June?!?

June?  I seem to have lost May somewhere.  If you see it, please let it know I'm looking for it.  Those two weeks that I thought would interrupt my stitching actually threw my entire life schedule off and I am just now getting back to it.  That and the weather turned nice, so the siren call of reading on the deck was difficult to ignore.

I did get some stitching done but that darn deck and all those books slowed me down considerably.  Before I get to the stitching,  Secret Victorian Garden came home from the framer yesterday.  I am thrilled with it:

The outer mat is a bit lighter than the photo shows and has a bit of texture to it.  The frame was a wonderful find.  Face on it has a beading detail that adds a bit of texture and color, but edge on,

there is an echo of the outer boarder.  Just a little unexpected extra. 

I also did some stash shopping.  Yes, me.  I know that isn't a common statement but I could not resist this:

I want to stitch EVERY design in this booklet.  I was first attracted to the dove and house in the upper right corner, but when I read that three out of print designs, Christmas Garden, Tis the Season and Blessings be Thine, were also included (Blessing be Thine had been on my wish list for years), I jumped right over and ordered it.  When I got it and looked at the rest, well, I fell hard and fast for all the other designs, so a very good purchase.

So, stitching...

Well, let's see...

Things are coming along on Christmas Soldiers and it is looking like a stocking:

I finished the flourish after I took this picture, so there is just a short stripe of ecru perle stitching and the toe left, oh and the name tag and some beads and a bit of metallic.  I would love to do a fancy finish like the cover model, but mine will be a bit plainer.

Staying with the Christmas theme, I finished the few stitches for a column finish and put a few stitches into a new column on Christmas Presence

I am looking forward to getting my rotation moving again so I can spend a bit more time with him.

I also had a column finish on Shakespearean Fantasy

All the stitches were in that green blob so I will be back to stitching black on Friday.

On It's About Time rather than stitch block by block, I did a modified cross country and carried on with a color down the column.

 I will have to see how many stitches I missed before I decide whether or not I will use this technique for an entire column.  This will be back on the frame Thursday evening, so hope to fill in lots of those empty spaces.

No classes or traveling this month, so hopefully I can really settle back into my stitching, and blog reading and writing.