Slow Sunday Stitching: "Christmas In July" Stitching Has Started!

I'm checking in for the first time this month over at Kathy's Quilts for "Slow Sunday Stitching"!

In my report for the end of June,  I talked about unfinished projects for that month and the plan to start on projects for "Christmas In July".  Since July 1st was on a Tuesday,  my hope was to use the last Sunday and Monday of June to finish up the stitching of at least two of those projects.  Good news, one of them -- Primrose Cottage's "Home of the Brave" -- did get done!

No plans as yet as to when I will "fully finish" this one.

Then we had a camping trip over the 4th of July weekend to Letchworth State Park here in New York which was great!  It is known as the "Grand Canyon of the East" for the large gorge that was cut through the area over time by the Genesee River that bisects the park.  

These are the "Middle Falls" and there are an Upper and Lower set as well.

A view of another part of the gorge from one of the outlooks.

On the trip we learned something new to us:  the Genesee actually flows north from Pennsylvania to Rochester in Northern New York State to empty out into Lake Ontario.  That makes it one of the 48 rivers in 16 different states that do that.  This happens because rivers flow downhill so they will flow towards the lowest elevation which can sometimes be north of the river's source or headwaters.  

The Appalachian Mountain range (the "Rocky Mountains of the East") extends from Alabama up to Canada and this part of New York State lies west of the range so the land in the Genesee Valley area slopes from there.  

Image courtesy of the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers Mount Morris Dam exhibit

On the trip I took my "camping project":  Emma Congdon's Stitchrovia "Open Your Heart To New Adventures".  I have been working on this one since 2023 and on our last trip for Memorial Day I had stitched half of a page of it (the fourth one I've worked on of this six page pattern) so had hoped to finish that page on this trip.

I did get the page done but only got to work on about half of that remaining half page during one campfire session and the drives up and back during the portions when I wasn't driving.  I finished the rest of the page once we were back home.

Now this project will be put away again until our next trip in late September.  My hope is to complete whatever is still unfinished after that during our annual Fall trip in October to visit my husband's mother in North Carolina.

With all that aside,  I was then ready to start back in on my "Christmas In July" stitching:  the Fat Quarter Shop's "Letters to Stanta"!  

I had expected to be "monogamous stitching" on it this month.  However,  I only had some filler stitching left to do to complete another June project.  So instead,  I worked on both in the hope of completing them both by the end of the month.  So there's more good news now because the "Craft Supplies Lies" project from June is also now done!

Although I have to say,  doing the filler stitching in that bottom box wasn't easy!  In a recent "Two Tall Stitchers" flosstube,  Carol and Jen's closing "Viewers Poll" question was:  "Do you love or hate stitching big blocks of the same color?".  In the past I would have said that while it can be a little boring, it is a necessary evil.  

However, for some reason (probably the "Are We There Yet?!? of it all),  this took so much longer and was harder to do than anticipated!  Not to mention, I kept getting off count on the Linen threads as I filled in the black stitches around the letters.  It got to a point where I only felt up to stitching on it for no more than 30 minutes at a time and often wanted to stop at fifteen!  It wasn't until I was down to the last word that it finally clicked in and I was able to get through it less painfully than the way it started!!  Now I'm glad that's over and I can go shop for a frame to finish this in.

As for the holiday project, after the last two months of stitching on Evenweave and Linen, the return to working primarily on Aida -- even if it is on a dark Charcoal fabric which usually has it's own challenges -- is a pleasant and faster-to-stitch reprieve!  So as of today,  I've finished another page of it and now only have one more left to do:

So that's it for me this week!  My quilting plans for "Christmas In July" have taken a bit of a back seat to cross stitch as the hubby has been home on vacation this past week and will be so this week as well.  With only a little less than two more weeks of the month to go,  I hope I can squeeze in some time for that either in between or once this last bit of cross stitch is completed!    

Now to go check in on what goodies others are working on this week at Kathy's Quilts for "Slow Sunday Stitching"!