August Check in and August is checking out

As we say good bye to August I also said good-bye to my folks. I lost both of them within 6 weeks of each other - they had been married just short of 74 years.  While it was hard I know they lived a full life and embraced every moment of it.  My Dad was the social person, but my Mom was always up for my Dad's adventures, so it worked well.

It's time to post the monthly updates of what we've been working on and what we'd like to get accomplished before the end of the year.   So this is my WIPocalypse post which is hosted by Measi who's blog can be found here:  WIPocalypse 

The question for August is Which retired designer would you love to have back designing?   Interesting question, I really don't have any that I can say I would want to see more from at this point.  I am happy with the charts I have in my collection and figure I probably won't ever stitch a fraction of them, but they make me happy just looking at them.  

So what did I do in August - first up is the Wizard of Oz by Owl Forest Embroidery.  I got the whole kit, floss, fabric and chart.  I decided I needed a new start and this was it.  Oz is about 1/2 done, which is the largest motif in the chart.  It's a fun stitch and when it comes out again I'm sure I'll hit the half way mark without a problem.

I must say the floss and fabric are great to work on, I was worried about the quality and once started that worry went out the window!!  

I have another one that I will start maybe next year.

Next up is an actual finish for me - Put a Bird on it by Modern Folk Embroidery.  

This was a stitch along hosted by the Sunshine Stitchers - EJ.  The design was charted to be done monochrome or Roxy Floss Co had their conversation.  I started with the Roxy Floss Co threads and then decided to add more colors from my own collection. The SAL was supposed to end in December, but it was fun to stitch and like a bag of chips you always wanted to do just one more.

If you are member of FB you might want to join this group so you can see all the finishes that are happening - they are great.

One of my WIPGO calls was for my American Flag by Rosewood Manor.  This is a very old pattern and it's been in my stash forever and I started it 10 years ago, quickly lost interest, but decided I really needed to give it some love every year.  

I did the 3 quilt squares on the right and finished the bottom square next to the last column of quilt squares, along with all of that boring border between them.  Next time it comes out I will get the last three squares in this area done and then move on to the squares in all the stripes.  I wish I wouldn't have done the eyelets in the start of the words as those take time to do, but don't think I really want to try to frog them out at this point.  I might do other stitches in the other words, but that is a decision for another day.

I do have one more that I was working on, but didn't take a picture so will show that one next month.  My month off from work is pretty much over now and I need to make the decision if I'm going to continue to work, work part time or work full time.  The money is nice and it affords us to do things like eat and keep a roof over our heads, OK, not really, it really affords me to buy more cross-stitch than I really need.  I've really enjoyed not having the alarm go off every morning and trying to figure out the day of the week.  But that will be a conversation I'll have this week with my boss.

Hope everyone has enjoyed the dog days of summer and are ready for the fall.   Since I'm not a seasonal stitch I will continue my rotation such as it is and maybe add in another new start in September.

Sandy