Finished Strawberry!

 It seems I always have good intentions when it comes to stitching!  Somehow, especially since my husband has retired, they don't seem to happen.  I do make sure I get in my exercise and in the summer we swim at least five days of the week and all that takes time!  With covid, we are eating more meals at home and Tom does fix almost as many meals as I do so I really shouldn't complain, still I don't seem to find much time to stitch.  I did finish my embroidered strawberry this week. It was fun to stitch and it's the first time I embroidered with batting on the back of the fabric.  It gives this strawberry a quilted effect.  I filled it with ground walnut shells and am very pleased with my first attempt at making one!

I also started on Santa #11.  He's a quilter Santa!!!!!  How fun is that!  I have a long ways to go but I am really looking forward to how he finishes!

I traced a Kathy Schmitz design that came out in August  I am not sure if I want to do all black like on the strawberry or go with a colorful design.  I think I am leaning toward the black!

The august motifs for the Linen and Threads SAL is completed and I am looking forward to what September will bring.  I love the addition of a few more birds!

10 down 2 to go

 I finished up woodland Santa and he is waiting with the others to be made into an pillow ornament!  I really like this one with the raccoon, squirrel and rabbit and all the birds!  Two more charts to stitch and I will have 12 Santa's completed!  

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Then I started working on Linen and Threads 2020SAL.   I was glad to see a few more birds are in this chart!  This one shouldn't take very long, but I spent most of yesterday unpicking the stitches from the day before.  You know, that darn one stitch off!!!!!!  But I am back on track and hope to finish up this chart today!

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I went on line to look at more prairie schooler Santas and I saw a couple of charts from  Little House Needlworks that I decided to order instead!  One is the Summer ABC's and the other Fall ABC's.  Hopefully I can get the fall one stitched up and ready to hang for this fall.

I also need to pull out my lightbox and trace a few Kathy Schmitz patterns and work on embroidering them.  If I can get the tracing done I know they wouldn't take long to do, but somehow my days get away from me.  

Santa Progress

I haven't shared my progress in a while, so I thought I would share today!  I finished up Santa number 9 over a week ago.  He's a caroling Santa who looks like he really enjoys singing.  

Then I moved right on to Santa number 10.  He's a woodland Santa enjoying nature and the animals seems to love him as much as kids do.   I have made a lot of progress on him also.

I have two more Santas to complete before I start finishing them into the final product.  I have some fabric I have had for years that I think will work really great as the back of the Santas.  I will have to see how much I have to see if it is enough for all twelve.  I haven't ordered any more charts yet, but I can see that happening as I get near finishing the twelve up!  Its been such a beautiful summer here in North Texas.  We have received some rain in late July which doesn't happen very often and with it came some cool north breezes that have us in the lower 90s.  It was 69 degrees yesterday morning which is really unreal for this time of year.  I think we only had one or two days of above 100 so far this summer.  Hopefully we can continue that trend thru August.   I took some pics of our Meyer lemon tree we purchased late last winter. It was really quite pathetic looking when we found it.  It was stuck in the far corner of a green house.  We brought it home and potted it up and kept it inside until the last frost date.  It was blooming profusely, but was also losing leaves and soon looked like a Charlie Brown Christmas tree.  But, we didn't give up, and our patience will produce 5 lemons this year.  Finally in July, I saw new leave sprouts come shooting out and now I feel more confident that it is happy in it's pot.  The plan is to winter it over in the garage that faces south and we will open the door on our  sunny freezing days which here in Texas is most of the time. 

 I also have been entertaining myself with growing some herbs and lettuce hydroponically indoors this year.  It's a fun project and its so nice to have fresh herbs to use in our kitchen.  I am so thankful for my stitching and my gardening projects as they help me keep my sanity as we navigate thru living in this pandemic. 

Santa # 9 in the hoop

I started Santa# 9 this week, it's been moving along quite nicely.  I did have to unpick a few stitches.  But now I am back on track to add a few more slow stitches today!

This is what our weather forcast looks like for this week so staying inside and stitching sounds like the best way to deal with this heat wave.  

Two finishes this week!

Well, with summer in full swing here in North Texas we are spending more time inside.  Covid is on a huge upswing here, another reason to stay close to home.  I am so happy that our govenor finally bit the bullet and ordered that masks are required in public places.    So I was able to get some great stitching time in this week.  First, I finished Santa number #8! He's quite jolly so there were a lot of stitches to make.  I had to count the finished Santa's to make sure he was number 8, so I laid them out on one of my quilt ladders.  I am really liking the variety and have found six more charts so I need to get them ordered!

Then on Wednesday the July motifs were released for the Linen and Threads SAL 2020.  It included a bird that I think is so cute so I couldn't wait to start stitching it.  I finished up yesterday afternoon so it is gonna be a long month waiting for the next release!

So hopefully today, I will be able to start Santa #9.  I also have a few embroideries I want to start so there will be plenty of stitches to do as we go thru July.

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.