Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the weekly hand stitching party!

At Slow Sunday Stitching, we like to brag about our slowness, and take pride in the art of relaxing, breathing deeply, and not really accomplishing much. We believe in the health benefits of relaxation, and take it seriously enough to commit to this slowness practice at least once a week. If you need a reminder of the benefits of relaxation, click here.

Here in S. Ontario Canada we are having yet another heat wave. This has been a very hot summer so far and I just came back from a week of camping that at times was unbearably hot. We had 16 adults and 3 children (and 4 day visitors) attend our annual family camping trip, and it was so much fun! There was a lot of time for relaxing and stitching - in the forest, at the beach (under an umbrella) and at the camp site.

There was a bear reported in the Provincial Park where we were camping, which is always an interesting element of tent  camping! We have a few legendary bear stories in the family, which is why I made the bear quilt in 2017 and also inspired me to stitch "Wild Whimsey Bear" by Darling and Whimsey Designs.

I finished this sweet little bear cross stitch into a miniature quilt and it was given to a family member as a souvenir of the 2025 family camp. 

My niece has recently learned to sew and she made pillowcases for us this year - and of course she used bear fabric! I am so proud of her! 

While camping I finished the Canada Goose chart that was given to me by Kate when I attended Stitch North in the spring. This photo is called "goose on the loose"!

I'll add this to the pile of bird stitcheries that will go in my developing (in my head) book of birds.

When I returned home from camping I made a flosstube video of the projects I had worked on in June. You can view the video here. 

I really enjoyed the stitching projects I spent time with in June and look forward to the 4 new starts ready for July's stitching time! 

What are you stitching on in July? Are you relaxing in hot summer weather or enjoying the winter season down under? Please link up your blog post below and share your stitching with us!

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Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the weekly hand stitching party! If you enjoy hand stitching, you are at the right place. Do you like making hexies, crochet, embroidery, rug hooking, beading, applique, hand quilting and/or knitting? We love to see what you are working on and to encourage you in your stitching journey.

I have a June start and finish to share today. This project was inspired by Colorado Cross Stitcher's Summer Camp, where stitchers are encouraged to keep stitching over the summer with monthly prompts. June's prompt was to "Pick a pattern that includes a motif to represent day or night".

I rarely have time to stitch during the day, so I picked a little pattern from Tiny Modernist called Twilight Moon since I am a night stitcher.  It's so cute how the moon is asleep (because it's night time!) and there is so much life going on right under her nose - a lovely little home and beautiful flowers, mushrooms, and trees are growing within it's protected space.

The fabric base is Roxy's Sea Party 18 count aida and it was a dream to stitch on.

My plan was to stitch this project in the recommended DMC colours, but  when I collected those threads they just looked too boring. So I chose some threads from my Roxy collection and especially loved the Chantilly thread that I picked for the moon colour and I love how the variegation made the moon look so interesting!

I am totally shocked by how much I love this finished stitch! It is not a colour palette that I anticipated liking so much, especially the purple thread that looks like dusty rose plus the dirty green, but the combination of all the colours is so pretty. And as I stitched this and thought about the fantasy moon garden, I just fell in love with it! I might add a few beads to sparkle up the night stars.

But now the big question is - how will I finish it?

I don't have a clue, but it made life in June 2025 a little more relaxed and enjoyable, so that's all that matters. It has already served it's purpose for me!

Now it's your turn! What are you enjoying with your hand stitching this month?

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Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the Slow Sunday Stitching weekly linkup party! If you like to stitch things by hand, you have found your tribe! Each week there are stitchers around the world who share their projects and progress (or lack thereof) to encourage and inspire us.

It has been a very busy week here with getting new shingles on the house during the hottest week of the year. On Monday with the humidity it felt like 44 degrees Celsius - which is 111 degrees Fahrenheit!! But no one fainted or fell off the roof, and somehow they completed the job.

This week I started a Modern Folk Embroidery project called "Quaker Medallion - Bird in a Grapevine". I am using DMC floss #4515 to stitch on Roxy's porcelain 18 count fabric and I'm really enjoying it! It has been fun to experiment with the variegated thread and I'm trying to make the centre bird from the darkest parts of the thread.

I have also being keeping up with the Extraordinary Birds SAL by Lola Crow. 

It is such immersive stitching and I am "losing" lots of time in this project! I love the enormous Southern Cassowary bird on the left! So far I have stitched 10,426 stitches which was 98% of the total number of stitches before Friday. This week we were given a new part to stitch and this step includes a Toucan. So fun!

What are you hand stitching this week? Please share your projects with us in the link up below!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

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Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the weekly hand stitching party!

It's an extra special party this week celebrating the 13th anniversary of Slow Sunday Stitching adventures! The first link up was June 24, 2012 and I had no idea that all these years later it would still be continuing. My original goal was to inspire people to slow down, to take a deep breath, to dedicate precious time to the healing process of hand work, and to connect with other creative like-minded stitchers. I thank each of the stitchers in the past and the present for helping to continue this tradition by participating by linking up their blog posts, writing encouraging comments, and most of all by spending time with your hand stitching projects.

This week I finished stitching another bird - a golden finch. The motivation to start this project came from Anna and Carolyn who are the Curious Crafters. They issued a colour exploration challenge to take a black and white pattern and select your own colours to stitch the design. I chose the "Golden Finch Free Bee" pattern by La-D-Da and gathered these threads from my collection.

Here is how the Gold Finch looked after being stitched. I was very happy with how it turned out. I then researched the bird and found out that they do not have so much black on their heads, and their beaks are orange. But overall I think I did a decent job of the thread colour choices. 

Then I had to make more decisions about finishing the design - the letters, the branches, the flowers, and the border. Here is the finished stitch.

The letter thread was my second attempt as the first choice looked too dull. I changed the design slightly on the top left by making the corner the same as 2 of the other corners. (I didn't know what it was that the pattern actually had in that space.) I experimented with different colours of flowers and stuck with the purple since it didn't draw any attention away from the pretty bird.

I'm quite chuffed with how it turned out and loved stitching the letters! I think I might add a bead or a french knot to give the bird... a "bird's eye view"! LOL

When I make little stitcheries like this people always ask me "what will you do with it"? I don't really know because I stitch for the sanity and relaxation and happiness it brings me! 

I have been inspired by our friend Margaret over at Crafty Creek to consider making a book from some of my finished stitches. She posted her beautiful Birds and Blooms book back in May. And if you didn't see her flip through video, you can click here to view it. 

What purpose does it serve except to bring beauty and inspiration to others? I think that is a noble purpose indeed!

So thank you to every one of you who stitch and create beauty in our world to share with and inspire us! 

Here's this week's link up:

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Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the weekly hand stitching party! 

Get out your needles and thread, and join hand stitchers around the world who are benefitting from the process of creating something with our own hands. 

I am definitely benefitting from my hand stitching this week. Just sitting quietly, project in hand, needle in and out, and breathing. I have been working on my full coverage stitching which I started in March. This is a Heaven and Earth Designs chart called Mini Treasure Hunt Bookshelf with the artwork by Aimee Stewart. The pattern is on sale for $6 if you can believe it!

This is such an interesting process for me. Full coverage is a deep dive into mindfulness - finding the next stitch, putting the needle up and down into the 25 count lugana, rethreading the needle, finding the next colour to work on... nothing else enters my mind. And before you know it, hours have passed. 

Not much progress seems to have been made. I have put 3,221 stitches into this project so far which is 4.22% of the total number of stitches according to the Pattern Keeper APP.  I know that this project will take me years to finish and I hope I live long enough to see it through to completion. But if I don't, that's still okay - I will have enjoyed the process of taking every single stitch!

Do you have long term hand stitching projects that will take you years to complete? Or projects that will never be finished? Please share your slow progress with us and link up your blog post below.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

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Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the weekly hand stitching party! Our goal is to encourage you to pick up your project, put a few stitches in, take some deep breaths, and enjoy the happy feelings that will likely result! 

I have been having a wonderful time stitching the Lola Crow SAL (Stitch-A-Long) called Extraordinary Birds. I enjoy learning about a wide variety of birds and stitching them on my 18 count hand dyed aida.

This is the bottom of the design and as of yesterday I have completed 8,166 stitches which is 92% of the needed stitches up to "Feat 3" (which was posted last week).  Feat #4 was just posted on Friday and I haven't yet imported the pattern into Pattern Keeper since I wanted to complete more on the previous parts. 

This photo shows part of my stitching in front of my tablet with the Pattern Keeper screen open. See on the right side of the screen where there are 6 thread colours that are finished? Seeing the new "0" stitches makes me so happy and motivates me to keep stitching to see more zeros!

Today I hope to finish the stitching for Feat 3 and then I will import Feat 4 into Pattern Keeper so I can keep making progress. Next week there will not be a pattern release so we have an extra week to catch up. 

What are you hand stitching as June begins? Please share your projects with us and link up your blog below.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

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Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the weekly celebration of hand stitching! It's the one time a week where we make sure to set aside some special moments for playing with needles and thread/yarn. We hope you will join us!

This week I have been obsessed with the Lola Crow Extraordinary Bird SAL (stitch-a-long). I can't wait until my work day is over so I can dive into my  thread collection and stitch more of the design. I am enjoying learning about the creatures as I stitch and look forward to another part of the design coming to life.

I talked about this project (and everything I've stitched in May - even though I said it was June!) on my most recent flosstube video posted this week - click here to watch. I haven't had much time for stitching recently with all the spring yard work, and fitting in as much grandbaby time as possible, but overall this month I did put stitches into a few projects. 

What are you stitching at the end of May? Link up your blog post below and share your hand stitching projects with us.

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