Cottages of the month are complete!

Warning: This will be a photo heavy post. :-) I finally finished all of the cottages. I am so happy!  I love them and look forward to displaying them each month. :-) I have had most of them done for awhile. I was only missing July, August and October. I finished August a few days ago and decided to put my big girl panties on and make them up. :-) I don't like the stretching process. :-)
I will save the rest of my chatter for my stitch from stash update, which I should have done soon. :-)

Without further ado.....

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. 

3 free patterns and a couple of finishes.

Happy Wednesday afternoon!  It is a beautiful day here in northern Delaware. It is actually sunny.  ;-) 45 degrees but sunny.
Several things have occurred in the last few weeks to give me a lot of extra stitching time plus I have had a few projects that were close to being finished. I have 3 projects finished! !! Yeah for me.
;-)
The first thing I have finished is my November Cottage. Once I finished that I was on a roll and pulled out  Autumn Band Sampler by Little House Needleworks. I changed the colors of the words and sunflowers to GAST Harvest Moon and the center of the sunflowers I changed to DMC 3031.

After that I pulled out my Truly Thankful piece by Heartstring Samplery. I ran into a mistake but not until the very end so instead of frogging the entire right side, I decided to add an acorn down on the bottom right corner. I like how it turned out. I am not sure how I will finish it yet, so I will tuck it in the closet until I decide.

The final finish is an ornament that I started last Christmas day. Victoria Sampler's Button up Birdie English Robin. I stitched it on a scrap of mystery 32ct.fabric with all of the called for threads.

I am now working on December cottage and I have made pretty good progress and then earlier I noticed that I must have spilled a drop of my smoothie on it this morning.  :-(  I washed it but there is still a faint spot. I have decided to keep stitching as most of it will be covered by the frame.

I am trying to keep my stash to a minimum so I am going to start going through it and selling and giving away ones that I have finished.So if you are interested in the pattern for Autumn Band Sampler or Truly Thankful. I also have a little Prairie Schooler Freebie to give away. (I am saving the November Cottage pattern to sell the whole set.)Please leave a comment letting me know which one you would like or all of them and I will draw the winners here in a week or so. Please feel free to comment even if you haven't already done so. ;-)

Happy stitching!
Heather

(Sorry the photos are crappy! Next time I will use my regular camera, rather than my phone. )

Happy November

Good morning. I thought I would pop on here for a bit and give you a little update. Not too much going on in the stitching front.  I have mainly been knitting. I have made a little bit of progress on my thankful sampler. And I worked some on November cottage.  I have been knitting on a Christmas gift for my daughter that I will show you next month and I have also been knitting on my hitchhiker shawl. I really like it. It is a relaxing knit.

I can't believe it is already the 4th of November. Where has this year gone?  We are excitedly counting down to Thanksgiving here in the Pickle home. Our oldest son is flying out here to spend it with us. Thankfully it falls late this year and so he will get to be here for his 25th birthday too!  ;-)

I have joined the new CCN and LHN blogs created by Vonna and I am very excited about being a part of these. ;-)

We have been having fun playing tourist in our new area. We have been to Philadelphia, Brandywine Battlefield and Amish country lately. We have a whole list of places we hope to go to soon. I think next up is the Dogfish Head brewery when our oldest son is visiting. ;-)

You can follow me on instagram if you would like to see what we are up to?  ;-) I am sweetpickle02 on there.

Well I had better get busy with my day.I hope you have a great day!
Love, Heather

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

Some more stitching.....

 Here is May Cottage from CCN and the next picture you can see it in context. This is the wall above my piano in my sitting room, which is the first room that you walk into in my home. ;o)

 Here is the progress that I have made on European Goldfinches by Crossed Winged Collection.It is coming along nicely. I am really enjoying this one, I am stitching it on 32ct platinum linen with the recommended DMC threads. I have put it aside for now while I am working on June Cottage. I will pull it out again soon.

 Here is my before picture of In the Garden with Jane Austen.

 And this is what I stitched on Friday afternoon while I watched the first 2 chapters of the '95 A&E Pride & Prejudice. (I love that movie!!!)

I finished April showers by CCN on Tuesday evening. I am going to try and stretch it today and hopefully be back tomorrow to show y'all! ;o)
I hope all the mommas who read my blog had a lovely Momma's day on Sunday. I had a lovely one!! The only sad part was that my oldest couldn't come home! :o( I got some lovely stash and will show that with my next post.
I had better get busy and get some work done before it heats up! It is supposed to be 99 today! ICK! ;o)

Happy stitching1
Heather

Catching Up

Sorry that I have been gone so long!! I can't believe it has been almost 3 months since I last posted. YIKES! Lots going on mainly company and sickness but I won't bore y'all with that! ;o) This post is mainly going to be pictures of what I have been stitching on these last 3 months and then I am going to try and post more regularly. ;o)

 March Cottage of the Month by CCN on 28ct Lambswool Linen with recommended threads except the pink which I used a DMC variation.

 March Flip it by Lizzie Kate finished into a little pillow with some scraps leftover from a skirt that my daughter made. ;o)

 April Flip it by Lizzie Kate not finished into a pillow with scraps from my fabric cupboard! ;o)

 April Cottage by CCN stitched on 28 ct Lambswool Linen using the recommended threads.

 Here is where my April Cottage is hanging with a lovely African Violet. The colours match beautifully! ;o)

 My new start! This is European Goldfinches by Crossed Wing Collection. I am stitching it on 32ct. linen. I remembered the name until I started to type it and then it flew out of my brain. I will look it up and post it next time.;o) I am a little obsessed ( or as my little one says "bazzest")with this project right now. I am loving every stitch of it!! I took this picture two days ago intending to blog that night and I have made quite a bit more progress since then! ;o) Sorry the picture is so dark.

This is another one I have started in March. I had hoped to finish it and have it hanging in my home for April and May, but other the April cottage, May cottage (which is finished I just need to stretch it!), and European Goldfinches have just got in the way of working on this! ;o)

Well, I wanted to thank everyone for commenting on my post last time. I am sorry I didn't email you back. And I also wanted to welcome my new followers!!

I hope that y'all are having a lovely spring! We are enjoying warm weather and our beautiful flowers. We already have baby tomatoes and baby squash! The rest of our veggies and herbs and growing nicely.

See you soon!!
~Heather