Slow Sunday Stitching - July 6, 2025

Happy First Sunday of the month to everybody, and that means a look at the two daily projects.

June's Temperature Log specialty stitch of the month was a 'triple rice' stitch.  Ordinary rice stitch is a standard cross stitch over two threads with over one tacking stitches across each leg.  This triple rice stitch is a 6x6 cross with three tacking stitches on each leg - 3x3, 2x2, 1x1.   (For the record, you can also do double rice, which starts out with a 4x4 cross, with the tacking stitches 2x2 and 1x1.)   The was a nice, easy to memorize stitch and was placed in a very regular grid.  So, this month was very easy to do.

The overall piece to date - it's filling in nicely!   The July stitch is another Rhodes variation like May was.  But you'll see that next month.

The full coverage dragon is also making good progress.   See the changeover post (link) for all the stats and a comparison pic for the June stitching.   But if you don't want to click over, here's where she was at the end of the month.  Yes, I had to move up the fabric and you can (just barely) see the basting where the bottom of the piece will be.  

The time this week that wasn't spent boxing up the kitchen and dining room plus shopping for kitchen appliances (yeah for Independence Day sales) was spent on the Just Nan class piece "Butterflies, Blossoms and Bees".   The butterflies are taking over an hour apiece, and that's NOT including the backstitch and beads.   There are ten colors in each butterfly, not counting the beads.   And to help with the bulk of starting and stopping that many threads and also to help the silk lay perfectly, I'm actually using just one strand of the silk thread for the cross stitches and going over each stitch leg twice to give the effect of two over two.   I would rather stitch each leg two times than mess with railroading, but it does slow me down.

I'll be doing the beading at the end, since silk has a tendency to snag on everything without the complication of actual things that can catch ahold of it.   It's a long way until that point; for being as small as this piece is, there's a fair bit of complex stitching in it!  This section's specialty stitch is the Smyrna Cross - found in the butterflies' bodies.

Checking in with the SSS crew (link to current round up).

FINISHED KNITTING PROJECTS - Q2 2025 (April, May, June)

 Links to Ravelry pages

Goth LOSY Hat

Wildcat Turn a Square Hat

Another Goth LOSY Hat

Grape Hurricane Hat

Stripey Slouchy Hat

Full Coverage Month End Report - June 2025

 Good month again on the Mead Dragon full coverage piece.  I'm managing to still keep up with #WIPintoshape with Andrew @theRunnerStitcher.   I am adding his marathon training numbers to my own 100 stitches a day goal.  And I met those goals every day this month, though I did have to net my numbers once when church and family obligations happened to synch up with a high-count day.

I stitched 4,515 stitches on this piece this month.  That brings me to 25,645 stitches year to date and 61,738 on the piece in total = 65.33%.  I'm now working on row 217 and I moved the fabric up.  There's the very tiny hint of where her tail will wrap around the drinking horn.

It's a good thing that I'm motivated by the challenges, because I am in confetti city.   The background isn't so bad, even though there are lot of random stitches, there are only three or four colors in any one ten by ten square - they just swap out as you move across the row.   But that drinking horn is an entirely different kettle of fish!  There are very few patches of color or swaths like in the wing.  It's "stitch one, mark off one, find next stitch.  It's more than 5 stitches away, so flip over qsnap to run thread under surrounding stitches, flip qsnap back, find the next stitch again."  Rinse and repeat.   But at least it's only about a third of each row at this point.  

And for comparison, here's the start of the month:

Rotation Changeover - 2025 Rotation #4, Slot #2 (Not Counted Thread)

Ten hours on the Floral Tote has made substantial progress.   There is still the large central bouquet yet to do and then I do want to line the piece and maybe do a zipper top so that I can use it as a project bag.  

The lining will protect the back of the embroidery as well. 

Now on to the Just Nan piece "Butterflies, Blossoms and Bees".  I'm still working in the outer border - butterflies with Smyrna Cross bodies this time. 

Slow Sunday Stitching - June 29, 2025

I have not mentioned it yet, but I am moving soon.  The rest of June and most of July will be a bit weird and busy.   The renovation on my parent's house will be to the point where I can move in.  There will still be things to do, of course, and I have not yet booked the movers.  But VERY soon - maybe as soon as after the 4th of July holiday!  

I have had the living room, dining room (those two are the green second from the left on the bottom row) and kitchen (the tan right above the green) repainted, and some minor updates done on the main bathroom.   Plus got some of the floors redone on the first floor (see behind the paint sample brochure - century-old hardwoods and so pretty).  The big renovation is to get the laundry moved up to the main floor mud room from the basement.

I've been thinking about this move since before COVID but ended up renting the big house out at the urging of my daughter in law.  That was mostly because I was still working full time and didn't have the band width for a move, but I've discovered that I'm not happy being a landlord.   When my current renters had a family emergency that caused them to break their lease early, I took advantage to finally move in myself.  I'll get my little house updated over the next year or two and get it sold.   I discussed which one to sell with my son, my grandson and my sister and we decided to keep the 'family house'.   

It will be nice to eventually have a dedicated sewing space, though it will be rough finished for a while.  There was a flood in the second-floor bathroom above and both rooms are currently just untaped drywall.  I can live with that - one of those walls will be covered with peg board and have a big cutting table covering most of the space and there will be a design wall covering another.  Getting the upstairs bathroom done is priority, even over getting the little house ready for sale. 

In addition to getting all my books packed up, the main focus this week was the surface embroidery on the Floral Tote.   I am almost at the ten-hour point.   I'm hoping to have a changeover post later today or first thing tomorrow.    I think I can probably finish that bottom section of three flowers, which will leave the main central flowers for next round.  

I've also been keeping up with both the daily temperature log and the #WIPintoshape challenge piece (which is my Mead Dragon).   I'll take end of month photos this week and share next Sunday.  

The next focus project will be the Just Nan "Butterflies, Blossoms and Bees", which will finish this rotation.   But needlework may be scarce and scattered for the next couple of weeks after the Independence Day holiday.   I'm going to focus on the daily goals only, plus finishing.   And I do have a planned start for "Christmas in July".

I'll keep reporting in, if only to prove I haven't been lost under an avalanche of packing boxes LOL.  Checking in with the SSS crew (this week's round up).

FLASHBACK NEEDLEWORK - "Heart Throb Needlebook" - The Drawn Thread

 

Glimpsed in the back of my little "tray where I stitch" is a pink needlebook.   This was a finishing class from back in 2004 that I did with several friends from the KC Sampler Guild.  The pre-stitching was a freebie from The Drawn Thread "Heart Throb".   I can't find it on their website any longer, though it was up until fairly recently, and I did find a copy of the chart when doing an internet search (heart throb cross stitch chart by the drawn thread free).

The inside is fairly simple, just one page for needles.

Simple, but it's the one I grab every time.

Pattern:  Heart Throb (freebie)

Designed by The Drawn Thread

32 count "Cameo Rose" linen

Assorted silks from stash in pinks and purples to match NPI threads in pattern

Mill Hill Beads

Stitches:  Cross over two, Satin, Rhodes Heart, Brick, Cushion Stitch, Queen Stitch, Plaited/Sprat's Head, Four-Sided Stitch/Faggoting Stitch

Finishing: Nun's Stitch, Beaded Ladder Stitch, Buttonhole Stitch

Slow Sunday Stitching - June 22, 2025

It's been another week of hot and humid weather here in Kansas - our typical summertime.  Dela hates thunderstorms, which we are having frequently.   She won't settle down and just paces around, which means I don't sleep either.  Oh well, part and parcel of being a 'dog mom'.  

Sleepless nights means a decent amount of crafting, though.  Let's start with the finish.  The "Stripey, Slouchy Hat" is done.  This one is a charity knit and used up almost all of the cotton/acrylic.   I only have a few yards of the plum left.     

And I got to the end of the ten-hour rotation on the Blackbird Designs "Blessings and Kind Wishes" on Friday.   Very close to a finish on this one.  One more rotation will certainly see the stitching done.

I was going to work on the Just Nan piece next, but the siren call of a new start diverted me to the new 'Not Counted Thread project instead.   The "Floral Tote" bag has a couple of hours in already.   I haven't done a lot of stamped embroidery lately, and I'm really enjoying the rather rustic, casual look of this piece.

Also, the little thing that makes me smile this morning - using an old wooden stack wound spool (with pink thread still on it) as a scissor block.   This is the little tray that sits beside me no matter where in the house I am stitching.   Ort jar was a table gift at one of the Silver Needle retreats six or seven years ago.  Tray is just a repurposed Tupperware that had lost its lid.   There's a 'Flashback' post on the needlebook here. 

It's odd, as many smalls and sets of smalls that I have made, this is the very minimalist set up I keep coming back to.  And I'm not even normally a 'pink girlie'!

Linking up with the SSS crew.   (Current link party)