January in April

Hi, stitching friends!

Spring in Idaho is like a moody teenager. One day it's 72 degrees and almost all my neighbors are outside in tank tops and shorts, walking the dog or weeding flowerbeds. And the next day we have a high of 59, strong winds and overnight frost warnings. At least we haven't had snow again. We have had snow as late as June.

Speaking of chilly weather, my post today, "January in April," was inspired by my blogging muse, Carol at Stitching Dreams. Hers was the first stitching blog I ever read, and her post from way back in February 2010 (<--- link) inspired me to get my hands on this chart: Waxing Moon Designs' "Monthly Sampler Series: January."

Isn't it lovely? I love the whimsical sentiment, the variegations in the blues, the "pop" of the red house and how it adds the perfect splash of vibrant color.

I stitched it on 36-count country French mocha linen, mostly using the called-for colors. I substituted Colour & Cotton "To All a Good Night" (from the 2018 Christmas mystery box) and Colour & Cotton "Dark Indigo" for Weeks' "Deep Sea," and I used DMC B5200 in place of Week's "Whitewash."

I plan to write more about Colour & Cotton in a later post, so watch this space. By the way, thanks, Arlene, for the recommendation!

I love January (it's my birth month) and I love blue, so I couldn't wait to stitch this. I did have good intentions, starting it back in January. But I used so much of the "To All a Good Night" thread in the top band and the side borders that I didn't have enough left to finish the bottom band. I wasn't sure what to do since this was a limited-edition thread and I couldn't get more. So I put January away and started working on Halloween at Hawk Run Hollow.

Earlier this month, inspiration hit me. I looked through my collection of Colour & Cotton threads and found "Dark Indigo." While it's not exactly the same as "To All a Good Night," it's pretty darn close, and honestly, now that I've finished this, I cannot tell a difference between the top and bottom bands. Can you?

To frame January, I painted a thrift-store frame that I got for $4.99 with three coats of white chalk paint. (Thrift-store frames are usually priced less, but this one had a signed and numbered art print in it, which I will donate back.) I mounted the stitching on foam core, and because the frame was a little wider than it needed to be, I added crocheted white lace to the sides. I think it's dainty and complements the dainty swirls in the frame. What do you think?

Another bonus to using this frame was that it had professional mounting hardware on the back. I was able to salvage and reuse that. Yay!

My mom bought me the Logan Dual-Drive Elite Point Driver for my birthday, so I used it as well. (I'm linking to this on Amazon because I really like it. I'm not getting money to convince you to buy it! Sometimes readers ask where I found something so I wanted to make it easy to find.)

What's a point driver, you ask? Well, you know those little metal bendy-tabs on the back of your framed pieces that hold everything (the glass, mats, photo or stitched piece) in place and keep them from falling out of the back of the frame? Those are points. A point driver is a tool that looks like a staple gun, and it shoots the points into the back of the frame. If you recycle a lot of thrift-store frames, a point driver is helpful. It also comes in handy when the points on your existing frames break off. This happens to me when I use one frame and swap out different stitched pieces, such as monthly series. Those little bendy points eventually wear out and break off.

Thanks for stopping by! I was so excited when I finished this today that I couldn't wait to show you. I will post again soon, when RJ and Mary reveal our progress on our Summer Schoolhouse SAL. Until then, be well, sweet friends. I hope your weather is a little more even-tempered than ours!