Floss Friday – July Stats, Parrot Progress, An FFO and A New Start

July was a light month for stitching. I stitched 3,301 stitches on two projects.

Every Stitch Tells A Story by Anabella’s Needleart

Parrot by Salty Stitcher Designs

WiP update...this is where I am currently on Parrot.

Hobby Lobby had a 50% off sale on their frames last week. I finally found one that would work for Sense & Sensibility by Sapphire Mountain Handcrafts. This was one of the charts I stitched during a Stitching Book Club SAL. I finished the stitching in March of 2021!

Stitching Book Club was held virtually. We were given reading assignments in the book and a portion of the stitching chart was released every two weeks. Book discussions took place on Instagram and Facebook.

My friend Andrea, mentioned in my last post, is @fancystitcher on Instagram. She and another friend @rebeccaaparkerr are hosting a SAL in honor of the USA's 250^th anniversary in 2026. The idea is to stitch patriotic charts from now until next July. They are using the hashtag #YOPS (year of patriotic stitching).

While we were in Alabama, Andrea, Gary and I started American Sampler by Crocette a gogo’.

I’m stitching mine on 36 count linen from Fabrics by Stephanie in the color Colonial Parchment. I'll use most of the called-for threads with only a couple of substitutions.

There are nine pages in the chart and Andrea suggested we stitch half a page, roughly 70 x 80 stitches, per month. I like working with assignments as I seem to get things done. That is how I finished Witching Hour on time.

My weekend will be spent taking down buntings and other patriotic décor, then giving my sewing machine a good cleaning. The poor thing is clunking along.

Happy to join Alycia Quilts for Finished (or not) Friday)

Enjoy your weekend and I’ll see you soon!

 

A Weekend Trip and My Hydrangeas

Mama wanted to spend a little time with her best friend in south Alabama so I took her there for a quick weekend visit.

We met at a restaurant in Hartford. Mama is on the right and her friend, Ms. Martha, is on the left. I thought it was funny how they wore the same color that day. It wasn’t planned.  Mama was going to change clothes that morning because she didn’t think her jeans were ironed enough. I told her she looked fine, which she did.

They worked together for many years when we lived in Geneva. Ms. Martha was also my girl scout leader.

I stopped at The Pig (Piggly Wiggly) while I was in Hartford so I could get some of my favorite cornmeal.

We can’t get this in North Carolina.

After I left the troublemakers 😊, I met my friend Andrea in Enterprise at Fraley’s Framing.

She drove down from Memphis, TN. We selected some frames for a few of my cross-stitch pieces.

Witching Hour by Keslyn's

Red Bird Sampler by Brenda Gervais

English Rose Sampler by The Proper Sticher

There was a fourth piece but, as luck would have it, I found a frame at Hobby Lobby that worked. Bonus – it was 50% off. I’ll share it on my Floss Friday post this week.

The main reason Andrea met me in south Alabama was to surprise our friend Ronny for his birthday. And we were successful.

We had dinners out in the evenings and stitched at GaRon Stitchery during the day.  Gary, Andrea and I started a new patriotic piece that I’ll share on Friday.

Our last evening out was celebrated with a strawberry cake for Ronny’s birthday.

I picked up Mama on Sunday morning to start our journey home to the mountains. She had two hampers of fresh peas ready for us to put in the freezer.

We processed those Monday and Tuesday evenings.

While I was away we had a lot of rain.  Hubby said one storm was strong and it flattened one of my hydrangeas.

The others are looking just fine. 

Our temps are beginning to cool off. I can't say that I'm happy about that but I'm going with the flow.

I hope you've had a great week so far and I'll see you soon.