Stitch by Stitch

About two weeks ago we were able to go visit our daughter, who is living and working for the summer in Wildwood, New Jersey . We decided to spend part of the day in Cape May which is just a few miles away. We took the ferry over and that is always a good time. 

While we were in Cape May, we just had to check out Stitch by Stitch. (It would have been rude not too! ;o) )This was my first time visiting this shop, and I really loved it!  The ladies were friendly, there was lots of samples, lots of current patterns, and a lot of local pieces which I really like. As you can tell, I picked up a little souvenir. A little kit designed by the shop. It's the best souvenir I have ever purchased! :o)

I picked up a couple of house charts. One is of a house in Cape May. I love stitching houses and cottages! I probably won't start them until the new year. 

We really enjoyed our time there and we are already planning a trip back.
If you are ever in the area, I highly recommend it!

Happy Stitching!
Heather

My souvenir that I started the next day at the beach.

The Cape May lighthouse

One of the many beautiful houses in Cape May.

My purchases and my completed souvenir stitch, which I need to fully finish. 

My family! :o)

May Stitch from Stash

May:
Balance forward: $ 46.77
Budget $25.00
Spent: $ 57.20
Balance to carryover: $ 14.57

Good evening! I got confused on my dates, so I am just going to have a quick post!

Thank you so much for all of your sweet and encouraging comments on my last post! I am still replying to them. :-)

I visited a new to me cross stitch shop this past month. My husband had a comp day during the week, so we headed down to Ocean City, Maryland. I had a few minutes to pop into Salty Yarns. You definitely need way more than a few minutes! :-) But I was able to get in enough trouble in those few minutes. :-)
It's definitely a shop to visit if you ever have the chance!

After visiting Salty Yarns, I felt like stitching again! I am not stitching a whole lot, but I am enjoying it! I finished the adorable project that I showed last time. I just love it! I need to make a trip to JoAnns to find some fabric to finish it up. :-)

One of my purchases this month was County Cottage Needleworks Seasonal Celebrations: Summer. I am loving it! I plan on doing all of the pieces in the series. I love everything about this stitchery! The words, the little cottage and the bunting! :-) :-) :-)

Hopefully I will be back soon with this piece finished!

See you soon! Happy stitching!
Love, Heather

Stitch from Stash update #6

Hi! Just popping in here to post my update for this month. It has been such a lovely month!:-) We have been crazy busy with company, traveling and spending as much time as possible outside that I haven't been able to stitch very much. I am almost finished with my August cottage. Hopefully this week. 

We are busy getting ready for a backyard barbecue birthday bash tomorrow for my daughter. She is going to be 22 in a few days and we were moving on her birthday last year and so we are giving her a nice party this year. :-) Her birthday seems to be the time when things go wrong. Poor dear!  :-) Her 8th birthday,  her daddy was deployed to the Middle East, her 10th birthday was spent in the waiting room of the ER while her older brother was having an anaphylaxis attack from having accidentally gotten peanuts at her pool party. Shortly after her 12th birthday she was so excited about her baby brother being born that she was running in a parking lot and was ran over. Thankfully it was just her foot and leg. And then on her 18th birthday,  I had just been released from the icu after a brush with death. :-) I think she deserves a good party and birthday this year. :-)

We just recently returned from 4 days in Boston. We had to go for a work conference. It was amazing and we can't wait to go back for a long visit! 

Well onto the budget part. This month Mel surprised us with an extra $50 dollars to spend. I decided to take advantage of this offer. :-)

I ended up getting August by Cottage Garden Samplings and the necessary threads and fabric. Two Jane Austen patterns from The Primitive Hare and a beach themed pattern from my LNS. So my total for the month is $ 62.48. That means I used all of my $25 budget and $37.48 from the bonus $50. So next month I will have my carryover of $65.90 from the previous months and my July allowance. I hope I have that right!  :-)

Well back to cleaning and preparing for tomorrow. I will leave you with some pictures from our month. :-)

Happy stitching!
Love, Heather

 

My progress for the month

 

 

Atlantic Ocean at Cape Henolopen State Park

 

 

Laughing Gulls, a new bird for me.

 

 

My sweet husband and two of our children on Father's day.

 

 

Boston Public Gardens

 

 

Make way for Ducklings statues. One of our favourite books.

 

 

 Boston clam chowder, this is in the clam chowder hall of fame. I didn't know such a thing existed. :o) It was fantastic chowder! YUM!!!

 

 

A beautiful pond in Connecticut! 

 

 My souvenir from Boston. :o)

 

 

A view of Connecticut as we were driving. We fell in love with Connecticut and hope to go back soon! 

Stitch from Stash update #5

Good morning! I hope that you all had a lovely weekend! It was beautiful here in Northern Delaware. We have friends visiting from Arizona so there has been lots of sight seeing. Philadelphia, Washington D.C, Ft.  McHenry, Brandywine Battlefield and today they are off to Gettysburg so I thought I would pop on here and give my update.
 

I did really well this month. I only bought one skein of CC thread. So my grand total spent for May is $2.20. I had $43.10 carryover and adding this month's budget of $25.00. That leaves me with $65.90 carryover for next month. :-)

I haven't had a lot of stitching time this month. We have been enjoying being outside as much as possible. :-) We went to Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge on mothers day. I love to bird watch and so I was in bird heaven. We went up to Hershey Pennsylvania and met up with friends for lunch. And company for 2 weeks but, I did manage to get some done. I pulled out of my stitching bag my last cottage of the month that I have not finished. It is August. I had started it last July, but then I got busy with moving and it got put aside. I am almost finished and I will continue with it until I am done. :-)

I have made two color changes. It was just a little too blue for my taste. :-) So I changed the house color to CC Key Largo, and the words to CC Ripe Melon.

Well, I hope that you are all having a lovely day!

Happy stitching!
Love, Heather

 

August Cottage when I picked it back up.

 

 

This is how far I got with my stitching this month.

 

 

A Great Blue Heron at Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge.

 

 

Afternoon tea with two of my three children on Mother's day.

 

 

A fun day was had in Hershey, Pennsylvania. 

Autumn stitching

I had a few minutes, so I thought I would pop on here and show you what I am working on. I finished my October cottage and started November cottage. I didn't get very far before I decided that I didn't like the grapefruit color. So now I am trying to decide what color to use.
I have made some progress on autumn band sampler and then instead of just finishing that I had to start a new project!  ;-)
I have recently discovered the designer Heartstring Samplery and have fallen in love with several of her pieces. So my newest start is one of her thanksgiving pieces. I am loving it even though there have been frogs abounding!
Autumn has arrived in northern Delaware and I am thrilled! ;-) The leaves are starting to change and it is beautiful.
I have joined instagram and have found a few of you. If you want you can find me as sweetpickle02. ;-)
Well I have rambled enough. I hope you are having a blessed day!
Love, Heather

Lots of stitching......EDITED

February cottage by CCN.


Welcome February!! February is my favourite month. Probably because it contains two of my most favourite holidays. Valentine's day and my birthday! LOL!! ;o) I have been enjoying stitching lots of pink. ;o)

I wanted to thank you all for all of your kind wishes for my recent surgery and recovery. They have meant a lot to me!! I am recovering slowly but surely. It has meant for a LOT of stitching time! And more to come. I still have 3-5 more weeks of this resting! I am pretty sure I will be ready for a padded cell by the time this is all over! ;o)

I have been able to finish my January cottage, stitch my February one, stitch my Christmas ornament for January, stitch Rejoice in Winter's Song and finish my oldest UFO! Makes me tired just writing about it! ;o)
Here is a picture of February cottage and where my cottages will live each month. ;o)


This was my oldest UFO! I started it at least 12 years ago, but I think more like 13-14. It is Tea, Roses and Romance by Paula Vaughan. It is stitched on 22ct cream Aida in DMC. I would have ironed it but there is some stains that I didn't want to heat set. I am hoping they will come out when I soak it! If not, I guess they will add to the character of it! ;o) When I originally picked it back up two weeks ago, I was just going to work on it a little here and there, but I became obsessed with it! LOL! I am sooooo glad it is done. It has sooooo much back stitching. When I picked it back up I realized there was a slight error. It would have been major frogging and I decided I would rather just fudge it a little and I am soo happy with the results. I will be sure and show you when it is framed.

EDITED to add a picture of what it looked liked when I picked it back up. ;o)


The chart for Tea, Roses and Romance was a little used and stained! In some places along the crease I had to really guess! ;o)

Here is my ornament for January. It is from a JCS ornament issue. I am not sure which one and I can't bend over yet so I can't dig through my pile to find it. I will soon and edit this post. The designer named it Walt the Malt but I call it Mr. Mocha J. Frappacinno. It is for my coffee loving daughter! ;o) As soon as I am well enough to dig around in my fabric cupboard I will finish it and show y'all! ;o)I have always loved this piece. I have stitched it once as a gift for a friend. I will have to find that picture and share. I am trying to decide how I want to finish this one. ;o) It is by Plum Pudding Needleart and stitched on mystery 28ct cream fabric. With various threads. If someone wants to know exactly you can always email! ;o)


And last, but definitely not least is my lovely January Cottage by CCN. This is stitched on 28ct Lambswool Linen with the suggested threads. It will be already for next January! ;o)

Well my body is saying it is time to head back to the recliner! ;o) I hope my European friends are staying warm!!!

Happy stitching!

Love, Heather

A stitching update

Hi!!! Sorry I kind of just fell off the blogosphere for a while! ;o) My mom came for Thanksgiving and brought a lovely cold with her. ;o) So we spent most of December recovering from that and then all that comes with Christmas. Then I found out I am having abdominal surgery again on Monday at 7. It will be my 4th abdominal surgery in 18 months so I have been having me a pity party! ;o) But, I have snapped out of it and I wanted to get on here and update before I take another break to recover from surgery! In my last post I showed my Peppermint Lane before framing. Here she is in all her beautiful glory~ ;o)


Peppermint Lane by Country Cottage Needleworks

This is where she lived during December and the first part of January! ;o) I started on the January Cottage by CCN but I didn't get very far before I started on February last night! ;o) This is what I got finished. I hope to finish February and then finish January before March comes!;o)

Here are two more Christmas ornaments that I stitched in early December. They didn't get finished. Sigh! Well I am determined once I recover to make them up. I am also hoping this year to stitch an ornament a month. We will see how that goes. ;o)


January 5th was our 24th anniversary, so to celebrate we headed to Phoenix for the weekend with our family. We had a great time and I got to visit Attic Needlework in Mesa for the first time!! It was so lovely. The ladies were so helpful and friendly!! I could have spent all day there and I will some day in the future! ;o) These next two pictures are what I came home with. I was trying to be good, so I didn't get to much! ;o) I was so excited to find a frame for my CCN Cottages of the Month!



Well I started on the February cottage last night, I almost have all of the pink on the house done. Hopefully once I am not too drugged I will be able to finish it quickly! ;o)

Happy stitching,
~Heather

Peppermint Lane

Well construction at Peppermint Lane is complete and just in time for Christmas! Now I just need to pack up and move into one of those cute little cottages! ;o) I am such a sucker for anything with a cottage or a house, especially if pink is involved. I am so glad that I met my deadline to get this finished so we could turn it into tomorrow while I am picking up my mom. I finished most of the stitching last night with watching BBC's North and South (not the American one about the Civil war). LOVE that movie!

I am going to start LHN's Winter Band Sampler here in a little bit and work on some more ornaments. I have two that are almost finished.

I probably won't be on much for the next two weeks, since my mom will be sleeping in our office/craft room but I wanted to wish all of my American friends a blessed Thanksgiving. We all have so much for which to be thankful! One of the things I am thankful for, is the friends I have made through my blog! ;o)


Peppermint Lane: stitched on 28ct. Autumn Fields with called for threads.

Don't you just love my pink polka dot ironing board cover! ;o) My husband says it lowers his testosterone every time he looks at it! ;o)

~Heather