Dyeing aida can be a bit like stone soup....things keep getting thrown in.  The aida will be used for winter/Christmas ornaments.  

I have no idea what will be stitched on this aida.  I just wanted to dye this color.  It's a one of a kind color.  I took notes and it turned out more brownish than red pear, which was the color I was after, so just threw in a bit more red....and didn't measure.  That's ok, as it's still not quite the color I want.  So, more experimenting is needed, which is always fun.  I do like this color and will probably stitch something monochromatic for fall on it.

Our local Hundred Dollar Tree now sells yarn.  I've never tried anything from Premier before, so I had to get a ball to try it out.   It's more like DK than worsted, but for the price I'm not complaining.

  

I must be on Santa's nice list, as this is headed my way.  

There was 1061 yards of yarn in a Caron Anniversary Cake and I ran out just shy of a sleeve.  lol. Fortunately, there is no shortage of yarn here, so I'm mattress stitching with some scraps from the grey cardigan.

Grey said even he could see what the mistake was here.  I didn't see it for a couple of inches.   That's what I get for starting at 10.30pm instead of going to bed.

My aversion to borders has kicked in..  Stopping when the flags are finished.

A visitor down in the bottom last week.

Heracles, the smallest crested gecko.

Ares linking his nose.  He's the most feisty and jumpy of the three.  He shed later that afternoon.

Athena, the largest.  She's in solitary confinement, as she constantly harassed and jumps on the other two if she's in the same enclosure.  

 

Unicorns were frolicking, blackbirds were flying around my head, twittering around my head (you didn't really expect bluebirds, did you?) when I headed into Hobby Lobby today after stitching from stash for 18 months.  

I'm a cross stitch fabric harlot (ie love stitching on all types of fabric) but aida has always been my favorite.  Aida, floss, trim and a crochet thingumy are in the dye pot with a slurp of indigo.

These have been thoroughly petted and are about to be bobbinated...more petting!

Fiddling and Faddling!

Not sure if I've got the brain power to fiddle and faddle with so many individual blocks just now.  I'm not going to bother trimming this block.  It'll be tucked away with the other one for now.  I'm thinking something repetitious with the whopping bag of strips.  Jenny (the blue heeler) is at over 15 years old and needs more attention, so something I can pick up and put down without much thought is much more my speed just now.  I'm thinking a log cabin quilt.

This is the cross stitch WIP that has my immediate attention.   I think this will be the 7th patriotic project I've stitched on.  One for each year I've been in the US.  I'd like to get it finished in the next couple of weeks, so it can go out for July with the others that are already finished.  It's being stitched on a scrap of 25 count pearl linen that was thrown in a pot of tea.

This would have to be the most peculiar photo I've posted.  It's for a SAL - Cross Stitch Camp.  I don't do a lot of stitch alongs, but this one is fun.  It runs for 3 months and you choose 3 different projects to work on.  Part of it is to put a photo of supplies on Instagram.  

This is my progress.  It's being stitched on a scrap of 32 count Belfast linen.  It will be a Christmas decoration when it's finished.

  This is Quaker Christmas by Bygone Stitches and another SAL with loose criteria.  You just stitch on it as much as you want when you want.

This is my progress and it's a long term WIP, started a few years ago.  I'm out one stitch, so need to sit down and figure out where it is. This is top left corner.  It's being stitched with DMC Hunters Green, which is my favorite Christmas green.

I can't remember the name of this one.  It's by Blackbird Designs and is from the 2012 Just CrossStitch Christmas special magazine.  It's being stitched on a scrap of 14 count tea dyed aida.  Instead of Christmas colors, I pulled purple and grey I dyed, a mystery green and DMC ecru.  This one is also a SAL....stitch on something by Blackbird Designs on the first weekend of every month.  I'm sticking to smalls from the JCS DVD.

This was May's.  It's Wintersong from the 2018 JCS DVD.  The stitching is done and it will be finished as a stocking.  I changed the colors from winter to fall.  They're a couple I dyed.  The fabric is tea dyed scrap of 25 count pearl linen, which I tossed coffee granules on to grunge it up.

This one sat in the WIP pile for a couple of years before it came out again last week.  The fabric is 14 count aida.  It was dyed with Rit fluro green, then crammed into a jar and tea poured it.  The floss is DMC550.

That's all my June cross stitching up to now.

This pattern caught my eye when I was organizing patterns recently.

It came with preprinted calico, so what else could I do except put a few stitches in?  It's being stitched with DMC Hunters Green.  It's just back stitch and French knots, simple and fun.  

Beatie - Blocks One and Two

Back to piecing the Civil War Love Letter Quilt by Rosemary Youngs.  This is a pic of the completed quilt from the back of the book.  I'm making the blocks in order from first to last.  It's working name is Beatie, as Civil War Love Letter Quilt is a bit of a mouthful.  lol   

My color palate is neutrals ranging from cream to dark brown.  All the fabric will be from stash, starting with scraps.  Moving on to neutral yardage.  With the option of overdyeing other stash fabric to add variety.  I have Rit dye and I'm not afraid to use it! lol

My version.  The center fabric is a Debbie Mumm.  I'm a sucker for fabric with any kind of black birds.  I made this on February 6th, so it's been maturing on its own for long enough!  I said back then I was leaving the sashing off and making a lap quilt.  It's a quilter's prerogative to change her mind.  It will be bed sized, with sashing.  If necessary, blocks from the Civil War Diary Quilt will be added to make it long enough on the sides to stop blanket banditing!

The fabric for the second block.

The finished second block from the book.

Progress on my version.  Can you see the difference?  It threw me at first and I wondered what the heck I had done!  Foundation piecing will do that.  It will be unique.  The next step is to trim the pieces down so there's a quarter inch seam and sew them together.

To help line the pieces up, they're being laid face down on a light box. 

The fabrics for the third block have been pulled, so if all goes well (not to plan...whenever I plan, things tend to go cattywampus!) there will be three finished blocks by next week.

Day 3 May Catch Up

 

My soon to be back porch sewing table.  It's been floating around forever and will be perfect for early morning sewing sessions before the heat and humidity kick in.  Started sanding off the old paint, which was taking forever and making my arms feel like they were going to fall off. lol  Grey suggested I use paint stripper.  It will have to help, as the paint is thick.  Fingers crossed I'll be spray painting it (purple, of course) as soon as it's been stripped.

I had fun reorganizing all my paper patterns.  They're in a two drawer filing cabinet now, which means I can just flick through them whenever I fancy.  Much better than before when they were in a plastic tub.   

The pattern came with preprinted calico, which meant it could be started straight away.  DMC'S Hunters Green is my go to Christmas green.  

A stash button finished off this little pillow.  It's one of Melissa's designs over at Pinker n Punkin Quilting & Stitching  She is the epitome of Stitchy Kindness, as she shares all her designs with us as freebies.  I always look forward to seeing a new post from Melissa, as her blog is lovely to read.

Crescent Angel by The Primitive Needle was finished during Stitch Maynia.  It's one of the few SALs I take part in, as it's pretty much do what you want.  So, since I was in the mood for working on WIPS, I chose four.  This one was started in 2019 and kept going to the bottom of the WIP pile last year.

Made progress on Double, Double by The Prarie Schooler.  Looking forward to adding some green seed beads for the flames under the cauldron and vapors above it.

 This is being stitched on a tea dyed scrap of 25 count Pearl Linen.  I don't know if Zweigart make it any more.  Stitchers Corner, my Aussie LNS  of 30+ years used to bag up remnants of cross stitch fabric and keep them right at the front door.  It was a great way to build a fabric stash with a wide variety of colorful linens and aida.  It's prpbably the reason I will have a dabble with other brands, but always go back to Zweigart. ;)  There's a video of the shop from their Facebook page here  

I helped Grey with a Mjöllnir (Thor's hammer....don't ask me to pronounce it lol).  I'm feeling more confident about using the torch to heat things.  I find it awkward, as it's attached to two heavy hoses, which are attached to gas tanks.  

The 17 year cicaidas are at the end of their life cycle and it is noticeably quieter!  With so many trees here, at their peak they were loud!  I'm sure there's a lot of wildlife that will be sorry to see them go! lol

We had a finch nest above the front door this year, which managed to avoid the attention of snakes.  Seeing a pair of little heads peeking over the side of the nest always made me smile.  My favorite way to start the day is to have a cuppa out on the back porch just before dawn listening to the song birds.  If I'm lucky, I'll spot a barred owl.  I'm more likely to hear them at night than see them.  They have the most amazing (and creepy!) calls!

The ruby throated humming birds have been back for a while.  I put out a feeder with a sugar water solution for them every year.  There's a male who visits many times a day just now.  I've not seen any females yet, so I'm not sure if there's one sitting on the nest.  They are ferocious little buggas and have no problem telling me that I'm an unwelcome visitior to the back deck when I go out there. lol

May is all caught up. Blogger is no longer booting me out when I try to post on the computer.  Hurray!  That makes things a lot easier and much more fun than poking around on my phone to write a post.  

Day 2 May Catch Up

It's 5am.....Jenny, Bailey and I have been up for an hour and we're out on the back porch listening to a few early birds sing their morning greeting.  It's too early for the 17 year cicadas.  They start just before dawn.  There's not as many of them now, so it's getting quieter during the day.  When they were at their height, I felt something on the back of my neck and brushed one off.  Then proceeded to act like I had a black belt in origami, waving my arms about and jumping around.  lol. Creepy crawlies are not my thing!  

Foundation piecing is my favorite patchwork technique.  I drafted the foundations for three blocks for this quilt on graph paper.  It's thin, so rips out easily after sewing.  

Smell My Feet was finished as a pillow.  I don't like how it looks, so it has a date with Jack.

The hand quilting on this mini was finished and the binding sewn on.  It hangs on the pantry door.  I enjoy hand stitching the binding down to the back of wall hangings.

The grey cardigan is close to a finish.  I'm onto the shoulder shaping on the second sleeve.  After that, the pieces will be sewn together.  Then the button band will be picked up and knitted....then buttons attached.

A hat had been languishing waiting to be frogged and caked up again, as it was too small.  It would have fit perfectly as a beanie, but I've been wearing my hair up in a bun every day for almost a year and it won't fit!  I'd only knit the brim and about an inch on the body of the hat, so it's not a problem.

I didn't write in my notebook at all during May, but I did squeeze in more crafting than I thought......and there's more!  That's for the next blog post.

Day 1 May Catch Up

 

Blah, blah, blah, busy, busy, busy, blogger's block sums up May.  lol

This mini has been horribly neglected.  I'm determined to get sewing time in during June.

The Pit of Doom (craft room) is being reorganized....slowly.  It's getting there, though.

There's about 3 inches of this jumper on the needles.  It's knit in the round, bottom up, with the sleeves knit separately,  then attached.....

......in Lion Brand Wool Ease.  

Found the yoyo makers.  The plan is to fill a Mason jar with red, white and blue yoyos as part of a July display.  Kim Delhi had a jar of yoyos in one of her fabric lines somewhere on social media, which I thought was cute.  We'll see how it goes. 😏

That's it for now.  I need to go back and see what I've posted previously, so I'm not repeating myself.