Happy Fourth of July from USA! May we have many more.
I am thankful that it is not 100F like it was last year here in Vancouver, Washington. I am enjoying a quite day. The kids are camping and I am here at Starbucks working on this blog for you. Afterwards, I plan to go home and sit out on my patio to enjoy a good book? How about you?
June WIPGO Final Results
Project 21: A Field Guide to Dragons by Climbing Goat Designs
I spent the majority of June just trying to get this project kitted. Can you say unprepared?! LOL! Well, I finally found the fabric I purchased when I bought the pdf pattern, received my floss, and then spent what felt like hours organizing the floss and prepping it. Finally I had a start. It’s a small start. My goal was 1,000 stitches. I reached 343. So I have a carry over to July like I have been doing since I moved. My carry over goal is 700 stitches and my July goal would be 400, so the new July goal will be 1,100. Wish me luck!
Project 23: Pop of Patriotic by Bent Creek
This was a new start for June AND the goal was a finish! Whoohoo! We have a winner. It’s about darn time I got back on track. So loved stitching this adorable patriotic tree. I was so inspired, I went online to see which ones I was missing and order another three which are on their way to me.
Starts & Finishes
It’s actually been a very active week with starts & finishes so let’s get started.
START: Summer Stitching Season by Stitching with the Housewives
I think I mentioned last time that I had kept Spring in my rotation because I had not found my kitted projects yet. But I finally found them and couldn’t resist throwing this one in June. I am super happy with this start. The house is outlines and the roof is pretty much done. This is the center house if you can’t tell. Love it.
JUNE WIPGO FINISH: Pop of Patriotic by Bent Creek
I am not going to go into more detail on this project other than I love it! See June WIPGO for more details. FYI – this come as a complete kit from Bent Creek with a very stiff “linen” (more like evenweave in my opinion) and no 8 pearl cotton dmc thread. I use a 24 needle and it works up quickly and easily.
JUNE WIPGO START: Field Guide to Dragons by Climbing Goats Design
Once again this was covered in June WIPGO Results above. I am excited to work on this for 2025. It is a custome 18 count fabric called Dragon Breath with all DMC floss. I believe it is 43 different colors. The designer is on Etsy and has a number of fun and unusal designs. This was a SAL from a couple of years ago that I just wasn’t up to doing.
START: November Stackables by Fat Quarter Shop – It’s Sew Emma
My first new start for July was one of the two months left in the series for me to complete. Believe it or not, that start is close to 600 stitches. That is how dense the stitching is for this series. It felt a little weird working on a fall project when I really want to work on Patriotic projects. On the other hand, I just want to finish this series from 2021.
WIP Updates
I got a great start on my July WIPGO projects (which were truly WIPs) as well as work on a few others. It is nice to see there are not many passive WIP projects in my stash at this point. Things are starting to get under control.
MAY WIPGO Project: Crescent City Velaris By Woven Wild Crafts
I was able to get a few more stitches in on this project in June to finish June with 572 stitches. Whoohoo! I finished the May WIPGO goal and almost made my June goal. So I will be tacking on 160 stitches to my July goal and then I will be all current. This is still page one of this full coverage pattern. My current tactic is work the color with the most color left for 6 strands before switching to finishing up a few colors with the least amount of stitches. If nothing else, it gives me variety without the chaos of working a 10 x 10 grid.
JULY WIPGO Project: Snowballs for Sale by Lori Holt (Bee in My Bonnet)
Made some amazing progress in just one night. I finished the scarf, outlined the body and head and continued filling in the body of the snowman. This is just in my note app so I have no idea how many stitches I actually completed but it really looks like a snowman now. Looking forward to working on this 4 more times this month.
JULY WIPGO Project: House on Pumpkin Hill by Hello Liz Matthews
Got a great start on this month’s WIPGO project. This one is in my Mark R-XP app and I did almost 600 stitches (594!). I was able to finish the house. While I wanted to start on the border, I just don’t feel confident enough when working on linen to do that so I opted to being working on the Pumpkin Hill part of this stitch. My goal this month is 2000 stitches. At this rate, I will be there in just a few nights. 🤣When I was working on this, it didn’t feel like the hill was really green but in the photo I can see the two shades of green easily. I am looking forward to making lots of pumpkins.
Reflections
Hmmm. I thought I worked on more WIPs than starts and finishes. How wrong was I? I feel like I have been plotting and planning my cross stitch goals and new projects all week. I am sure that is not true, but it sure felt like that as I had to update my floss inventory multiple times for putting away finished projects from June and pulling for kits this past week and for July. I am really hankering to work on patriotic themed projects. While I only have one kitted up and plan to start today, I have a few coming in happy mail plus I have a few free charts I have downloaded. Don’t be surprised if they pop up next week 🤪
What I do have planned is:
- Start Patriotic Tiny Town by Hands on Design (so excited)
- Christmas Calendar Day 5
- Crescent City Velaris (at least 300 stitches)
- The Shepherd (Snowman Collector)
- Snowballs for Sale (2 of 5)
- House on Pumpkin Hill
- Spring Baskets (chart 1)
I would really like to wrap up Spring Baskets chart 1 in July and maybe even start chart 2. This is the last of 4 season series that I need to finish stitching. I have FFO Summer and would like to FFO Autumn soon. I have a bunch of Autumn stitches ready to FFO.
I did receive happy mail this week from 123 Stitch. I was relieved to receive my yard of 14ct white aida so I could finish kitting up my March Month 2 Month by Stitching with the Housewives. It is on the list of starts for July as well as March Square Dance, November Stackables (done this past week), and Patriotic Tiny Town (today!).
The only finishes on my radar for this month are March Square Dance and Spring Baskets #1. I don’t think anything else is close to be done but we shall see. I will be updating my July Stitching Goals on the sidebar if you are interested. I only have 14 Active Projects up from my 12 last July.
Looking from year to year, In July 2024 I started with 21 WIPS (12 active), I had 5 starts and 4 finishes ending with 22 WIPs. July 2025, I am starting with 18 WIPs (14 active), I plan to start 4 and finish 2, so that will give me 20 WIPs at end of this month. Okay so a little less but, still quite a few.
Enough playing with numbers. Us accountants can get lost in the numbers for hours if you let us. LOL!
Happy Mail I received this week besides the white Aida and missing floss. I picked up a few new charts:
Feeding my patriotic soul.
Happy Fourth of July 🎆🇺🇸 Until next week…
Peggy Stockwell in Vancouver, Washington