A Trio of New Patriotic Finishes

Hi, stitching friends!

Happy July! What are your plans for the month? For my American friends, are you doing anything fun for the Fourth of July? Are you taking part in "Jolly July" stitching?

While trying our best to stay safe and considerate of others, we are keeping our plans fairly low key. We are going to visit my husband's mom and my mom in central Idaho. The county they live in has 4,280 people and has had only 5 cases of coronavirus, so we feel pretty safe going there. We are going to keep our germs to ourselves, though, and wear our masks to keep others safe. (I hope you are doing the same.)

The town my mom lives in usually has the best small-town Fourth of July festivities - a breakfast at the Legion Hall, a big parade down Main Street, a free town barbecue at the city park, games for the little kids and fireworks set off above town by the local volunteer fire department.

This year, however, they are scaling things down to keep everyone safe. The parade and fireworks are still on because people can social distance and enjoy the show. In fact, the area where they set off the big fireworks is very close to my mom's house, so all we have to do is set up our lawn chairs in the front yard to watch them.

The photo above is yours truly (on the left) getting ready to compete in the "potato sack race" along with my little friend Lachelle. It was years and years and years ago (1970-something!). It must have been a chilly morning, with our little jackets on. (That, or my mom is going to email me and say, "That wasn't taken on the Fourth of July!") Anyway, the potato sack race was always one of my favorite events on the Fourth.

We are bringing my son's girlfriend with us and he is excited to show her all the amenities small-town Idaho has to offer. My husband's mom lives on a 1,000-acre cattle ranch so there are all sorts of adventures there. They might set up some aluminum cans and practice target shooting with a .22, or go for a ride with Dad into the forest to check on cows or fences. In my mom's town, there is a beautiful public golf course above town with a pond stocked with fish for kids, and there is a 2-1/2-mile paved walking path around the golf course that offers beautiful views of the entire valley. I'm looking forward to time with our moms.

On to the stitching!

Until this week, I had zero patriotic finishes, aside from my "July Cottage" from Country Cottage Needleworks. I'm happy to say that I now have three more! I featured these in my last blog post, but they weren't fully finished until now.

The first is "Pursuit of Booty" by Sue Hillis Designs. I finished it into a flat-fold using Vonna's wonderful tutorial at The Twisted Stitcher. I added handmade cording and I think it pops!

The second is "Stars & Stripes" by Little House Needleworks. I bought this cute little birdhouse at Michael's last spring. I did my best to finish it "Priscilla & Chelsea" style, with lots of torn red-stripe ticking around the edges. It's a little busy in my opinion, and I don't think I will do this again, but I wanted to give it a shot. The stitched piece is attached to the birdhouse with a magnet so I can change out the stitching with the seasons.

And the third is "Old Glory" by Little House Needleworks. I painted a thrift-store frame and mounted the stitched piece onto some green fabric that Mary from Stitching Friends Forever sent me. I attached some lace that I found at a thrift store a couple of years ago to the back of the stitched piece. I really like how this cutie turned out. I love thrift-store finds, don't you?

Here are all of my stitched pieces together on the cabinet in my foyer. I got the "Great American Sparklers" sign at Michael's a couple of years ago.

Getting to Know You

My friend Carol has started a "getting to know you" section on her blog, Stitching Dreams, and I really like it. I hope you don't mind, Carol, but I'm borrowing your idea!

What is your favorite summertime food? For me, it's grilled hot dogs and hamburgers. They remind me of camping and cookouts. As far as hot dogs go, I like mine charred over a campfire the best. I make homemade sweet relish that is out of this world. When I have a hamburger, I load it up with thick bread-and-butter pickle chips (sweet!), a thick slice of tomato, sliced avocado and leafy green lettuce. So messy and delightful.

What about you?

Until next time, friends, stay safe and be well. Thanks for stopping by to visit!

June...Going, Going.....

Hi, stitching friends!

When I think that it's almost July 4, I think, "What? Seriously?" I've been reading about and admiring your patriotic stitching, and I think about starting some of my own. But then I realize... the Fourth of July is like... two weeks away?! Ummm... maybe I'll get on to my patriotic stitching next year. I got an email that my Colour & Cotton Stars & Stripes Mini Mystery Box has been shipped, so I'm super excited about its impending arrival, but it's a big, fat goose egg on the patriotic-stitching front here.

I have working on about eight different projects lately, using a decision-roulette app on my iPad to help me decide what to stitch on each day. But for now, here's what I have ready to show you.

Halloween at Hawk Run Hollow

I finished block 8 of Halloween at HRH a few weeks ago:

Don't you love it? The colors are so bright, and I love the realistic look of the straight-stitched straw in the scarecrow. He obviously isn't very scary to those crows landing all over him, but I think he's pretty scary.

I have to tell you, this project is pretty cool-looking in the product photo, but it's one of those rare projects that just POP in person. It has been delightfully fun to stitch.

I do have a love/hate relationship with some of the solid-color areas. On the negative side, stitching a large area in one solid DMC color can be dreadfully boring, but on the positive side, if you're watching TV when you stitch (as I do), you don't have to concentrate so hard when stitching these areas.

Now I'm working on block 9, and it seems like I've been on block 9 foreeeeeverrrrr. I took a brief vacation from Halloween at HRH to work on other things, and getting back to it has been hard. I'm almost done, though, and definitely still on track to finish block 9 by the end of June.

Do you love my new needle minder? Creepy! It's from Mad for Minders on Etsy:

Perfect for Halloween stitching. I love Dracula's fangs...

...and I love Frankenstein's monster's mustache. I'm not sure if it is supposed to be a mustache, but it looks like one to me.

Reminds me of a vintage photo, like this poor man's head became Frankenstein's monster's head.

Summer Schoolhouse SAL Update

I've been plugging away on the Summer Schoolhouse Stitch-a-long I've been doing with RJ and Mary of Stitching Friends Forever.

I finished part 2.1, titled "Pretty Miss Polly," in 16.5 hours:

And here is part 2.2, "Little Master Tommy," all finished up:

I think the colors are divine. The bees' wings are hard to see, even in person. They're almost the same color as the fabric.

After tracking 10 hours of stitching time on part 2.2, I decided that I REALLY don't like tracking time. Several of you have mentioned that you don't like doing stitch-a-longs because of either tracking time or feeling like you can't keep up. OK, so I agree! When I have the timer going, I'm super self-conscious about how much I'm getting done and whether or not I'm ahead of or behind RJ and Mary. So, I decided to heck with keeping track of time! I'm putting in what time I have, when I have it.

I think the important thing is knowing that my friends across the country are working on the same thing I am. I know we are at wildly different places in our stitching right now, and that's OK. I'll finish when I finish.

I have started part 3, but I haven't gotten very far yet. Just the windows and part of the door:

Since there is going to be an American flag on the left side of the house when I finish it, I will say, yeah, I'm working on some patriotic stitching, too!

Be well, dear friends, and thanks for stopping by. I read and enjoy every comment, so thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedules to say hello!

Hello, February!

Hi, stitching friends! I hope this finds you enjoying your February, hopefully having such wonderful weather as we are having here in Idaho. Today it was 50 degrees. Fifty! Holy Hannah.

It's been longer than I would have liked since my last post. My oral chemo has been fairly tolerable, but last week my hands and feet were pretty painful, and I just didn't feel like staging photos. But I'm much better now, and I am anxious to show you what I've been up to.

February Cottage by Country Cottage Needleworks, stitched on 32-count lambswool linen with overdyed and DMC threads.

I'm continuing with Country Cottage Needleworks' monthly cottage series, and I am really enjoying stitching these. I have to say, though, that February is not my favorite design in the series. It doesn't quite "pop" like the other months, I think because there isn't as much contrast as I'd like. But it's still sweet. I love the little details in these, especially the little birds.

I mentioned back in December that I was working on "Olde World Traveler" from Leisure Arts' Christmas Portraits (1991). I finished this guy weeks ago, but I had some wrinkles to work out...literally! When I received the fabric in the mail, it had deep wrinkles running through it. I thought they would relax as I cross stitched, but no... that was silly of me. I had never seen wrinkles this bad! I was dunning myself for not returning the fabric, and kicking myself for not trying to press it before stitching. But live and learn, right? I pressed it with a little steam, but nope. Those wrinkles were not going anywhere. Panic!

Wrinkles AFTER pressing with steam only.

Back side of stitching, wrinkles so persistent!

Thanks to a tip from Vonna at The Twisted Stitcher, I bought a product called "Mary Ellen's Best Press" from Amazon (the colorless, scent-free kind). Vonna was right. This acid-free starch alternative is AMAZING. I spritzed the fabric, with the stitching facing down, ironed it again, and voilah! Wrinkles GONE.

"Olde World Traveler" from Christmas Portraits, Leisure Arts, 1991, stitched on 32-count chestnut linen with DMC threads.

You might have noticed in the bottom left corner the faint white lines. Silly me. Those are reflections of my tripod in the glass. *slapping forehead*

The colors in this Santa are a lot brighter than I expected. The colors in the photo in the book were much more subdued. In fact, the purple looked more like a neutral than this bright lilac purple. But he is so cheery in his bright coat, and I love his eyes.

My birthday was great! My husband and son took me out for a lovely Italian dinner and bought me a cabinet for our foyer so I'll have more places to display my stitching, my mom and mother-in-law spoiled me with a gift certificate to 123stitch and money for stitching supplies, and my dear brother in Colorado put together a great gift box with a board game, gift cards, and some of those old-school, stove-top popcorn pans (the ones that explode into a giant foil bubble)! As a kid, I had begged my mom to buy those, but she wouldn't, so I'm just giddy about it. My son is excited, too.

And... my brother is so thoughtful... he sent some artifacts from my childhood. My parents purchased a small weekly newspaper in central Idaho just a couple of months before I was born, so I grew up with printers' ink in my blood. My mom retired in 2004 and sold the newspaper. My brother thought it would be cool to send me some small things he had collected from the paper. I am over the moon, so excited to have these things. Let me show you!

First up, this little bamboo pencil box. I honestly don't remember where we got this, but I hadn't seen it in years. Inside...

A stick! An old business card! And a little cloth bag...

"A stick? She's excited about a stick?" I know what you must be thinking. This little stick brought the biggest smile to my face, because I became verrry acquainted with that thing while working at the paper. You see, our little paper was just that - a little paper. When we got sales flyers to insert in the paper, they were often bigger than the paper itself. So, we had to fold them in half, one at a time. Our circulation was somewhere around 2,000, if I remember correctly, so my co-workers and I would stand around this tall, long table and fold, fold, fold..... We used thin, flat sticks like this as bone folders, to press the flyers flat once we folded them in half. You can see how well-worn this folding stick is, worn so smooth by thousands upon thousands of uses. It was a pretty boring job, but it had to be done, and it was fun to visit as we worked. My co-workers from the paper were some of the most wonderful people I've known.

The business card was my mom's. It's just a little memento, but I'm so glad to have it. She really was the world's best boss. I could write 10,000 words on that.

And that little cloth bag?

We used to special-order rubber stamps for customers from a company based in Salt Lake City, and when they would send the stamps to us, they mailed them in these little cotton drawstring bags with a hanging label. Can you imagine that? And postage to ship it was 54 cents! This one is postmarked 1985, which in my old brain doesn't seem like that long ago. Hard to believe this little bag is already 33 years old.

OK... ready for my favorite thing?

The paper printed letterpress Fourth-of-July programs on wooden slats for the community in 1941. Isn't it cool? (The photo is of the same program, showing front and back side-by-side.) You'll notice the words "under God" aren't in the pledge of allegiance - the words were added in 1954. And the program of events! Oh, how times have changed! (Click on the picture for a larger view.) I can only imagine how wild the "free-for-all race to Village Hall" was, and the winner got to raise the flag. A soap box derby, a salute to the flag via radio, led by President Roosevelt, and boxing and wrestling bouts in a ring on Main Street. Wow.... The town still has a fabulous Fourth of July celebration, with fireworks launched from a hill above town (watching the volunteer fire department put out all the spot fires is half the fun). If you're looking for the quintessential small-town Fourth of July, pack your bags for Challis, Idaho. "Idaho white pine, and plenty of it!"

Have a wonderful day, friends. Happy stitching!