Another little stitcher

Four Goddesses

The four Goddesses piece has been stitched, now onto pressing and adding a border.  

Peace square update

The Peace Square stitching is complete now I have to press and square the block and send it off to the Artists for Peace project. For info click the link here:https://obsesivcreativ.wordpress.com/2015/06/10/peace-squares-update/

We finally had some rain yesterday a good soaking after more than a week of very hot humid days, even the weeds were looking a bit wilted.

Happy First Day of Summer

Summertime

Peace Square progress

Progress on my Peace Square hand embroidery is coming along nicely, I chose the bright blue DMC embroidery floss 3843, I find certain shades of blue peaceful and calming.

Yesterday I finally found a pattern I had been searching for ever since I bought the Hocucpocusville quilt pattern from Crab-apple Hill studios. This quilt pattern is called Witches in Stitches Bootique

I prompty cotacted the website to confirm the pattern was available and made my purchase a few hours ago, this pattern is by Oh My Bloomin Threads and has 9 hand embroidered witchy themes here are a few close up of the blocks.

Bed Bath and Brooms

Dretta's Designer Dress Shop
I ordered my pattern from http://www.compasscentreshoppe.com 

TUSAL My Orts so far

Another New Moon tells me it is once again time for the TUSAL Orts report, my Orts for May/June are not too bad so far with many more to be added as the weeks move forward.

June Orts

The orts are mainly from the Greenman #2 and this little hand embroidery I made earlier in the month

and from the Goddess piece I started this weekend, I have two Goddesses left to stitch but I will put

them aside so I can work on this Peace Square for the Artists for Peace project, I chose to make a

Peace square on light box

square using hand embroidery, but you can make a square using just about any medium: knitted, crocheted, quilted or sewn, you could even weave a square.  For more details on the project, a look at some of the squares gathered and other pertinent information, like the address where to send you finished square click the link: https://obsesivcreativ.wordpress.com/

I continue to gather hand embroidery patterns for future projects, I just love Crab-apple Hill Studios patterns. This sweet little bouquet should stitch up very nicely and help to fill my orts jar for the next

TUSAL report, what is a TUSAL, it stands for Totally Useless Stitch-a-Long, but to me it is so much more, it motivates me to stitch more, sew more, crochet more etc, it help me keeping up with my goal for 2015 to be more creative, I have to say I have been right on track.

For more information jump on over to and check it out http://itsdaffycat.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-totally-useless-stitch-long-2015.html it's never to let to join.

A garden surprise and a few new fabrics

June is moving merrily along and summer will be here before we know it, in fact this June Solstice in Ocala, Florida, is on Sunday, June 21, 2015 at 12:39 PM EDT, weatherwise it has felt like summer since last week.

We had a few glorious days with afternoon thunderstorms at times bringing a torrential down pour, but the last few days the humidity has been hanging in the air like a heavy veil and those dark gray clouds have passed by holding onto those raindrops like an old miser hoarding coins. SIGH.

It makes for a miserable morning walk when the air is so heavy I feel as if I'm gasping for air, not to mention three minutes out the door your clothes stick you. Today the air was stiffling so I took my walking into the gym and the dreaded treadmill, dreaded because I get very disoriented when I step off, but my knees ache so pedaling the stationery bike was not an option.

I did some light garden work a few evenings this week, mainly pulling weeds and picking up debris after the rains, a big surprise for me last week I noticed my yellow mums have rebloomed, this was a

nice surprise last month when I was cleaning out dead plants from pots and noticed a few yellow flowers had bloomed so I left the plant in the pot after watering my plants, then daily rain so I didn't need to water until a few days ago and wow I was thrilled.

Over the next few weeks I will be planning what to put in my Autumn garden.  I don't regret not planting this Spring but I did miss the planning and planting, but after two months battling illness and nuisance ailments that had me at times flat on my back for days I wouldn't have been able to give the plants the care they needed, so my garden budget went into fabrics, floss and other fibers so I can stitch a garden.

Waverly Inspirations blue colorway

Lecein Flower Sugar

Friday Bundle Batch from http://www.fortworthfabricstudio.com/

I love the blues from Fort Worth Fabric Studio, every Friday a new batch of fat quarters is listed, there is a limited supply so I check the site early to take advantage of the special pricing.  Half yard bundles are also available.
I placed an order earlier this month with Connecting Threads to purchase some 2.5" strips and silk batting.

The strips are Lined Dried, Batik Paradise Oceanic and 2 packs of Spring Samplers, one for me and one donated for this project on facebook.
www.facebook.com/pages/Dianas-Golden-Needle/1620860048143753?fref=nf
The project was listed in June's Florida Quilt Network newsletter and I thought it was a wonderful endeavor this young woman has taken on.

Happily Stitching

My latest hand embroidery project is this small stitchery, a free pattern offered from a favorite website: http://www.red-brolly.com/

I have been getting together the supplies I'll need for the next few projects I want to start putting together.  I thought these fabrics for the Poppies project bag would work very nice together.

Fabric for Poppy project.

Poppy project bag inside

Poppy Project bag stitchery flap

The first time I saw this fabric I immediately thought of the pattern from Crab-apple Hill even the colorway was perfect and some of the flowers look like poppies.

Large flowers 

I thought I would use this coordinating fabric for the two pouches, it even has the little forget-me-not flowers that are on the stitchery pattern.

small flowers

I picked up sewing thread, a few packages of buttons and rickrack to add my own little touches to my bag. 

The fabric also comes in a blue/purple colorway I am considering buying to make a second bag or some other project, I just love the modern look of the large flowers which is a surprise because I usually like smaller floral prints.  

A few days before Memorial Day weekend while going through my fabric bins I noticed I didn't really have much in the way of solid fabrics so I headed over to Joann's early Saturday morning to take advantage of the sale on solid cotton fabric, at $2.49 a yard.

I picked up the remaining colors I needed to restock my DMC embroidery floss which was on sale too.  I have one of each color available on hand it's surprising how quickly I use it up, just yesterday I used the last of a dark green so I write down the number in my little notebook so I know what colors I need to restock.  I may be getting a little obsessive with embroidery floss. 

I bought this sweet little fabric too mainly because I like the bicycle and trees, it also comes in several colorways I like the pale pink and purple and the spring green. 

I am hoping to find a project or two in this nifty little book of hand sewing items, I love having a small project or two that I can take along with me for appointments and group meetings.  It's getting too hot for large quilt projects and heavy crochet or knitting.

 A friend recently sent me a few patterns that include hand embroidery, she is no longer using them so my stitchery pattern collection is rapidly growing as is the companies and designers who make and sell the patterns.

I recently discovered Browyn Hayes Red Brolly patterns and I just love them, as I mentioned the little stitchery above is from the website.  

My friend sent me the pattern book above full of the sweet Brolly Sisters stitchery patterns and I

plan to have a few of them traced onto fabric soon.  I would like to have several of the patterns I plan to work on over the summer traced onto fabric so I can just start one after the other then move on to the finishing when my fingers are too sore to sew by hand.