Back in June, we kicked off a fabulous little stitch club called Stitch Buddies with Aurifil Designers and longtime Aurifriends Susan Ache & Wendy Sheppard.
It’s nothing official… nothing that requires deadlines or any kind of stress. It’s just all fun and ALL encouragement. Susan and Wendy simply want to inspire and engage you in something they both feel particularly passionate about. In August we checked in with some fabulous progress shots and some tips for stitching over 1.
Today, we’re back with part 3 — a holiday season check-in of sorts. Thank you, as always, for following along and sharing in our stitchy excitement!
Susan: Hi stitchy friends! It’s your friendly, stitching duo here to share something new! Before we really dive in, let’s do a quick reminder of who we are and where to find us… I’m Susan Ache and you can find me on Instagram @yardgrl60 and Wendy Shepard is @ivoryspring. You can play along with all of our stitchy shenanigans via #wendyandsusansal and #stitchbuddies. We share all of the charts we love to stitch together, done our own way, and because we love a good party, we wanted to extend an invite to all of you to come and play!
Wendy: I just want to pop in with a quick hello! There’s nothing I can add to Susan’s intro. I want to thank you for those who have engaged with us via #stitchbuddies on Instagram to find out more about our little stitch-alongs. I look forward to meeting you and seeing your projects.
Susan: Okay, don’t you just love when you have a plan? I know I do for sure– and then suddenly the time has gone by and the plan is nowhere in sight. That’s exactly what has happened to us here. And please feel free to chime in if it happens to you! Here’s the thing, we kinda said we would be doing another check-in for our other chart, the Elizabeth Hall Schoolgirl Sampler, and honestly, that time just flew by. Wendy has finished her stitching in glorious style while my over ones are still waiting to be stitched.
But, the wonderful thing about the way that Wendy and I love to stitch (and we hope that you do, too) is that we don’t time our stitching projects… we don’t set a deadline and we certainly don’t ask for you to show us anything that you don’t want to share. With that being said, I got a text from Wendy last month asking me about a Christmas stitching we had talked about months and months ago. I’m going to paraphrase the text for you– “are we still stitching this for Christmas?” (of course she sent the picture also) What?!?!?!? I didn’t want to burst her bubble and tell her I was still licking halloween candy off my fingers and hadn’t given the next holiday second thought. So, what did I send back? “Yes, of course we are, let me get the pattern, keep me posted on your colors, and I’ll get started on mine!”
Wendy: I don’t know, stitching with friends always makes it more fun because of the conversations that stitching on the same project generates. And stitching with no deadline or schedule is the really the only kind of stitch-along I can commit to due to the many things that go on in my life from checking over my daughter’s Algebra II homework to packing patterns to ship out to shops and distributors.
I enjoyed stitching Elizabeth Hall very much. While I am eager to stitch another one in the same style, I am always eager to take a break from all the over 1 stitching. Tip for those who are still working on Elizabeth, you might want to space out the over 1 stitching. I didn’t, and I did find stitching the over 1 in blocks a little daunting at times! To recap, I stitched mine on a 40 count linen with 1 strand of Aurifloss for the over 2 stitches, and 50wt for the over 1 stitch, both in color is 4241.
Susan: See, that’s the greatest thing about having a stitching buddy, a stitching group, or anybody you can talk stitching with… you just want to play. Nobody will judge that you aren’t prepared, waiting with your needle in hand for the start buzzer, or even waiting at the finish line to see how far you’ve come. It’s a ton of fun all by itself and you are in charge. So… Wendy had gotten her chart, her colors and linen were all picked, and I was just barely downloading the chart and pulling my Aurifil Little Quaker Christmas box to grab my colors. I actually dug in my linen, specifically looking for 2 pieces that I knew I had– One, a pretty soft Christmas green and the other, a pretty soft pink. I figured that since it’s my Christmas stitching, and I’m in charge, I can make it exactly as I’d like. And furthermore… It really does get to be my December stitching (and if it also needs to be my January stitching, then so be it!!)
Wendy: I am excited to stitch Kathleen Jarvis! I think the sampler has such a simple but elegant composition. I will be stitching mine with colors 2250 and 5018 on a 37 count linen. I can’t wait to see Susan’s vision for this piece. If you’re interested in playing along, you can snag the chat via the link below.
Susan: I ended up with a 32ct lucky penny linen in partner with Aurifloss in color 5002 & 1147. How is this for a fun group to be in? We don’t even make you bring a snack! We hope that you’ll consider playing along with us! We sure to tag us both in your images on IG and be sure to also tag Aurifil as well — we all love to see what everybody is up to. We make great cheerleaders! Until the next time, enjoy your stitching…
Wendy: It’s a good thing the food aspect doesn’t come into play. That just means we can squeeze in more stitching time. 😉