Floss Friday #88

Happy Friday! After a blazing hot weekend, starting Tuesday we went from 80F to 65F. They are saying it should be a dry weekend though. I had heard on the news that we have not had back to back dry weekends since October. That seems so crazy when just a couple of years ago we were in a severe drought. I am thankful that this winter was wet but we were not drowned. Love living in Northern California.

Now to jump into sharing this last week’s stitchy projects I worked on.

Starts & Finishes

I didn’t have any new starts this week but I did have two new finishes.

FINISH: March Monthly Markings by Heart in Hand

My missing thread came in last week’s happy mail so I was able to finish this cute derby hat with the shamrock. Love the thread choices of this designer!

FINISH: April Year of Celebration Season 2 by Hands on Designs (WIPGO Project)

This was a fun little stitch. My favorite part was stitching this cute carrot border. I am loving this series so much. I keep making little mistakes, but it is so easy to compensate. I can’t even tell where anymore. LOL!

May WIPGO Projects

May’s random project numbers were drawn. Number 13 was one of the projects so that means a third number was drawn. WIPGO is setup like a bingo card so 13 is a free square for many people. Just not me.

The goal for each project is to work on it 5 times during the month.

Project 5: Let’s Talk Summer by Hands on Design

I pulled up my last time I worked on this project. It looks like I am close to finishing this chart and I have the medium size chart which will be a pillow left to make as well as the paper charms for the mini hoop in this series. I forgot how cute this one was and the colors are gorgeous! I can’t wait until May!

Project 13: August Calendar Crates by Stitching with the Housewives

I finished the June Calendar Crates in April and had already pulled the August Calendar Crate to start in May. This timing is perfect! I am ready to go May 1st with this projecgt

Project 19: Winter Camper by Bobbie G Designs

Have I mentioned that I do not look forward to working on this project. It was one of my original projects when I started cross stitching in May 2020 and I messed up the snowman on the right immediately. I have been compensating ever since. #sigh. But I am determined to finish it. Last time I worked on this I decided to focus on the top which ended up being fun. I think I will finish the trees and the sky this time around. I don’t think I will be able to work on this for more than an hour in one sitting just because I don’t like working with all the partial cross stitches and outlining. It will eventually be finished.

WIP Updates

I have continued working on one project to push to the finish every night for one hour. That is working well for me. I feel like I am making a ton of progress. I have worked on 17 projects this month. That is a lot of projects. I have counted each Monthly Markings and Year of Celebration as seperate projects for the months but each shelf of Temperature Library is one giant project.

You may wonder why. I count them as seperate if they have their own pattern even if I decided to stitch as one large piece. Monthly Markings come as a seperate pattern for each month plus another pattern for the large piece border. Some people have stitched the Year of Celebration as one piece. I have not but even if I had, it would have been listed as a seperate project as each month has it’s own chart. Meanwhile, The Library project is all one chart even though I am stitching each shelf by month.

When I started stitching Prim Stitch and Snow Village in 2020, I counted them as one project even though they had seperate charts. I found myself very discouraged that it was taking so long. In 2023, I changed my approach and I feel way more accomplished now. #semantics #positiveoutlook #dowhatworks

Moving on to last week’s projects

WIPGO Project: 2024 SJ Temperature Library by Kristi’s Corner

When I work on my Cottage Temperature Quilt, I don’t actually write anything down because I have premade all my blocks. I just read off the weather website. With the cross stitch, I designed an excel sheet where I enter my temperature thread conversion legend at the beginning of the year, then each month the temperature per day. Voila! Then I have a stitching chart which then I write on each book in my chart in my digital notebook. (I use Goodnotes app on my iPad)

This ended up being pretty late process this month. So my first day I just worked on filling out the bookshelf itself more. It took me two days to stitch the shelf and I have gotten much better picking a thread to outline/seperate the books with the same color floss.

I loved my butterflies last year and literally had to wait for each month to end before stitching. The spots on the butterfly were not consecutive and the easiest way to stitch was by color, not number. I realized this month, that I could actually start stitching this one once a week as the books are in order and I can not stitch by color. I have to stitch by day. So next week when I start on April, I hope to finish it by May 1st. Then I will start stitching it in 6 days increments the same way I need to put together my temperature quilt.

I just love the randomness of these stitches. The designs are always a pleasant surprise.

Let’s Talk Spring by Hands on Design

This was my daily project this week. While I didn’t actually stitch seven days in a row on this project, I did get a lot of time in on it. I am so excited. I have three flowers left to stitch and I will be done with this whole series! So exciting.

Mr August, A Calendar Gnome by Charlie’s Needle

While working on this one this week, I realized that I am actually getting close to being done. I spent the whole time working on the gingham roof of the cart. After the roof is done I will only have bees, some flowers in the basket on the ground, and the word August left to do. Whoa!

I really love this series. I think the reason it is taking so long has to do with the lugana cloth not the design itself. I am just so slow on anything not aida. I just remind myself this is not a race. I am doing this because I love the slow reveal.

December Snapshot by Pine Mountain Designs

I am not sure what happened. I swear I took a picture of this one, but I can’t find the one from this week in my photos. I am sitting here debating whether to hold up posting until I get home to take a photo……

Okay, that is what I am going to do. Hopefully I remember to post. Last week, I forgot. 🙄 so my post was late. C’est la vie.

Anyway, I was able to finish all three stockings on the mantle which was a lot of fun! I enjoyed seeing them slowly revealed.

Green House, A Fabulous House by Cottage Garden Samplings

Because I was making a new receipe last night, I was in the kitchen a lot so I didn’t get as much time on this project as I would have preferred. So I focused on completing the center panel of the Green House. I am a little disappointed how well the white shows up on my cloth, but it’s not bad. This pattern was a challenge scanning in so I often have to refer to the paper version.

Obviously stitching the flowers 🥀 are super rewarding, I am enjoying working on the “glass etching” for each panel. I look forward to spending more time on this project.

Upcoming Plans & Thoughts

I am headed out of town for the weekend. I am attending a Celebration of Life for a former co-worker. I decided to make it an extended weekend and to do some fun things like hitting some quilt shops and wineries. I might even do a hike or two since the weather is expected to be mild. I have landed on taking only one english paper piecing project and one cross stitch project for any possible down time although, I don’t expect a lot.

Here is this weeks plans:

• Finishing Let’s Talk Spring tonight
• Work on Blooming Tiny Town tonight
• May Stackables this weekend
• Last two days of April will be spent working on my April WIPGO project Temperature Library which includes starting the April bookshelf and then finishing it in the first couple of days of May.
• Start & Finish August Calendar Crate – mini chart

The list seems so short, but those are actually big plans. If I don’t finish May Stackables this weekend, then it will be my next “hour per day” project.

I need to start planning May. I consider May part of Spring so currently, I have no plans to put any projects on hold and pull any new ones out. I don’t even have any real new starts planned other than my current small series – Monthly Markings and Year of Celebrations. If I actually finish May Stackables in April, I will probably throw another Stackables on the New Start list. The next one in line is July. It is a wait and see for now.

It would be cool to finish the Truckin Along Series and Sail Away in May. I will have to check to see how they look next week to decide on my May Monthly goals. I feel like what I am actively working on is slowly decreasing as I finish some of these series and projects that I started in 2020 and I am becoming pickier about what I will start nowadays. I noticed that a lot of the new stuff is … more advanced intermediate and large projects. I am glad I have intentionally picked so small series to work on.

Now to just Final Finish some of those series. That is a Later Problem not today’s problem. Everyone enjoy their weekend. I am going to share a cat picture with all of you because I love my kitties.

I have a video of Simba sleeping 💤. I wanted to capture him snoring but that is not shareable on the website. It is hilarious how loud he snores. I sent it to my grandson Shaun. The 16 year old found it just as funny as me.

Happy Stitching everyone!!! Enjoy.

Peggy Stockwell in San Jose