June Recap: More Events Than Stitching!!

Well, the second half of June was far busier than expected!  Starting with the Canadian Wildfires bringing smoke to New York State:

This was not only spooky and caused potential health hazards but it meant the cancellation of the last two weeks of my volunteering in our community garden with students from the Garden Club of a local charter school.  This actually worked out well as it meant it gave us more time to review our activity plans and pack for our upcoming trip.

And There Was Some Travel....

Next up, we got to run away from the smoke conditions (despite traveling towards Canada!!) for our planned vacation camping trip back to Acadia National Park in Maine!  We got to do all of things that we didn't get to last year like hike the Bubble Mountains:

This is the view of the North and South Bubble Mountains from the entrance to Jordan Pond.

The elevation at the top of the South Bubble.

The view of the pond from the summit!

After which we made our now obligatory stop at the Jordon Pond House for popovers and lunch!  

We spent another day in Bar harbor where we also got to finally walk the Bar Island Sand Bar and hike that island.

When the tide is high, Bar Island is a boat ride away...

However, when the tide is low, it is a simple walk to the island!

The view of the "path" from the Bar Island side.

Another day we visited the "quiet side" of the island and one of the things we did there was check out the Seal Cove Auto Museum.  For those that know about Acadia and its famous Cadillac Mountain, did you know it had a connection to the Cadillac car brand?!?  I didn't!!

Click the picture to read the history of the connection between the two.

This information is from when we visited Cadillac Mountain last year.

By the way, if you're like me and thought that electric cars are a new invention, think again!

As members of a community garden, we also looked forward to visiting two gardens in the area: Outside of the park, we checked out the Asticou Azalea Garden (and unfortunately at the time of our trip, the Thuya Garden wasn't open yet for the season).   Inside of the park, we visited the Wildflower Garden and hiked the Jessup Path at the Sieur Du Mont Nature Center.  Needless to say, over all it was a really great trip and there is still more we'd like to see if we ever get back to this park! 

Now Back to the Stitching! 

All of that meant that a whole lot less quilting and cross stitch than planned got done!  For starters, June was supposed to be about "Stitch June", the patriotic themed stitching prompt from the Fat Quarter Shop.  As noted in my June Plans post , I had picked out three patriotic themed projects to work on.  I also wanted to finally start my first "full coverage" piece called "Open Your Heart" during our trip.  The stitching plan for June had been to stitch the patriotic pieces on a three day rotation over the course of the month and work on "Heart" during the week we would be away.

What actually happened was that I started with "United We Stand", a small pin keep designed by Primrose Cottage Stitches.  I thought this would be the easiest of the projects to do considering that all three were delving into stitching on tighter weave fabrics than what I have used to date.  

I stitched "United" on 18 count Vintage Country Mocha Aida, a fabric coloring I've heard referred to on many a Floss Tube video.  Well this presented the first problem in that after getting the first two lines of stitching done, I realized that I had stitched on the "wrong side" of the fabric.  

The wrong side is on the left, the "right side" is on the right.

Vintage Country Mocha is a mottled fabric but it turns out the mottling is only "printed" on one side!  Since I wanted the mottled look in the piece, I had to rip the stitching I had done and re-do it on the "right" side of the fabric!

Up to now, I had mostly stitched on 14 count Aida and one project stitched on 10 count.  I had previously started a project on 18 Count but that used silk floss so didn't stitch any different than when I used cotton floss on 14 count.  The 18 count fabrics are a much tighter weave than 14 count, meaning it has much smaller holes.  Using cotton floss, I found it really hard to get into and keep track of the holes when using the two strands of thread and size 26 needle (stitched over one) that I have traditionally used up to now.  

It wasn't too long before I did some research and found that for 18 count using cotton floss, it was suggested to stitch with only one thread and a size 28 needle.  So I ripped and restarted again!  The change did make the stitching go sooo much easier although I was not always sure that I liked the coverage that a single strand of floss gave.  

I will also say that when I continued working after changing the thread and needle, while the stitching was now smooth, the counting was not!  Over the course of it, I had to rip and restitch to make "adjustments" on many parts of the piece as I stitched.  Count twice, stitch once!!

Needless to say that all the issues I had stitching on this meant that I in no way wanted to rotate off to another piece!  I continued stitching "United" right up until our trip to Acadia so wound up taking it and "Heart" on the trip.  Although our stay in Acadia was longer this year, because of all of things we wanted to see and do, I did not do a whole lot of stitching while in camp.  

However, I did manage to finish all the words before we headed back home and completed the outer blue border once we got back.  Additionally, contrary to the "Stitch June" plans, I didn't manage to get to the "fully finishing" of it yet. 

In other cross stitch news:  Since what little stitching I did in camp was on "United",  I wasn't able to finally start on "Heart" until the drive home.  "Heart" is a six page (!) pattern and I had gridded my fabric before the trip.  

I had decided to start stitching the part of the design on page 5 since it had both a lot of filler that needed to be done in a single color but also picked up enough of the color changes in the design to give me some opportunities to work through that.  However, in the car I was only able to start on some of the filler.  

This project is going back to the easy stitching of working on 14 count Aida but with a "full coverage" design it means there is A LOT of stitches to lay down!  Even working with just one color, you have to count carefully to leave space for the color change areas.  Once back home, I started on the color changes and this is as far as I've gotten:

With the stitching on "United" finished, it also meant I could start on the second of the planned "Stitch June" projects. 

  

This is another Primrose Cottage design called "Home of the Free".  Much like "United", this one is also proving challenging, once again, because of the base fabric used.  

This is my first foray into stitching on Evenweave (25 count also in Vintage Country Mocha).  While I can stitch this with two threads, I am "stitching over two".  Unlike the easily visible holes of Aida (which are stitched "over one" meaning from one hole to the next),  I have to count the threads in the weave of the fabric and stitch over what is effectively a 3 x 3 area for each stitch (stitch in one hole, skip a hole then stitch in the next hole).  I love the look of the tighter weave of the fabric but this will be a very slow stitch until I get used to working with it.  

As for my quilt projects, I thought about them (particularly all of those that need to be quilted) but none got worked on at all this month.  I do have big quilty plans for July so I'll see what I can get done for that!