Stitching Friends Forever

September Friendship
Challenges
Friendship gifts
Freebie


It is so hard to believe it is the end of September.   We always hate to say goodbye to summer but look forward to the cooler temps and changing colors of Fall.   Some of us however will endure the heat for a few months longer.  I'm actually writing this from the beach and Mary is on a business trip in Florida and it remains hot here.

We are closing the Friendship month with our challenges and some lovely gifts from stitching friends plus a freebie at the end. We hope you enjoy.


RJ's Stitching Challenges
We have missed our challenges for a few months so I have two French village stitches to share and one finished Santa.   I had hoped to have two Santas but the beach called my name.   We actually got a last minute invite and could not turn it down because it is our favorite place to be.

My stitched challenges are the village church and the village needlework store.   They were both a joy to stitch.   Not many changes were made to these two.   I did change the colors of Mary and Joseph to softer colors.  I am truly enjoying stitching the French Village and look forward to their finishes.  I still have to stitch their shop names on the empty signs and I will name the church at the bottom too.   I did find out this week that there are no cardinals in France.  I read that they are only in North and South America which was a big surprise to me. When I started my village, I did not know this.   I'm going to leave them though as anything is possible at Christmas right?


The Church

I think I will name it Saint Pierre Cathedral

Hometown Church
by Little House Needleworks
called for threads with a few changes
40 ct. country mocha linen

The Needlework Shop

Just needs a name.  Can you see the spool right under the roof?

Hometown Holiday Needlework Shop
by Little House Needleworks
40 ct. country mocha linen
called for threads

RJ's Finished challenge

Patriotic Santa
My finished challenge is the Patriotic Santa from Prairie Schooler.  I loved stitching this one as I always love patriotic stitches and this one is so sweet. For the finish I added a blue star fabric, a red plaid yo yo, flag heart button, red rick rack and a flag charm on a star bow at top.  I have five more to finish so all my Santas will be ready for my Christmas dough bowl.   Time to get busy!!!

Sitting in a grape bucket filled with  plumbago

I changed the yo yo twice trying to get the right fit.

Patriotic Santa 2002
by Prairie Schooler
over dyed threads from my stash
35 ct. Weeks cocoa linen
button from a craft show in Texas

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Mary's Finished Challenge

Farm Fresh
This past August, Arlene at the Nanaland blog had a give a-way of the "Farm Fresh" chart by Hands on Design.   I was thrilled when she notified me that I was the winner.  I wanted to use this in my kitchen for my Fall decor so I changed up the colors.   I used GA Chamomile for the straw, DMC 5200 for the eggs, GA Wheat Fields for the border and GA Wood Trail for the letters.

I had no idea how I was going to display it but serendipity struck!  I was checking out Michael's 80%  end of season sale and found this cute wire basket that contained 3 bottles fused together.   It was only $4 and I knew it would be perfect for the stitch.   I aged the chicken wire with raw umber acrylic paint.

I then attached the stitch to sticky board and covered the back with a piece of fabric using Aleen's Fast Grab Tacky Spray.   I think this was the easiest finish I have ever done!  I see more stitcky board projects in my future.

Farm Fresh stitch with a flower arrangement I did for the Fall

Closeup of Farm Fresh on my new bottle holder

Farm Fresh
by Hands on Design
over dyed threads in my stash
Bottle holder from Michaels

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Gifts of Friendship

A gift from Stasi to Mary

Stasi at Beemused and Bee stitching blog has two sweet granddaughters that enjoy crafting.   I have an extensive card making supply and so I sent the girls supplies to try their hand at card making.

These are sweet borrowed photos from Stasi's blog.   You can see they are in deep concentration on their projects.  Esther is first and Cora is the second photo. 



I thought it was so sweet that the girls asked what my interests were and made the cards with them in mind.

The girls included horses, a camera, flowers and many of the things I like

Stasi sent me this beautiful gift to say thank you and what a special gift it is.  Thank you Stasi for this lovely locket and crow pin.  I love them both but especially the locket as I truly appreciate the time and effort that goes into a stitched gift.  You can visit Stasi and her awesome projects here

I will treasure it!

What an adorable spool  box it came in!

This is the front of the box that the gift came in.

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A gift to both of us from Robin
Robin sent us both gorgeous Victorian Motto Sampler threads to try out. These threads are so soft, beautiful and colorful.   They are overdyed skeins but the best part is they are 20 yards instead of 5 yards like other overdyed companies and they are the same price.   What a huge bargain for such beautiful threads. Right now Nancy is having a give away on her blog. You just have to be a follower and leave a comment.  If you win, you will get 11 Christmas skeins of reds, greens, golds, burgundy, and cranberries.

Thank you so much Robin for being such a generous and giving friend.   We appreciate you so much.

20 yards on each skein!!!

Colors are more true in this photo.  The last three I am using right now and love them.

The give a-way will be in a gift box.The colors are lovely for the holidays. You can sign up here


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A gift from Arlene to RJ

I was a lucky winner on Arlene's lovely blog "Nanaland" too.   I won the most ADORABLE set of measuring cups.   I just love them!   Unfortunately, even though the USPS says “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night the mail must go through", sometimes they break things and two of these cups had their handles broken off.  My DH George did his best putting them back together and they still look adorable.

Aren't they the cutest???

Can you see the yellow handle?   It happened to the big blue one in the back too.  I wanted to cry but DH came to the rescue!

But, Arlene felt bad that they broke and so she sent the cutest Shepherds Bush pattern with the prettiest stocking button soon after.  I could not wait to get started on it.   I will have a finish done for the holidays and it will be hanging on my tree. Thank you so much Arlene for being "double the pleasure" sweet. The measuring cups were more than enough and I was thrilled to win them.  But, being a big fan of Shepherds Bush I'm truly in love with the chart and the beautiful stocking button.  You were too, too kind to me.  In the photos below, I have not used the button that came with the pattern because I made the stitch smaller. So I used a smaller stocking button I had but I will save the one that came with the chart for a future special project because it is a special button.  Make sure you stop by to see Arlene here.   You will have a good time!

Now how cute is this???

It's hard to tell but it is red garland and the cutest little gold stars on the tree!

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Freebie

   

This month's freebie is from Lizzie Kate and is called Friendship grows.   Who doesn't like Lizzie Kate and I bet you miss not seeing new patterns from her.   Hope you enjoy this one that you can find the chart here

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Thank you so much for stopping by and visiting with us today.   We hope to see you again in about ten days with our Styling with Stitches project.   We have two neat ones I think you will enjoy.   Hope Fall has come to your area and you are enjoying cooler weather, walks, college football games, leaves changing colors and of course lots of cross stitching.   We both are going to be out of town for awhile but we will catch up with all of you as soon as we get back.  

The girls from Stitching Friends 

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Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud

Maya Angelou