Stitching from Stash in July

Hey Blog Buddies,

It's the end of July already and that means it's time for my Stitch from Stash report.  This is a Stitch-a-Long hosted by Mel of Epic Stitching where we all try to stick to a $25/month budget for new stash acquisitions.  I have three finishes and a new little start to show you, too, but first the stats.

I spent a total of $10.25 this past month,
all of it on this one little chart:

I guess I was just in a patriotic mood.

And, it's very cute!

This month I've been stitching on the usual suspects:  Mates, A Tree by Itself and, currently, 99.  And I stitched and finished...

 ...my Semaphore quilt.  My self-imposed deadline was September 1st for this autumn-colored cutie, but I beat that by a lot!  (That usually never happens around here.)  The bottom part of the quilt that's in the shade shows the quilted fern design a little better.  You can click to make any of the photos larger...

...and here's Nancy Buhl's Flowers from my Needle from the workshop I took in back in May.  This had been my traveling piece, because it was so mindless and small--and it was stitched on 18-count canvas so it was easy to see.  What looks like a frame is really the top of a lovely music box.  All I had to do for finishing was trim the piece a little and pop it into the top of the box.  Easy peasy!  It was fun to stitch--I'll miss it.

Oh, don't worry!  I have another small 18-count canvaswork piece in my stash that's been kitted up since last year and which I'll start the next time I go a-traveling.  This is why the Stitch from Stash SAL is so easy for me.

And finally, finally:  The Long-Lost Pumpkin.  That's not its real name, but that's how I was starting to think of it, since it took so long to get it finish-finished.  Remember this?

If you've looked at this blog at all in the past year, of course you do!  And you were probably hoping never to see it again!  I posted about my June 4th finish of this weeks ago.  It was at the finisher's until the day before yesterday.  It took a long time to be finished--much longer than the three weeks which was promised--and then it was weighted wrong (very lopsided) and the green crocheted stem had it's wire poking out.  It was a mess.  Why would the finisher/store even think that a customer would be happy with something like that?  I had the store send it back to the finisher to be done properly, even though I had wanted to enter it in the Lake County Fair and didn't think that it could be fixed in 10 days' time, which is all the time that was left at that point.  But it was more important to me to get it finished properly.  So I did get a call on Friday that it was done (again) and went to pick it up.  Saturday was the Fair deadline.    Did I mention that it's a 120-mile round trip to the store?  The weighting issue was fixed and the stem was fixed, but overall it was just OK.  To be honest, I probably would have been happier with the result if I had not been mentally comparing it to the stitched model that Debbie (Stiehler, the designer) had brought with her when she taught the workshop last year.  And the store owner did give me a 10% discount for my extra trip.  All I have to say is it's a good thing that paying for finishing doesn't count against the Stitch from Stash budget, even with a 10% discount!

Debbie Stiehler's Autumn Pumpkin Patch.

Yes, it looks fine in the photo.

All's well that ends well, I guess.

Last but not least,

here is my new little start (from stash, natch):

This is Blackbird Design's Bird in Hand.

I seem to be in a bird mood recently.

My friend Anne gifted me the chart a while back.

Yes, I just finished another small piece called "Bird in Hand,"

but that was from La D Da.

This will be just a bird, a branch and a border, no words.

I'm using a dark blue floss instead of the red

which was used on the original model.

The ground is a 40-count piece of mystery linen from my stash.

So that's it from here.

I'll be back in a week or so with 

the Lake County Fair report.

Hope you had a wonderful weekend.

Thanks for visiting!

June Stitch from Stash Report

Hey Blog Buddies,

Mel from Epic Stitching is hosting a SAL this year where the participants try to keep spending on new stash to $25 or less per month.  This is the last day to post progress for June, so I'd better hop to it.

I spent a grand total of $6.25 for the month on this quilting book:

It was on sale, and I had a $10 gift certificate.

This little pattern from the book caught my eye...

The blocks are a combo of Log Cabin and Courthouse Steps designs.

I like everything about it.

 I did finish piecing the top to the Semaphore lap quilt

that I started earlier in the year,

but do not have a photo.

I'll show it to you once it's all quilted and bound.

No new starts (other than the workshop last weekend),

and I'm still working away on Mates, 

my hardanger table topper and 99

for the Turtle Trot SAL.

I spent the better part of June catching up

with the Nordic Needle Canvaswork Club piece.

I hadn't worked on it since February,

when it looked like this...

We get the instructions for this piece

in monthly installments.

I decided to do all four month's worth of instructions

that had been accumulating

in the project bag,

and it now looks like this...

The piece is Laura J. Perin's Nordic Panel.

I believe it's a little over half done now.

That's it from here.

Hope you're having a great weekend!

Thanks for visiting!

NBOTB

Hey Blog Buddies,

It's quite the lovely spring day here (finally!).  In addition to my round robin project, I've been working a little on my quilt.  After I got my blocks completed, I laid them out on the bed according to the pattern (don't have a design wall) and then carefully sewed them together in strips.  Well, when I went to sew strip #1 to strip #2, I sewed them together in the reverse order, so I had to "unsew" that long seam...

As you can see, I've gotten the strips almost separated--only 1.2 more blocks!  It's amazing how much longer it takes to unsew than it does to sew strips together!  I'm definitely out of my comfort zone any time I use my sewing machine, so after I get the strips separated, I think I'll take a short break from this piecing project and do some stitchin' instead.

Speaking of quilting, the cryptic title of my post refers to a New Blog on the Block that I want to introduce:  Prairie Quilts and Other Things.  Shirley and I go way back--all the way to high school--and she is a much better quilter than I am!  If you have a minute, please click on over to her blog, take a look around and say "hi."

That's it from here.  Hope you all had a great weekend.  And thanks, as always, for visiting!

March Stitch from Stash

Hey Blog Buddies,

Mel over at Epic Stitching is hosting the Stitch from Stash SAL this year.  We all have $25/month to spend for new stash.  Obviously, the goal is to stitch from stash as much as possible.  So, time for the monthly SFS report.  My purchases for the month so far are three packages of beads for a blackwork freebie that I plan on starting later on in the year.  

You can find the instructions for the piece over at Blackwork Journey.  It's gorgeous and looks like a lot of fun, but it's yet another really large piece--it's called Save the Stitches and the directions are coming out in installments.  

I also got some fabric from JoAnn's.

This will be the backing for a lap quilt that I started a couple of weeks ago.  The pattern is called Semaphore and it's from the Fall 2013 issue of Easy Quilts.  Here's a photo of the model:

All my blocks are sewn. I chose an autumn colorway:

So, beads:  $4.50; fabric, $15.70.  Deduct that from the $25.00 spending money for March, and there's $4.80 left over.  Add that to my $35.08 carry-over, and I have $39.88 going into April.  (Too much math!)

I had a birthday this month, so I got some stash as a gift.

These are GHI and JKL of the Prairie Schooler Alphabet series.  There's also a little seasonal chart from Heart in Hand called A Spring Day with a cute bunny and flowers.  I still need five charts from the PS Alphabet series.  I plan on stitching them as one large piece.  Not this year, though.   (smile)

Finally, I participated in a workshop this month hosted by my Guild.  The piece was Carrots by Jennifer Riefenberg, and the pattern was so cute I couldn't resist...

See what I mean by cute?

Here is where I'm at.

Other than that, I've been stitching along on my rotation

which seems to be filled with BAPs at the moment.

This week I'm stitching on a round robin piece

which unfortunately I won't be able to show.

So that's it from here.

Hope everyone is having a lovely spring or fall,

depending on where you live.

It's technically spring here,

but we're expecting more snow (and cold) tonight!

Thanks for visiting!