Cross stitch Stitch Along - La Finestra del Tempo

From the minute I first saw these Crocette a Gogo calendar months, I have been itching to stitch them.  

Currently, there are two releases of these La Finestra del Tempo (Time Windows), January to April in part 1 and May to August in part 2.  

I think they are beyond adorable, and I can't wait to see what the September to December release will bring!

So, I decided to invite my new Flosstube friends and you, too, to join in stitching them with me in a casual little SAL.

The plan is to start on Sunday 1st August, stitching one calendar chart per month, starting with January. We'll be sharing progress on IG using the #finestradeltemposal. I can't wait to see everybody's stitching and any colour changes, little tweaks along the way.

So, can I tempt you to join us?  

If you'd like to stitch along, just pick up the patterns from the Crocette a Gogo Etsy shop, kit them up with fabric and floss and have your needle poised for August 1st.  

Hope to see you then!

Follow Your Dreams Embroidery SAL

Following the huge success of the first Un Chat Dans L'Aiguille SAL, Christel kindly obliged our many requests for a second.  In June, I once again had the pleasure of working through some new and some familiar stitches to complete the stages of this gorgeous butterfly garden design.

For this one, I ordered the pre-printed fabric and the thread pack (and maybe one or two other pretties while I was there).  I must say that the finer printing of the design and the better quality threads than the ones in my stash made more of a difference to the outcome of my stitching than I expected.  Lesson learned.  I also learned quite a number of new and tricky stitches on this one.  Some of them still need a lot of practice but I think I made a fair stab at them.

The video tutorials for this SAL are still available on You Tube if you are interested.  I cannot recommend Christel's teaching enough, please do check her out and keep an eye out for the next SAL planned for sometime in Sept/Oct. I think I heard Christel hint that it might have a Christmas theme.  I will definitely be hoping I have time to participate in that one when it comes around.

Huge thanks to Christel and her team for all the work they generously put in to providing this SAL, and the previous one, during the lockdown days of global pandemic.  It was a refreshing diversion! 

Lotus Flower Embroidery SAL

A few weeks into my #sewalittlehappinesseveryday sampler I spotted that Christel from Un Chat Dans L'Aiguille was planning to host her first ever Facebook and IG embroidery SAL.  I have long admired Christel's embroideries but thought they might be a little beyond my ability, so this free SAL seemed like a perfect opportunity to try out more complex stitches.

Although it was possible to order a fabric pre-printed with the design and a thread pack, I downloaded the free design and traced Christel's Lotus Flower with my lightbox and water erasable pen and made a thread selection from my stash.   I, and many others, then waited patiently for Monday afternoons from late-April to mid-May when each week's SAL instructions were released on pdf and video tutorials.

It was wonderful to follow along with the FB videos which were hosted live but which I could only manage to watch on replay as I was working during the live transmission.  I learned so much and really loved hearing Christel speak passionately about her craft and her products.  Her teaching was amazing and I will definitely be referring back to some of the video tutorials for stitch refreshing in the future.  They are all available on the You Tube page for Un Chat Dans L'Aiguille.

My little Lotus Flower was bliss to stitch every Monday and Tuesday for four weeks!  Christel's teaching is in French, Spanish and English - really remarkable language skills - and I followed along really well in spite of my initial worry that I wouldn't understand.

I don't have any plans for my finished Lotus embroidery yet.  It was stitched just for sake of it really, but I will keep it somewhere safe until inspiration strikes.