A New Month, A Year Older and Some Stitching Stuff

 On July 1st I celebrated my 67th birthday, time does fly when you get to a certain age for me it was around 45 since then the days just seem to pass in a flash. For my birthday my son and I went to my favorite beach, his wife stayed home since she is currently using a face cream for treatment of skin cancers and doesn’t want to spend too much time in the sun and she isn’t a beach person and since she knows I love the beach (my happy place) she suggested we go without her. Recently she found out her cat is ill with cancer and at 18 years old she wants to be near her as much as possible. She surprised me with some lovely flowers, a few hours later the first lily began to open.

When the lily opened fully it was wider than both my hands spread wide, there is a second lily in the back that opened 2 days later and is wider than the first one, there is a 3rd lily in bud seen at the top but I don't think it will open.  The aroma from the lilies is quite strong.

On July 1st I joined the 31 Days of Creative Prompts for Stitchers on Instagram for the month of July each day there is a new prompt. Here is my July 1st post

Today is day 1 of @lolliandgrace #stitchandshare for the month of July.The first prompt is what got you into stitching? For me it was a part of the times going back to 1968, yes not a typo. I was taught to hand sew by my grandmother when I was 7 hand embroidery became a natural extension of that. In 1968 being one of those flower child hippie girls I would embroider flowers and peace symbols on my jeans using a satin stitch, back stitch or running stitch, though back them I didn’t even know stitches had names. The photo is a very early work that I did from an Erica Wilson pattern. I made it for a late friend, it hung in her home from the day I gave it to her until she passed it was returned to me by one of her children who I taught to sew years ago and thought I would like it back. I look at it and can see so many mistakes but I will say my satin stitch snake if beautiful. I stopped hand embroidery some time in the mid 1970’s right after I hand embroidered 2000 daisy on a friends wedding dress which 3 of her friends made for her. She dream when she was about 12 that her weeding dress would have 2000 daisies and she got them. I picked it back up in 1980 while pregnant with my only child, to make a few samplers for his room. I moved onto quilting which I do entirely by hand. Then in 2014 I had the urge to do hand embroidery again while shopping in a quilt shop for fabric and came across a class offered which included hand embroidery from the book Patchwork Loves Embroidery by Gail Pan. I haven’t put my needle down since. In 2021 I did a personal challenge to hand embroider a Goddess a Month and I am currently working on a Greenman image and finishing kit from Cozy Blue called Lunar Flow. 

I am also planning to take part in the SAL starting on July 27th for more information you can check out the link  https://lolliandgrace.com/blogs/blog/moon-crystals-a-new-stitch-along-for-the-snarky-modern-facebook-group

I spent a few hours at the beach on my birthday the weather was lovely though a bit too windy, I had brought along my Greenman to embroider but could only get in about 3 stitches before the winds tangle my floss.

I brought along one of my little goddess figurines from Brigid's Grove, she reminds me of sea glass.

Speaking of sea glass I found a few pieces while walking along the shoreline quite a rare find for me in the 28 years that I have lived in Florida I very rarely find beach glass.

There was a brown piece too but was still too new for my taste so I tossed it in the trash can for safety.

I also found a few Hag stones, another rare to me find on the Florida beaches.

I found 5 of them what a great birthday gift from the sea I feel so fortunate to have found them.

I have a crochet project underway as well that I just started today. I am using Lion Brand's Mandala Yarn in the Troll colorway.

It's going to be an ever growing Granny Square afghan.  I love the mandala yarn and how the colors change randomly. I have made several of the ever growing Granny Square afghans using Mandala yarns and I'm never disappointed.  For this one I am going to combine the Troll yarn with Gnome colorway to make it more colorful.

I wish you all a safe and happy 4th of July