle tickets to be used on the last day.  There were several gifts lined up on a table, and we could put our tickets inside the container in front of the gift we wanted. I forgot to take a photo of the gift table.

I only wanted one thing and that was a project bag made from Lori Holt tea towels….and I won it!

Inside the bag was a smaller notions bag, an ORT container for leftover thread pieces and a small yellow box. The yellow box held all sorts of items from a drink mix, hand sanitizer, sticky notes….lots of yellow.

Since fully finishing the Summer Stamp Sampler, I am inspired to finish more items from the under-the-bed-box of cross-stitch. So, a trip to Hobby Lobby is on the agenda for Saturday. The closest HL to me is in Asheville. Hubby will accompany me and we will do our big shopping day at Trader Joes, Whole Foods and Sam’s. It doesn’t happen frequently, but when it does, my wallet gets sad!

Also on the agenda this weekend is sewing more blocks for Sewcialites 3, Four Patch Fun and Fat Quarters by the Dozen.  I’ll be back on Monday, June 29^th to share those.

I hope you have a great weekend!! See you soon.

Sewcialitles 3: Blocks 17 & 18

Catching up slowly but surely…

I’m keeping up with Fat Quarter Shops quilt-along for Sewcialites 3.

Block #17 is designed by Sandy Gervais of Pieces From My Heart.

Flutter Block

Block #18 is designed by Stacy les Hsu.

                                 

This one exercised my brain but I trusted the process and it worked!

We have about seven more blocks to go and then we get the finishing instructions.  I’m looking forward to getting this one done.

Next up is Fat Quarters by the Dozen. I have the June 15^th release to sew and I’m really looking forward to it.

My next post will be Friday, June 26^th. I hope to see you then.

 

Floss Friday -- Cross Stitch Update and Alaska

Happy Friday, Friends!

It has been a while since I’ve posted and visited my favorite blogs. I guess you could say I really checked out during vacation and was just living in the moment. It was fantastic.

Hubby and I took a 7-night cruise to Alaska. We flew to Seattle on June 7^th, boarded the ship on the 8^th and flew home on a red-eye flight the 15^th – 16^th. We are more exhausted from this trip than we were when we returned from Italy last September.

There was a cross-stitch retreat two of the days during the cruise. I had won the registration at a retreat last summer, which worked perfectly for our Alaska plans. The event was hosted by Anabella’s Needleworks and the featured designer was Stitching with the Housewives (SWTH). Priscilla and Chelsea are the mother-daughter team behind SWTH. Chelsea had a baby May 1^st and was unable to attend but Priscilla was there with us.

Priscilla and Chelsea designed a chart exclusively for the retreat attendees and provided finishing instructions. 

Anabella’s kitted the chart with fabric and floss. It became my focus stitching for the last week, and I’ve even fully finished it.

Chart: Stitch with Me

Fabric: 28 count white Monaco

Floss: Called-for Classic Colorworks

Stitch Count: 98 x 70

Finished Size: ~7” x 5”

I'll share retreat gifts and giveaways in a separate post.

When I wasn't stitching, Hubby and I were hiking, biking, glacier viewing, whale watching and eating…eating…eating!

I took way too many photos to post but here are a few from our trip.

Seattle was the only cloudy day we had the entire trip.

Yes, I bought fabric. More about that later...

A humpback whale waving...

We enjoyed Alaska so much that we booked a Land to Sea trip for next year.

The laundry is done and I am catching up at work. I’m also working to catch up on Melisa’s Summer Stamp Sampler.

Pinker N Punkin' Quilting and Stitching

I’ll be working on Sewcialites and Fat Quarters by the Dozen quilt blocks tonight. Can’t get too far behind on those.

Forgive me if I haven’t visited your blog for a while. I’ll get there, I promise.

In the meantime, enjoy your weekend.

My next post will be Monday, June 22nd...a quilty update.

See you soon.