I don't know where I've been...

Month: May
Spent: $27.67
Earned: Not participating

It is Memorial Day weekend in the States, so I thought a collage was in order.  This is my family during World War II:

On the left is the home front, my Grandparents, my Aunt Linda and my Dad. On the right from top left to bottom right, are my: Aunt Hazel; and, Uncles Dale, Bob, and Dick (thanks to my cousin Dewey's Facebook page for the photos).  My Dad went on to a 30-year career in the Army.

So, when I last blogged (a month ago!!!), I had great hopes of keeping up with all my check-ins and tearing through the stitching. Um, yeah, not so much. I would love to tell you that I was working on something with great socially redeeming value, but honestly, I have no idea what I was doing that took all my time.  That is not totally true, my parents came to visit a couple of weeks ago - Thanks for coming Mom and Dad!!!

I will not be able to catch up on all the check-ins I missed, so will get the ones that are due soon. The first is

Simple and easy - try to stitch from your stash as much as you can. Each month you get a $25 budget (I'm tracking in US Dollars but you can convert to your local currency) and what you don't spend does roll over. Well for the first time in a long time, I bought something this month!!! It hasn't arrived yet, but I am going to count it and will show you when it arrives. So for May:

Balance forward: $100
Budget: $25
Available $125
Spent: $27.67
To June: $97.33

I had three new starts from stash:

This is Rosewood Manor's contribution to The Sampler Life's SAL. It is stitched with the DMC conversion:



A couple years ago, I stitched 99 by Ink Circles for my son. During the stitching I showed my DNephew the photo and h really liked it, so I started one for him this morning. It is stitched on 32-count Vintage Buttercream from Lakeside Linens with DMC.

 



And finally, while my parents were visiting, my Mom was going through her stitching bag and asked if I wanted to stitch this for her:

 

It is Just Nan's Swan Lake. It is stitched on a 28-count Dark Teal Green cashel with DMC and the included beads. Technically it's not my stash, but it is a start from stash.

On other stitching.  I didn't get Santa's beard on Santa's Magic by Mirabelia, finished as I'd hoped, but I did get from here:

 

 

To here - I very much dislike stitching with Wisper thread!!!:

 



I also put a bit of time into Christmas Presence from HAED.  He went from here:

To here:

And finally, I'll do my check-in for:

I am using my blocks from The Sampler Life's SAL as my Smalls SAL each month. I showed the finished block above, and here are all four blocks together:

The weather for this weekend is just too beautiful (upper-70s/low-80s, very low humidity, light breeze - pretty close to perfect) to spend much time inside, so I'm not sure I'll get too much stitching done over the next 2 days, but Monday is supposed to start being summery which means hot, hazy and humid - no fun for working outside, so maybe then.