A Finish, New SAL and A Birthday Start

Hello blogging friends! I hope the new year is treating you well. It is hard to believe that today is the last day of January. It was a busy month for me and I am glad I have found some time to get one last post in before the month ends. 

So, what have I been up to? Well, I have a finish.

I finished the last of the shops on my Beach Boardwalk series. This piece was so fun to stitch and I am very happy that I stitched all of the shops together. They look so sweet all in a row. The patterns are from Country Cottage Needleworks and are available to purchase in stores and online. The fabric I used is 16ct Aida in Friendship Greene from Fabrics By Steph. Now I will be on the lookout for the perfect way to finish this piece.

Since I finished the 2022 Mystery Stitch A Long from Fox and Rabbit at the end of December, I knew I wanted to start the 2024 SAL. I had already decided I would use white fabric and a slightly variegated thread I had ordered online. Since it is possible that this may be the last SAL from Fox & Rabbit, I thought it would be fun to play with colors on this one, but I needed to see the first section on January 1. That first week of January I went through many color changes, stitching and frogging. 

The name of this SAL is Faith Hope Love and my main color thread is the blue thread from Forbidden Fiber Co. called Mermaid (of course 😉 ) I also knew I wanted pink and gray, but what shades? After a few days of playing with threads and colors, I finally landed on my pallette.

The blue thread has some light variegation and that will be my main color. This will be my first time using multiple colors of my own choosing. Fingers crossed they will play well together. My fabric is 18ct Aida White. Yes, that is correct. I am using 18ct aida. Mainly because my local Michaels store was out of 16ct in a large enough piece. And I was impatient. So, here is my start.

I am happy with the look of this January section. The February section came out today, and I think I will be spending a quite a bit of time trying to figure out my coloring. 

Last week was my birthday and it was a big one; 60! I can’t believe I am 60. My husband made my day special with lots of surprises. He even had the local bakery make me the beautiful cake that is in my header above. A big birthday deserves a big new start. I have been wanting to stitch the Epic Storybook Princesses from Cloudsfactory for several years now. So when the pattern went on sale last summer, I did not hesitate to purchase it and decided it would be my Birthday start in 2024.

This is such and amazing pattern! I just love it so much! Mine will be set up like the picture above. I am happy my favorite princess is at center bottom. I also purchased the Raya pattern for the empty space on the bottom left. I am not sure what I will be putting in the bottom right as of yet. I am thinking about Encanto. While the main character in that movie, Mirabel, is not a “princess”, she is the one that saves her family. But we will see. Another princess or 2 may come out in the next however many years it will take me to stitch this piece. 

Figuring out how to wrangle this very large piece of fabric has been a bit of an issue, but so far I have managed. My fabric is 16ct Aida Ariel’s Grotto from Fabrics By Steph. The size of my fabric is 50 x 36! Wow. Definitely the largest piece I have ever worked on. Here is my progress after a week of stitching on it.

I started in the center with the Pocohontas section. These little characters are so cute! So far I have made 2 changes. The blue swirls have been changed to a lighter blue as the called for blended into the fabric. I may have to use the substituted color throughout the piece as it is used a lot as in Cinderella’s dress, the Genie’s face and other places. I also took out the light green strands of the Willow tree because I just couldn’t see them. I decided to stitch them all in the daker green. I will probably finish out the Pocohontas section before putting it away to stitch on the 2024 SAL.

I also finished my Minka top, knitting those sleeve edges and blocked it. I can’t say that I am 100% happy with it. I wish I had made it longer. We’ll see how I like it this summer. I also blocked my Impulse Buy shawl and have worn it several times and love it! It is so soft and squishy and keeps me warm. 

So that is what I have been up to during the month of January, that is just about over already. I can’t wait to see what I get into during February. How did you spend your January? Did you start something new? Finish something? Leave me a comment and let me know. 

Happy Stitching,

ginny