August Cottage Finish!!

Well got this one finally done while watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 and 2 today. This one was so funny in that the more I looked at the chart the more I realized I messed up on the colors. So beyond the roof mentioned in earlier posts, because of the tricky similar symbols I ended up doing the Shutter stripes in ..yep you guessed it Shutter green, which oddly enough isn't what color they're supposed to be. Oh well I dig green so I guess in the end it all worked out. I change so many things anyway I don't know why I worry about misreading the chart colors..lol. I also left off the sun and changed the shell accents. I didn't care for the ones on either side of the house as it felt too crowded, but I did love the idea of the shells between the flowers on the top border. So I did them in satin stitch (sort of modified) and used DMC Variations 4190 to make it look more like a scallop shell. All in all I think it works, and I love this cottage. I have seen that September has been released and I'm waiting for it to come in the mail. I already have some changes I want to chart for the building. Something about not having a real school bell tower..oh well you'll see..lol. Enjoy your summer and stay cool. (I caught my husbands' nasty summer cold but so far it's being a bit nicer to me.)..

August Cottage Progress

I'm chugging along nicely on the August Cottage, although in these photos you'll not see a cottage so much..hehe. To mix it up I changed the order of things, just to get the border established. I usually start with the whole cottage, then the month title and then put in the border lines at the top and bottom. Seeing as the roof was a bit more work (more on that later) I moved on and got some other things done first.

The invisible cottage..hehe.

My plaid roof..

Hard to see, the giant schlub next to the bump out on the border..evil little schlub! Throwing off my count..hehe.

The roof as I said was a more work that usual for two reasons, one either I made a mistake on the chart or the person who stitched the model? I am not sure but it really looks like the Shutter Green and the DMC 3022 symbols are quite a lot alike. The photo example I swear looks like it used Shutter Green in the roof, not the 3022. So when I finished the Shutter Green I finally looked again at the chart and realized my mistake, the chart calls for the 3022. Confusing? Yes! Either way it made for a happy accident in that I went and kept my mistake, and then made a choice to use both the 3022 and 3023 alternately to fill in the roof, vertical rows alternating to fill it in. The result is a plaid pattern that actually I think looks like some roofs I have seen. So that was a happy accident.


What wasn't was the what I call the "joy of schlubs" which happened in the upper left hand corner, I had one strand of the linen that had a giant schlub? in it, which caused the count to be off slightly. Now the flower is going to be a bit off kilter on that corner but if I had gone and done across two strands to even the count it would have looked a lot stranger. I also omitted at least for now the sun, as I continue to flip the clouds. I love these designs so dearly just not into the upside down clouds. From flipping them I ran out of room for the sun as it's called for in the pattern. I might restitch it or I might leave it out, I figure I'll decide when the block is closer to being done. 


In other news I'm up to FIFTY followers! When I started this I wasn't sure anyone would be interested in my stitch and craft projects but it's wonderful to know that other fellow stitchers and crafters out there like what I'm doing. I'll try to keep improving as I go along and thanks for the support! 

August Cottage Floss Toss

OOh I am so excited, August Cottage came in the mail yesterday and I've been gathering my flosses to get started. I've been receiving the monthly auto ship of fabric, chart and specialty threads from ABC Stitch Therapy and bless that place I just love them. Great customer service and great email communications when ever I have questions or comments. Just wanted to give them a shout out as well as my local needleshop Middleford Yarn here in Medford.

I usually end up buying extra skeins of the specialty thread from my local shop as the color dye lots can be so different. As you'll see below, sometimes that is a good thing and sometimes it's a bad thing. If you want consistency in your pattern to have it come out looking just like the example, sometimes it's a bad thing. I had an issue with a color of GAST that for what I was using it for, it had darkened from the dye lots in previous years and the pattern wouldn't have come out right in those colors. Today though I see those variations as a good thing. I like a choice so to speak, of shades that might suit the little cottage and in this case these greens are great.

Mmm Yummy Beach Colors...

Can't wait to get started..

Three shutter greens, three very different shades. I think I'll use the one on the far left.

Love the purpley blue of these, I think I'll go with the darker one on the right. 

July Cottage Finish!

Whoo hoo, July is all finished. With this one I stuck to the called for colors and just added Rainbow Gallery Blending thread in purple red #610 (used one strand of the Geranium and two of the blending thread) for the red part of the fireworks and for the blue I used royal blue #107 with one strand WDW Americana and two blending threads. I think it worked to make the fireworks blingy but not too much.

These are blooming in my sad garden right now, please ignore the weeds..hehe.

These really are this bright, I've never seen such a dayglo color as these.