Summer Stitchin'

Above is a freebie from Glory Bee called 'Summertime'. It is stitched with Crescent Colours on 28 ct. raw linen. I finished into a little pillow/sign with Mary Engelbreit bee fabric on back and a black ric rac hanger-I love ric rac!

And here we have 2 Lizzie Kate designs. On the left is 'Long May She Wave', a pocketbook kit that comes with the wonderful Picture This Plus 'Relic' linen and embellishment. This is my very first flat fold-type finish, with a fabric covered easel on back. I liked how it turned out and how easy & quick it was. I consider myself 'bow impaired' so the bow could be better, but hey, it works for me. And the project on the right is a new LK freebie that I stitched on 25 ct. mushroom lugana and finished into a little pillow.
And lastly, here is another freebie (I usually do not ever stitch freebies, so this is weird) from Little House Needleworks called 'Summer House', stitched on raw belfast with Crescent Colours. Since the House is stitched in the color 'Old Blue Jeans', I thought it was appropriate to incoporate some denim in this project-well, actually I just love denim and am always looking for ways to use it LOL. The pillow back is a red corduroy that matches the red in the design.
I am almost always a sucker for any Americana themed cross stitch chart. I have another one in the works right now while I'm on the red, white and blue kick. I'm pretty happy to have some things finished for display BEFORE the holiday has come and gone this year.


Create & Decorate Again
Back on April 6th, I posted about a great magazine that I had just found and thought was fabulous- Create & Decorate. I just picked up the latest issue yesterday and was not disappointed at all. So far, my favorite project is a cherry apron, not that I'm into cooking or anything. It has cherries and ric-rac and is oh so cute. The cherries are iron-ons, but I'm thinking you could easily applique or stitch some cherries too! Anyway, this magazine is really fun to thumb through and is jam packed with projects.

Home Sweet Home and Winter Snapperland

First up is my 'Happy Hearts' WIP, that has been a WIP for more than 4 years now. I had worked on it for a week or so back in April, before other things were calling my name louder and it was put aside yet again. Andrea finished hers recently, and has inspired me to pull it out, if nothing else to sit out on top of the sewing machine so I have to look at it every time I am upstairs. Doesn't she have some GREAT finishes lately?
And so I have finished a couple of things in the past week, first my 'Home Sweet Home' sampler by Sunflower Samplings is stitched on 28 ct. ???? (creme brulee I think) and next is my Bent Creek 'Winter Snapperland'. I was going gung ho on that one back in January, just waiting for the next installments to come out, with full intentions of having this stitched during the winter. Oh well, it's been in an almost complete state for quite a while now because it took me a couple months to track down a skein of GAST 'apple cider'. It is stitched on 32 ct. opalescent raw belfast.
My current WIP is a friendship sampler for an exchange. I will spend another day or 2 on that to finish this week's assignment (it's a SAL) and then decide what I start next. It'll be a tough decision because I have some great things kitted up.
Did you see all of the great freebies up at Hoffmans? There are some really cute designs, so check them out. For anybody who has printed off any, did you print the Little House Needleworks and Country Cottage Needleworks charts and not have the graph lines show up? My grid lines (every 10 stitches) and the symbols are fine, but the graph lines are invisible.

The new Village of Hawk Run Hollow is wonderful beyond words. I am so kitting it up.