Floss Friday #68

Hello Everyone! I have had a great week. How about you? We are already one week into December with Christmas just 17 days away! Are you ready?

Starts & Finishes

While I shared my FFO on Tuesday with all my quilty stuff (being a pillow and all), I decided to share it again here as one of my few FFO’s this year.

FFO: Triple Play Pillows: Summer Basket by Hands on Design

If you would like to see more photos of this project check out Tuesday’s post I love stitching each quilty pattern in such beautiful DMC floss. Then making these adorable pillows with the big stitch quilting, just so much fun and a great feeling of satisfaction to finally be able to display them here with my Christmas display (despite being meant for Summer).

My favorite part of this finish was the big stitch quilting. It is so quick and makes such a great impact.

START & FINISH: December Year of Celebration by Hands on Design

I couldn’t resist pulling up all these little stitches to share with you now that I have finished December. Adorable right?! Now to find some blocks or something of that sort to finish these on.

Stitching the elves legs and feet was the best part of the December stitch. They were all stitched on 16ct beige aida with called for DMC, Weeks Dye Works, and Classic Colorworks. I did have to substitute DMC thread for the dark red and blue in December as I was out of the hand dyed thread and didn’t want to wait to stitch my final month.

FINISH: June Snapshot by Pine Mountain Designs (WIPGO project)

This series was a club I signed up with Fat Quarter Shop back in 2021. While I like the design, I totally detest the fabric. It is too loose of a weave for me. Thank goodness the design is just adorable. My favorite thing to stitch on this project was the cute little fifth wheel. The shading was amazing.

With this finish, that leaves just two more in this series and I will be done (October & December). I only spent 3 out of the 5 allocated days on this project. For now, I am saving those two days while I may end up starting the December Snapshot before the month is over. We shall see.

This project is stitched on 10 ct burlap vintage aida with Fat Quarter Shops DMC colors.

WIP Updates

With focusing on June Snapshot, I didn’t touch much on other wips this week. Here is what I did work on.

Snowman Collector: The Clown by Cottage Gardens Sampling

I plan to work on this one three times this month and I was able to work on it last Thursday and Friday and felt like I made huge leaps and bounds finishing up the Big Tops, Trapezee actors, the rabbit and sealion. I was even able to finish two of the three balls and a nice dent in the border.

This project will be setaside until I leave for Seattle/Whistler trip in a little over a week’s time.

2023 SJ Temperature Butterflies by Stitchin Mommy

With the end so close, it is getting harder and harder to set this one down especially since I finished all the butterfly outlines. Since last week finishing the September butterfly, I had to update my spreadsheet for October & November temperatures and then transfer it to my chart. Thank goodness for the digital version of the chart. It makes it so much easier to follow. I worked on this the last two night. I don’t really like using a large hoop. It aggravates my arthritis. Unfortunately the whole butterfly does not fit in my small 6 inch hoop so I am having to use the 8 inch. I have three more colors to stitch and October will be done. It is fascinating watching the color transistion from cold to warm to cold again. So far looking at the butterflies, February was the coldest month and August was the hottest.

Realistically, I will not be able to finish this project until January (sigh). So, I have started planning next year’s temperature stitch. I plan to do a bookshelf for 2024. Caitlin is doing a galaxy for 2023 and it looks fantastic. When I am with her hopefully I can get a pic of her current progress.

Upcoming Plans & Thoughts

I’m undecided on what exactly I want to work on this week which is very unlike me not to have a plan (even if I change it all the time.) I do have some goals for this week:

• Finish up October & November Temperature butterflies
• Finish up Autumn Basket chart 1
• Pull out Snow Village. Gauge where I am at and get a night or two in on it
• Take out Shabby Winter Calendar and spend some time on it as well.
• Work on Let’s Talk Winter
• Work on Christmas Calendar
• Finish Innermost border on November Sampler
• Work on Fruit of Plenty

I have started organizing my thoughts for 2024. I have been working on my digital planner and designing myself pages and moving my paper journal to digital. The past six months have been a lot of experimenting and I am starting to really get the hang of it.

I keep a paper version in my projects (most of the time) but generally work from the digital version. I like it because I can mark my progress without ruining the original. I do this with my quilt patterns now as well. I can easily make notes or write what fabrics I am using for easy cutting and sewing. I just really love having the ability to just grab my phone or one of my ipads and know that I have everything I need.

I still design on paper often. For some reason the size is easier for me to gauge on real paper. Once I am done designing, I switch to digital. Making changes to cross stitch charts digitally is so so easy.

We talked about planning last week. From the comments, I am not the only one who loves to plan! Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy all the eye candy.

Peggy Stockwell, San Jose CA