Stitching Friends Forever

August Post/Vacation
Winners announced 
Styling with Stitches
Sal update
Freebies

Summer is nearing an end and I can only hope cooler weather is coming.  Mary has already had some lovely changing weather which is so nice for her hikes.  This has been a busy month for both of us but I think things will be slowing down real soon and we can get back to our regular schedule of posts.

Mary celebrated a fun birthday in August and my husband and I got away for a great anniversary celebration and a college reunion during the month.  Mary has been spending lots of her time at Met games and photography outings and I have been heading to the beach every chance I get.  Hope you all have had a wonderful summer and are looking forward to the fall months ahead too.

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Winners of the Give Away

We are very happy to announce that Arlene at Nanaland has won the box of stitching goodies and Manuela at Manuelas Flowergarden has won her choice of a PDF pattern.  Congratulations ladies!!! 

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Styling with Stitches
This month our theme is vacation and our styling with stitches projects will be about the beach and a national park.


RJ's Yellowstone Project
You probably all know how much I love Yellowstone National Park.  It is one of my very favorite places to visit.   If you would like to see a detailed post about our trip you can find it here.  Just scroll on down to the Yellowstone post.  One of our favorite photos from that trip was a Momma Bear with her little cubs. They were coming out of a brook and we were so lucky to get this photo.

Well for Christmas this year, my son painted me a Momma bear near a brook.  I just loved it and decided I needed to frame it and somehow add a stitch.   Our sweet friend, Robin gave me a good way to attach the stitch to the frame. Her idea was to get hook and eyes, some twine and hang it at the bottom.  Thanks so much Robin...it worked!

Mike's painting at Christmas

First, I framed it with a barnwood frame from Hobby Lobby during a 50% off sale.  Then I bought some barnwood planks with a 40% off coupon to attach my Yellowstone stitch.  I decided to do a simple stitch so I didn't take away from Mike's painting.  I thought just stitching the letters in a nice font would work well.   I actually took most of the letters from another pattern I have but had to make up three letters.

I found a great tutorial for framing a canvas painting here.  It is really easy using S brackets.   George drilled holes in the barnwood plank and then we threaded the dark green twine and tied off with knots.  It is then attached to the back of the frame.  I wanted to play around with adding different things to the sides of the stitch but with the hurricane coming I just tacked a small twine bow on the right side for now.

Love the barn wood frame around the  "bear by the brook".

The Yellowstone stitch is hanging from the frame with dark green gardener's twine.     Can you tell which 3 letters I had to make up?    Would you add anything to the sides of the stitch?

Stitch added to Frame

40 ct. vintage mocha linen
Juniper floss by Weeks
Letters from Sweet Southern Home
Border from Santas and Samplers
Barn wood frame from Hobby Lobby 

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 Mary's Beach Project

I chose Wild Salt Air by Hands on Design for my beach project this month.  I thought it would go well with the beach stitches that I completed last summer.  RJ suggested displaying it on an Adirondack chair and I loved that idea.  I was fortunate to find the chair on clearance at Michael's.

I left off the border and I changed the row of waves to an extra row of fish. I love how colorful the floss choices are.  This has been a fun group of charts to stitch that I think you would enjoy too.  Next year, I hope to add the rest of the patterns that came with Wild Salt Air to my beach collection.

Sweet stitch sitting on an Adirondack chair !

Here is the original pattern so you can see the changes I made.

Wild Salt Air
by Hands on Design
called for floss
28 ct. mushroom laguna 1/1
Chair from Michael's

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SAL Update
We have not updated in awhile so we thought we would show you where we are at present.  Meg is taking a little break but will join us next month.  The Schoolhouse series by With Thy Needle and Thread has been a very enjoyable SAL.  The colors were so soft and the designs are so pretty.

RJ's Sal Update
I have the five main stitches done now with all the alphabet completed.  I truly enjoyed this series. My favorites were L to P and R to V.  I still want to add the strawberry to the group.  Now to sew them up!!!

A to F

H to K

L to P

R to V

And W to Z!

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Mary's Sal Update

I have thoroughly enjoyed stitching this series. I have had little stitching time this summer but with shorter days coming I will have more stitching time and am looking forward to completing this series.   I have 4 alphabet patterns completed so far. These are my 2 latest finishes:

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Freebies
We found a set of adorable freebies this month.  If you like the beach as much as we do, you will love this set of three.  They are from The World of Stitches.  You can find the charts here.

Think of the fun you can have using the called for floss or mixing it up with your choice of colors. And, they look like quick stitches too. 

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Thank you so much for coming by to see us today.  We truly appreciate your visits and your kind comments.   You can count on us to come see what you have been up to and what you have been stitching.

Say a prayer that the hurricane goes out to sea before doing too much damage.  The gas stations are already out of gas and the stores are running low on food. 

Next month our theme will be friendship and our posts will center around friends.  Hope to see you then.

                                                Stitching Friends