Let’s talk about April, shall we?
As soon as it arrived, it felt like April had passed just as quickly. A lot has happened though! LOTS of stitching, especially on teacher gifts (which were ALMOST complete at the end of April), three finished pieces (woohoo!) and of course, lots of non-stitchy things.
May and June have generally been more hands-off the past couple of years as the school year wraps up and my kids have their birthdays. But I’m hopeful that I can keep up with product releases and maybe even the stitch-alongs I’m actively a part of..!
New Pattern
Even despite the craziness that has been teacher appreciation pieces, I managed to squeeze in a new pattern release (thanks to my test stitcher, Jessica!). The new pattern; “ Call Therapist” is the fourth in my “Adulting is hard” series and features another new flower type, but keeping the same style border as the other three pieces.
I’m trying to brainstorm new flower ideas for future pieces in this series and having some trouble. Leave a comment below for me, with ideas for what flowers I could do!
Finished Pieces
I completed two pieces during April -much to my surprise!- and I was lucky enough to be able to hand both off in person. Which hardly ever happens!
The two pieces in question are very different but show you great ideas for what you can order as a stitch portrait piece. Let’s see them, shall we?
Hans & Pablito
This piece might look like it could have taken just an afternoon to complete, but it involved a lot of finessing with the design (even before stitching happened), colour changes and floss combining to get the look of these two cats just right. Then there is the two toys - one was easy to stitch (the blue mouse) and the other one was easy, but time consuming (rainbow feather toy). Totally worth it, though!
I used my [freely available] Nancy font for the writing on this piece which I will completely admit: I am obsessed with. I think the whole piece needed just a little bit of text that wasn't overwhelming. What do you think?
The Schlanger Family
I’ve mentioned on my FlossTube that I donated a six-character piece to a silent auction that was held to help my kids’ school a while back. The winner of the piece was a family of four + doggo with matchy-matchy outfits. Couldn’t have been more perfect!
I really love how this entire piece came out in the end. I used my Daphne font for the family name with this piece [which is tricky to stitch but absolutely worth it in the end. Don’t you think?]
Works in progress
I had so many works-in-progress this month. As of writing, seven of them are actually completed too (and of course, I forgot to take a photo of their progress at the very end of April to share here, so apologies 😵) but let’s see what else I worked on this month with their progress at the end of April.
New Feedback
Being a small business owner has taught me that you can’t assume people will give you feedback, no matter what you do for them. So whenever I receive positive feedback, I am always so grateful..!
This month, there were two comments I received that gave me warm fuzzies, that I wanted to share. Mostly for posterity for myself. That way, I can look back in the future and be reminded that I do actually do good work and people appreciate it.
IRL things
Oh man, what a month it has been. My girls had Spring Break with school, we had snowfall at the very beginning of the month, and Noodle has settled into the family very nicely. It also seemed like it was -inadvertently- a Charlie-focused month, which you will understand once you see what I’ve been up to..!
Spring Break
At the start of the month, my girls had a week of Spring break which I managed to get them out of the house a few times. So I call that a success..! One of the days I took them to our nearby kids museum, which they both really enjoy (even though it’s actually quite a small building. They have packed SO much into it..!). It was also a lovely, sunny day so we got to spend some of the time outside in the sun while we were there.
Each day was kept busy, but I do think the girls had a nice week off school. The last one they’ll have before the summer break.
Field Trip
Right after the Spring break finished, Charlie’s entire grade had a field trip to the Pacific Science Museum in Seattle. 130 kids in total - it was very noisy on the buses, believe me..!
The thing that Charlie was most looking forward to was being able to catch not one, but two big school buses (there and back). She adores school buses and has wanted to catch one of the "big" ones for a very long time (she catches the smaller "baby" bus to school each day) so this was like a dream come true.
I was a chaperone for just Charlie for the field trip so it was lovely to be able to spend one-on-one time with her. I tried to get her to stay with her assigned small group of fellow third-graders, but she -as expected- wanted to do her own thing.
![A young girl wearing pink headphones looking intently at a little [real] butterfly](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0732/3733/2277/files/230505-irl-trip_charlie-butterfly.jpg?v=1683414213)
Noodle
As an update: Noodle the cat has done really well becomig part of the family. He's growing so much, so quickly (check out the photo to the side), which is no surprise because he eats almost everything. Including trying to eat coloured pencils..!
He's definitely living up to the "Ragdoll" personality as he loves cuddles. He will climb onto us, purr loudly and then just flop. Which is silly, because he expects you to catch him as he flops 😝
He and Milo get along so well (although Milo can get tired of Noodle's antics but that's understandable with the age difference) and I can't wait to see the kind of cat he grows into being.
Charlie’s thumb
Right at the end of the month, Charlie accidently slammed her left thumb in the car door after grabbing her school things and broke the bone. The poor thing. I thought she was having a tantrum that I was walking out of the garage "without her" (long story) so didn't pay too much mind about her tears. It wasn't for a few minutes that she showed me her hand that I realised the gravity of the situation.
It's the first broken bone by my kids (so she almost made it 9 years) and she's been such a trooper about the entire process. We went to the ER to get x-rays done and -sure enough- she has a hairline fracture on the tip-bone of her thumb. 4-6 weeks in a splint to help it heal. Oof.
Funny thing is she keeps trying to bargain with me to keep the splint off. Cheeky little girl.
Met Jessica
I wrote about this in an Instagram post, but it was cool that I wanted to share here too!
After an appointment I had one day, I quickly ducked into my favourite little hole-in-the-wall craft store to grab something, while avoiding heading home for just 5 extra minutes. While I was pining over all the other bits and pieces in the shop, I hear someone behind me say "Are you Kate?".
Turns out it was none other than one of my amazing test stitchers; @jessistitches!
She was on a road trip and had her husband drop her off at said amazing hole-in-the-wall craft store, a minute after I arrived myself..!
The best part - she was wearing her "Stitch Repeat" t-shirt!!! 🤩
That's everything..!
Thanks so much, once again, for reading this post! It was sort of difficult to write this month as I've been dealing with a head-cold for a few days. But we got there..!
How was your April? Are you doing any of the same stitch-alongs that I'm doing?
Let me know in the comments below if you enjoy these posts! Now I need to run off and figure out dinner for my family. Hehe 🏃♀️
👋 Kate
Social Media
I've been trying to be better at posting a bit more frequently on my Instagram (and be a presence on things like Facebook and Twitter). It's been hard, as I'm still feeling really dragged down by the entire platform as a whole, but I've been doing better.
Followers are slowing trickling in and out, and I'm doing better at being OK with that as a whole. It's definitely so, so hard not to compare myself with other accounts that are similar to mine and forget the gravity of what it would be like to actually see well over 5.6k people in person. That would be... daunting to say the least.
Is there a specific type of post that you enjoy seeing from me? Leave a comment below!