April Stich from Stash and an early Small report

Month: April
Amount Spent: $0
Amount Earned: $0 (I'm not claiming earnings for finishes

More on the above a bit later.  WHEW!! I finally unpacked my suitcase Saturday and, unlike previous weeks, I put it away instead of just setting it aside. I made my last scheduled work trip last week and had a wonderful time in Maine. In addition to the usual sewerage and water treatment plants (I won't post any photos of those here), we were taken past Stephen King's house in Bangor.

While the house is beautiful, the design of the front gate and fence are the real highlights and yes, that is the last of the 100+ inches of snow that Bangor received this winter.

Because I have been doing so much traveling, I haven't been doing a lot of stitching and because I haven't been doing a lot of stitching, I haven't had any need to do any buying, so my April  report looks exactly like my March report.  SFS is hosted by Mel at Epic Stitching and is designed to help us keep our stash stitching in check. You are given a $25 budget each month and what we don't use rolls over to the next month. You can also, if you choose, get additional credit for finishes. I am not taking advantage of that option, but it is a nice perk. My tally so far is:

Carried forward:  $75
 April budget: $25
Available: $100
Spent: $0
To May: $100

I had one start (and a finish) from stash:

This is the March installment of The Sampler Life's SAL. It's from Tam's Creations. Here it is with the other two blocks:

The next installment will be released next week. We received an email from the moderator and she said it will be a monochrome design, not something I have done a lot of, so I am excited to see and stitch it.

Santa's Magic from Mirabilia made it's appearance in the rotation and I was able to squeeze in a few hours of work on it.

Here is where it was:

And here it is as of today:

I think I will keep it on the stand for a while longer. I would like to get the Wisper in the beard done before I put it away.

We have plans to have the boat's annual safety inspection done tomorrow morning. I hope it doesn't take too long, as I want to get home and put some stitches in Shakespearean Fantasy or Christmas Presence.

APRIL!?!?!

I barely had time to settle into March!! I was in San Antonio Texas last week and flew over some of the same parts of the country as when I flew to Seattle apparently the airlines believe that the most direct way to fly from Richmond Virginia to San Antonio Texas is by way of Chicago a couple of weeks ago and there was much more brown and green land then frozen and white, so winter is finally loosening its grip. I am heading up to Maine in a week, so will probably be back in the freezing and white but know I will be coming home to warm and the knowledge that that is my last scheduled trip for a while.

Despite my best intentions, I have not done a great job of being timely with my SAL check-ins. I am pretty sure I am late for at least two and will probably give them a pass. That leaves three for today's post, HAP, YOTA and WIPocalypse. Fortunately, I have projects that are doing double and in this case, triple duty. With that, here are the SALs:

The 2015 HAP SAL is hosted by Stacy at Crossed Stitches and highlights all those huge projects, defined by Stacy as "the smallest of the dimension of the stitch count is 300", you are or want to stitch and maybe even finish. Shakespearean Fantasy is my HAP for 2015 and 2016 and, and, and...

YOTA is a fun, non-stress SAL hosted by Pull the Other Thread. Just focus on stitching, and maybe finishing, some of those WIPs that may be plaguing you and post on the first Saturday of the month, what could be easier?

And last, but not least,  which is hosted by Melissa at Measi's Musings. As with YOTA, it's a non-stress, stitch and report type SAL. Melissa also gives us topics for each month, April's is: Which speciality stitches do you love doing on projects? Which do you dread? I have done a variety of speciality stitches and like the challenge they all present. I love Rhodes stitches of any kind - they are used quite frequently in Chatelaine pieces and I like the texture they add. Another stitch I really like but don't see a lot is bullion knots. The one stitch I will go out of my way to avoid is Queen stitch. Despite years of trying and hours of practice, I can not get them to lay right and have just about given up on them. Now that I have said that, the next pattern I pull out of my stash will probably be FULL of them!!

And here are pictures:

My WIPocalypse and YOTA projects can be found in the WIPocalypse and YOTA project list and 2015 stitching plan tab. From that project list, I stitched on Secret Victorian Garden by Chatelaine, Spring in the Air by Just Nan, Holly and Hearts Sampler by Lizzie*Kate, Christmas Presence by HAED and Shakespearean Fantasy also from HAED.

Updated photos of Secret Victorian Garden can be seen in my blog post here.  My progress on Shakespearean Fantasy and Holly and Hearts Sampler can be seen here. And Christmas Presence went from here:

to here:

Elegant Doily, despite my best intentions, did not make it onto the frame for its week in the rotation and I haven't decided if I will just skip it this round or push everything else back a week. I have a feeling that if I allow myself to skip it this time, I will do it again next time and the next and I will never finish it. I am going to work on the new block for The Sampler Life's Yahoo group SAL today, a blackwork pattern from Tam's Creations and decide later what I will do with the doily.