Rainy Monday in July

Well, hasn't the weather been pants recently?  The sky has a permanently dubious look to it and the only predictable thing is that it will rain, whenever it feels like it.  So much for summer! 

Stitching has been less, rather than more, for a number of reasons.

My Poinsettia piece has suffered from too much blog reading at lunchtime, although I have finished that bottom leaf and moved on to the next petal.

The Beetle has moved on slightly - you can see where the front headlight is going to fit in.  This is my Sunday morning piece so I was hampered by getting in about 1am on Sunday, following a late night babysitting for my nieces. 

I was however compensated by coming home from the supermarket on Sunday afternoon to find a bunch of chrysanthemums sticking out of my letterbox as a thank you present for my late night.

Progress on Carnation is virtually non-existent.  Last Sunday Mum and I rolled the fabric on the frame to give me better access to the bottom of page 1 of the chart.  This somehow disturbed the setup of my floor stand which refused to grip the frame properly and it kept falling out. 

Dad has now done his fix-it routine and I am now fully functional again, but I didn't get my work back until this Sunday afternoon so there is hardly anything to show - not even another completed square.

However I do have a new start to show.  I didn't intend to start anything new until I had finished one of my current WIPs, but the best laid plans and all that jazz!

Last month, when I went to Patchwork Group (I'm a member despite not doing any patchwork or quilting at all - nepotism rules OK), one of the ladies said that it made her nervous to see me without any work in my hands.  Well, Carnation is just too big to take out, Beetle's chart is too big  (I work this one sat on my double bed so that I can spread the chart out), and Poinsettia is intended to be a Secret Santa present for one of them.  So I had to find something small to take with me this month so as not to worry people.

So the above picture is of what I got done on Thursday night at Patchwork Group - it is a small kit that I have had for some time - "Fuschia" out of the Carolyn's Garden series by Serendipity Designs.  I have another one from the same series - "Morning Glory" - lurking in my to do pile.  The final piece will be 4 inches square, stitched on 14 count white aida with threads supplied with the kit.  I might make a card out of it once it is done. 

In other news, when Dad was round taking an initial look at my floor stand, I got him to help me hang my Pheasant (see blog header) in my bedroom.  Pheasant was my first piece stitched on evenweave.  The chart comes from XS Gold issue 62, and it took me just under a year to complete.  The colour combinations have been much admired and I thoroughly enjoyed stitching it.  So I suppose that is some progress on the stitching front, to finally have a piece of my work framed and on the wall.