Yummy stitches finish, the eclipse, and fairy tale stitching

Pattern: Yummy Stitches Patriotic Picnic Group 2 by Brooke's Books
Fabric: 14ct antique brown perforated paper
Threads: recommended
Start/Finish: 7/26-8/6/2017

Good afternoon everyone! I hope you are enjoying the month of August. I've been busy stitching and reading for the most part. Anything to keep my mind off of work, which is crazy like usual and doesn't make any sense at the moment.

At the beginning of the month, I was able to finish up Patriotic Picnic Group 2 by Brooke's Books. I think my favorite part was the beading. Who would think that would be relaxing, but it was....who knows why. I love how to adds a bit of sparkle and texture to the designs. My favorite motifs were the soda bottle (which reminds me of Japanese ramune soda!) and the adorable little s'more. 

I had bought this kit on Etsy from Brooke's shop. I noticed that on the front cover, the design should have had an additional motif of a star shaped cookie. When I emailed Brooke about it, she said it was a mistake from when the chart was published.

I asked if she could send me a PDF of the cookie chart and guess what?!?!!? She sent me a PDF for the other two ornament charts, one of which had the cookie chart in it. She said she was happy that I liked stitching her kawaii designs and sent them to me for free because I liked them so much.

How amazing it that?! It made my day. I mean really, it did. I was planning on buying those kits from her shop so when she sent the charts to me for free, I was speechless.

I really, really hope she decides to make more kawaii designs! Since she sent me the PDFs, I went out to Hobby Lobby and bought more threads and perforated paper for them. I bought the specialty threads at 123stitch, but I won't embellish any of the designs with the threads until I have them all stitched and beaded.

As you guys know we had a solar eclipse on Monday. My sister and her librarian friends had made pin hole cameras from cereal boxes. I decided to use paper plates for a pin hole camera. About fifteen minutes before the eclipse was at its totality, I made a camera out of a small priority mailing box, but guess what? I forgot to put a hole in it and when I was outside and made a hole with my keys, the hole was too big so it didn't work.

LOL So my paper plates were useful as a backup camera. My coworker and I went out to the bridge beside our building to view the eclipse. At first we weren't sure we would be able to see the eclipse as there was a huge cloud overhead (see image). We had nine minutes until totality!! Luckily, the cloud moved just in time for us to view the eclipse with my paper plates. A lot of our other coworkers joined us on the bridge after our boss went back inside. (Side note: our boss lacks social skills and whenever she interacts with any of us outside of a work situation, awkwardness ensues.....so when she left, everyone scrambled over to us.)

I'm glad we were able to see the eclipse. There were some public works employees on the bridge and they let me borrow their eclipse glasses to view the eclipse before totality. Several of our coworkers were luckily enough to have eclipse glasses too.

There should be another solar eclipse in 2024 which should go from CA to FL so I hope I can get some eclipse glasses for it! I wish it wasn't on a week day because I think an eclipse viewing party would be fun. Maybe I should make a note to take that day off in 2024.....LOL.....only 7 years away....that's quite a 'reminder' note.

Pattern: Dress Up Collection - The Fairy Tale Princess, #2 Snow White by Brooke's Books
Fabric: 28ct crystal mello Cashel opalescent 
Threads: recommended
Start: 8/10/2017

My start after finishing the Patriotic Picnic design was Snow White from Brooke's Books' Dress Up Collection. I have been stitching on it everyday and am 90% done with it. I am working on filling in the colored areas of the black skirt. After that I have her apron to stitch and the small bird on the right side and lastly add the embellished brooch and stitch her crown.

I hope I can finish this design by the end of August as I have several autumn/Halloween designs I would like to start.

I want to get her framed, but haven't decided on how and when. I wonder if I should wait until I have more of the series stitched up and have them framed at one time.....that way the framing style matches......hmmm.....

There are several other designs in the series that I would like to stitch up, but that evolves money for fabric so I will probably wait to stitch another design later this year or early next year because I'll need to stop by a needlework shop to look at fabrics.

Anywho, I hope you are enjoying your weekend. If you guys are in the TX area, be safe and use common sense!

Until next time ^___^