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.

 

Floss Friday -- Cross-Stitch Progress

Happy Floss Friday, Friends.

This week has been a good week for cross-stitch.

First, I finished Melisa’s Summer Stamp release for this week.

Home Tweet Home has the cutest little birdhouse and bees buzzing about. They were so much fun to stitch. Visit Melisa at Pinker n Punkin’ Quilting and Stitching to see more stamps she has designed. They are seasonal and so much fun!

Unfortunately, I will be behind when I return from vacation. I’m going to miss the next two releases and will have some catching up to do when I get home.

And…I have a finish!  Salute to Abigail by Blackbird Designs.

I had asked what you all thought about me replacing Abigail’s name with a date. I was encouraged to do so.

The details…

Fabric: 36 count linen by XJudesigns in the color Frappucino

Floss: Valdani cottons in Rich Wine, Withered Blue,  Tealish Blue, and one Aurifloss color #2311. I had a hard time finding a white to work on this fabric.

Stitch Count: 147w x 149h

Stitched Size: 8/17” x 8/28

With any luck, a 10 x 10 frame will work, and I can finish it myself.

Before I move on to looking ahead to the weekend…back to the Blogger issue. Linda, Linda’sRelaxing Lair, kindly sent me the link to the post I referred to on Monday regarding our posts not appearing in reading lists in a timely manner. And Linda, Texas Quilt Gal, was kind enough to leave a comment with detailed instructions on how to add a blog roll to your blogspot page. Go back  here  to read the comment.  Also, Terry, On Going Projects, was kind enough to send an email containing an article with instructions. That article is linked here. Thank you all for your help. I’m going to work on this as soon as I get home and settled from vacation.

Fat Quarter Shop releases Sewcialites 3, block 16 today. I’ll work on that as soon as I see which fabrics Kimberly Jolly uses for her block. Then I will be finishing some gifts for an upcoming retreat. Monday’s post will show those items as well as progress on the Granny Square afghan.

Enjoy your weekend and I’ll see you soon.

 

 

Quilt-Along Progress and Plans

Happy first day of June, my friends! Where does the time go?

Before getting into the quilt update, I want to mention a Blogger issue I’ve been having. Sweet Linda at Linda’s Relaxing Lair wrote a post about it a while ago but I couldn’t find it to link.

Posts do not appear in the Reading List right away. I have missed so many of my friends’ posts because they are either delayed or are not showing up at all in the list. Linda did mention that if you have a blog roll on your page, then that updates immediately. I must figure out how to add that to my blog, when I have time. I’ve noticed I have had a reduction in views, so I suspect my posts are not showing up either.

Now, for what you came here for…

The first block I finished on Friday was Sewcialites 3 block 15.

Split Star Block by Lissa Alexander.  I amazed myself when my directional fabrics came out correctly.

Fat Quarter Shop released the Fat Quarters by the Dozen block early. It should have been posted today but it was available on Friday, so I took the opportunity to get ahead a little bit.

Luminary block is another big one, measuring 15 ½” square.

I believe there are only a couple of block releases left and then we get the finishing instructions.

We leave next Sunday for vacation. We will be away about a week and a half. The plan is to have a cross-stitch update this Friday. Then I’ll have a quilt and crochet update scheduled to post on Monday, June 8^th. So, if I do not show on your reading list, please know those are my plans. I always have good intentions of posting while on vacation but have rarely done so. I'll likely post a few times on Instagram and then write a post recapping our trip when I return.

This is going to be a busy week with trying to finish some tasks for work and packing. I did have a successful weekend in giving the house a deep clean. Don’t ask me about the mounds of laundry!

I hope you have a great week doing all the things you love.

See you soon,