Santa #8

After finishing up on the June chart for the Linen and Threads SAL, I started Santa #8.  I have been working on him for two weeks and he still needs his boots and the border stitched, but he is coming along nicely.  I am finding I struggle a bit when using the white threads in his beard. I ended up using a method called railroading to help the threads lay straight.  It seemed to help but is a bit tedious to do.  I was wondering if some of you other crossstitchers have run into the same problem.  And I also wonder if its just a problem with dmc thread. I don't have any experience with other threads, so your thoughts would be appreciated. 

I also got a bit of surprise this am when I looked at my perrenial bed this morning. My little  rain lillies bulbs that I bought off a clearance rack have decided to bloom.  The flowers just popped up overnight it seems! Hopefully they will spread and I will enjoy more blooms each year!

Happy Flag Day!

I thought I would start the celebration with a pic of Santa number six of my 12 Santa Journey!  He's not as jolly as some of the others but was still a lot of fun to stitch!  Will you be displaying a flag today?

I also found enough stitching time to finish June's chart for the Linen and Threads 2020 SAL!  So hopefully Santa # 8 will get started today!

June SAL and Santa # 8

Well, I must start out by saying I had such a fun week finishing the stitching on Santa # 7, but he is hiding until next Sunday.   He's  a very patriotic Santa so he wanted to wait till we get closer to flag day!  I will start stitching the June motifs for the Linen and Threads SAL.  This month  includes the year so a little different, but it's always nice to add the date to a piece when we stitch it! Excuse my bad photo, but all the blinds are drawn to help keep out the heat we are having.  I guess summer is here to stay now.  Thankfully, they opened our community pool today.  We like to go mid morning before it gets extremely hot and put in a few laps.

I also hope to start Santa # 8.  He was first introduced in 1985.  He reminds me of the St Nicholas that my mom would tell me about back when she was a little girl in Austria.  She would tells us he wasn't alway nice and if you were naughty he seemed to know about it.  A piece of coal instead of a piece of candy, oh my!  He looks like he has enjoyed a lot of German wurst too, as he is quite plump! 

As I mentioned earlier, the heat is on in Texas. So I am including a few pics from my perren.l garden and a pic of one of the lemons on my Meyer Lemon Tree.  I am very pleased with the lemon tree's progress.  It wasn't in the best shape when we purchased it, it was the last tree in the greenhouse, so I am so glad it is getting new leaves  and has about a dozen lemons on it.