April finishes!

Hello and greetings! Lots again to share with you. I have 5 finishes and a little cool story with one of them to tell you. It's been hot here the last few days and should get cooler next week for a while. In the mean time like today - too hot to even stitch (99 degrees).

Also HEADS UP!!! If you haven't read yet there are 2 Free SAL'S coming up:
-    This coming weekend - Blackbird Designs SAL. They just mentioned it today on their blog and you can read it HERE. It's going to be a beautiful sampler and they posted a photo of the sampler.
-   Mystery SAL with By The Bay Needleart. You can see the listed supplies and the dates of when Donna releases the parts HERE.  Part #1 is on May 7th.
So have a look if you haven't read about them yet. I do plan to participate in both SAL's.

The next 3 designs I ordered from France. When I saw on Amy's beautiful blog - Thread in Hand HERE I was inspired. I also had to stitch this.
It was the design that Amy finished as a pincushion I feel in love with.

February 2014 kit by Martine Atalie of    -  Le fil Atalie 

Atalie silk threads (I had to stitch a small arrow in the left hand corner to know what side was up)

 Wow! When I received this kit it came with the chart, linen, silk threads & a silk ribbon. Just absolutely beautiful hand over dyed silk threads. The link is HERE to Martine's - Le fil Atalie.

February 2014 - Atalie

March 2014 kit - Atalie

 Hnd over dyed cotton threads by Atalie

 There were some beautiful embroidery stitches as well as some cross stitches in this piece.

 March 2014 kit - Atalie

Atalie's hand dyed cotton threads

 Beautiful piece of silk ribbon came with the kit.

Next is to make these all 3 of my finishes into pillow forms. 

Thank you Amy for your inspiration!

 Forget Me Not - BBD

30ct Expresso R&R Reproductions

In the chart of Forget Me Not - Barb's put the intial's of her great aunt. Barb put the year of her great aunt when she would have been 10 yrs old - thinking that would have been the age her aunt would of started stitching. So that got me thinking - How old was I when I first started stitching? At first I thought I couldn;t remember. Then it came to me - I had a Ah Ha moment! 

 I remembered that my mom had signed me up for a summer class thru our home town and it was sewing.
Okay but how old was I or what year was it? Well back at that time the classes were for free BUT we had to get all the supplies on a list that was given. My mom took me shopping for my very first sewing box. I picked out the blue. It was plastic and was a mini sewing box - I loved it! I remembered that I was so proud and excited I took it to show my grandparents. When I showed my Nonno (grandfather) he said "come with me Annette". We went into the garage and he took out his label maker. YES!!! Nonno made me a name tag and also he made one of the year it was (I had no clue and didn't know any different at the time but Nonno did). So right there in the inside of the cover is the year I first started sewing & stitching by hand.
After all these years I still have my sewing box and my very first project that I EVER HAND SEWED!
A pincushion! It was suppose to be a round pincushion, but mine came out very mis-shaped. All I remember is that I was super proud of my sewing box and my pincushion. And that's in the above photo.

So now I knew what year I first started hand sewing - 1973 and I was 9 years old that summer because I hadn't had my birthday yet. 

I stitched that year in my sampler!

My name label  that Nonno made for me. Thank you Nonno. What a heart warming surprise gift from Nonno even though  he's been gone for over 14 years! Can you believe it?

 I still have some very old threads kept inside as well as a few new ones. One spool of thread says .95 cents and the other .75cents. I have another sewing box that's not much larger than this one that I also use.

 1909 Bird Needlebook - Lorraine Mootz

Spring 2014 issue of Sampler & Antique Needlework Magazine

 I used both Sullivans & DMC threads

28ct Irish Linen  by Charles Craft

I still have the backside of the needlebook to stitch. This design I kept coming back to because of the colors and the bird. I think it has a Berlin style needlework look. 

 Finished stitching Autumn (middle section) of BBD and now am working on Winter by BBD

"Winter" - BBD  -  32ct Vintage Lt Exampler linen

Hope you are finding time to stitch. And thank you for your comments. I do love and enjoy reading every one. Some of you still have a no-reply email address so even though I did send you a thank you, I don;t know if you did get it. I do answer every comment. 

With my Love and Appreciation to everyone of you - Annette