A Summery Recap of All Things Stitchy!
July was full of lots of different things - not as much IRL shenanigans as I would like (which I will explain later), but we still have gotten up to a lot.
So many finished pieces (some of which I can't share with you yet - sorry!), more done on familiar works-in-progress, a new pattern and even a brand new cross-stitch pattern book to work from!
Let's dive right in!
Leading image: Sunset over the area we live in before fireworks started. 😊
Finished Pieces
There were four pieces I completed during the month of July. Three that were brand new to this month, too!
I -unfortunately- can't share the front of two of my finished pieces from this month because it would spoil a surprise. Hopefully I remember to share them later this year!
Custom Commission
We saw the work-in-progress of this piece during June and I'm so pleased to have been able to complete it and mail it off!
It was so much fun to design and especially stitch up. I love getting custom designed commissions!
My customer simply wanted a piece that had a vintage-feel to it and included their family motto:
"Work hard, be honest and kind, don't eat people!"
And with a family motto like that, what's not to like. Am I right?! I included a little home and teensy little people to symbolise their own family members. I found I had a teensy bit of space at the bottom of the piece, too, so I included a subtle family name which tied the whole piece together, making it feel even more personalised.
If you would like to have a piece like this made for your own family (or for another family member or a friend!), let's chat today and make something awesome together!
Gift for my Husband
The third of August is mine & my husband's anniversary (we base it on the date we started dating, not when we got married) which this year was our 22nd anniversary. Crazy, I know!
This year we agreed not to spend any money on each other as finances are tight. But that didn't mean I couldn't make him something with things I'd already purchased! IE; a cross-stitch piece!
The pattern I stitched was made by Stitch Bucket however, the pattern in question is no longer available for purchase (as far as I could tell).
Have a cross-stitch pattern you like, but don't want to learn how to cross-stitch? Let's chat — I have stitched other patterns for customers in the past!
Gifts for the Future
In hindsight, I probably shouldn't be sharing these hoop-butts because… well, what's the point, really? But I guess I want to show something; that I finished another two pieces and therefore, was busy with them during the month of July.
I cannot wait to share the fronts of these two hoops later this year with you as they are super duper adorable. They were also really fun to stitch and an easy work up to do.
Obviously, when I share the front of these hoops I'll link to the patterns themselves also.
Want to be able to finish a cross-stitch/embroidery piece in a hoop like this? Here's how I do it!
New Pattern
It was a couple of days later than I had hoped to release it, but I did finally manage to get "Flower Meadow" out to the world at the beginning of July.
I decided that instead of stitching two year-long pieces over 6 months (and doing "Flower Meadow" during 2024 & 2025) I would wait until the beginning of 2025 to start my own Meadow. Which would also mean I will have finished the "Flower Field" I'm doing for 2024.
Grab your own copy of "Flower Meadow" in preparation for starting a year-long project in 2025.
Works-in-progress
As mentioned back up at my finished pieces, I worked on more than what you see below since I both started and finished working on three other pieces. So what you see below might not look very impressive on its own, but hopefully I can have some slack cut a little bit 😜
I mostly focused on "The Deadly Aquarium" stitch-along -when I wasn't stitching the FOs- as I've been doing my very bet to keep up with that each week. I did struggle to stitch my flowers each day and often found myself needing to catch up with 3-5-odd flowers in my "Flower Field". Yet another reason why I decided not to stitch my "Flower Meadow" as well for the second half of 2024 — it all felt a bit too much.
New Blog Posts
I did a bit better with blog posting during July! I kept up with posting a new hand embroidery stitch (doing it once a fortnight) and even wrote about cross-stitching while you're on a budget and how to do that effectively. Which I personally need to do, myself; finances are tight at the moment - oof!
View the Pistil Stitch
View the Chain Stitch
Read the post
See the episode
Haul
Earlier this year, I pre-ordered a book by Max Pigeon and it finally released and arrived at the end of July!
You'll see in my recent FlossTube episode that I've been through the entire book and sticky-noted all the patterns I would quite like to stitch. Plus, in my future August 2024 post, you'll see the work-in-progress of the first piece I'm working on stitching from it.
It's a beautiful book and I highly recommend checing it out if you are interested in nature-inspired designs (especially stuff from the North America regions!).
IRL
I was surprised at how much stuff me & my family got up to during July, when I compiled all the photos together for this post.
It's not as much as I wanted to do, as I've still been healing from my surgery back in May. So I've been limited in what I can and cannot do physically. But yeah - we've still been busy! So let's check out my shenanigans in July, shall we?
4th of July
As far as I can recall, my girls haven't seen fireworks in person before. Part of that is because C has a sensory sensitivity to loud sounds, but it's also partially because my husband & I are sticklers for a tight bedtime.
But this year, I asked them both if they wanted to stay up late and go see the fireworks (as an aside; I love fireworks. I think they're amazing.) and both of them squealed and said they really wanted to. So because it's summer, they got to stay up well past their bed time, we went for a short drive, watched the sun set and hung out just the three of us (Josh was unwell so he stayed home) watching local fireworks. It was awesome and the girls had a blast!
Hot Tub
When we purchased our house back in 2021, it came with a hot tub in the little backyard. Not something we were expecting, but cool nonetheless!
Each year, we get the hot tub professionally drained & cleaned at the beginning of summer, since we don't really know how to do it ourselves. And each time this happens, our kids are so very excited since it means we can start to use the hot tub again. Which they love!
This year was no different (only that we didn't get it cleaned in June, but July this year) so my kids have been happily spending hours and hours playing in the water. It's awesome: I just sit out of the water most times and stitch 😁
It Was My Birthday!
July is my birthday month! I had planned on making all of my stickers 15% off for my b'day month but time slipped away from me. So as a quick aside; get your discounted stickers now before August ends!
This year was another quiet birthday day - just the way I like it. All I asked for for my birthday was
- not to cook dinner, and
- not to choose dinner.
and my request was granted. Yay!
Online Classes
I discovered Outschool and asked A if she would like to take some classes, including a class on starting a YouTube channel - she wants to be a YouTuber, of course - and she instantly said yes.
So I signed her up for some YouTube channel classes (basically telling her how she can be safe online, how she can edit videos and make thumbnails, etc) as well as a beginner Spanish class and a social & emotional regulation class (the latter has been really good for her!).
I highly recommend the website if you have kids. The classes she's been a part of have been awesome!
Cricut Shenanigans
I forgot to write about it in my May Monthly Post, but for Mother's Day this year, I was lucky enough to get a Cricut Explore 3 as a gift.
However for the longest time I was afraid of using it. No idea why. New things are scary I guess?
But in July I finally worked up the courage and after we purchased a new printer (our old one finally died), I gave printing & cutting stickers a try. And it's kind of fun!
Sleep Study
After many years of poor sleep, my oldest finally underwent a sleep study for a night to see what her sleep is like and figure out ways we can help her improve the quality of her sleep.
Because she's a girl, I had to take her (being the female parent) so I got to see her all wired up and everything. She looked a sight! Even though so much was different and strange physically and environmentally, she did such a good job — I was very proud!
We have to wait longer before we get results, but I wanted to gush about how well she did and show how funny she looked 😊
Kitty Snuggles
Not a lot to say regarding this; I just wanted to share the fact that our cat, Milo -I am his human and who loves me dearly- has been giving me the biggest cuddles recently. Like, really, this is a lot, dude!
We got so lucky with rescuing Milo. He's such a gorgeous kitty both socially and to look at.
Milo was rescued kind of on a whim back in 2019 and he's a Siamese × Snowshoe breed.
Social Media
My numbers are still falling. But I'm doing better at ignoring them, to be honest!
I'm likely going to stop posting these social media updates, or perhaps change it to sharing my favourite/highest performing post from the month, as more often than not I don't really know what to write about.
So I figured I could start now with something good I can share; a Reel that I thought was quite funny that I posted in July.
If you're not following me on Instagram I would love it if you did! There's also two channels you can join over there: One about shop updates and one that's just me being your stitchy BFF!
The other thing I started recently is a Facebook group which is still in its infancy, but I would also love to have you there if that's something you'd like to join in on.
Thank you for being here, reading through this post, commenting (if you have a moment to spare) and encouraging me along my journey and until next time..!
👋 Kate