We’ve been extraordinarily busy this week with back to school, kids’ activities, and a major construction project-having a basketball court put in our large and neglected side yard. That project was more complicated than you might think as it involved rerouting irrigation and electrical lines, building a wall and seating/planter box and moving tons of gravel. Well, it’s about done and it is a good project to have done as now the kids can play outside on the court instead of inside in the hallway next to the kitchen.

Despite all this busy-ness, I’ve gotten some stitching done.

I spent a few nights making this Quaker Strawberry from Blackbird Designs out of the JCS 2006 Christmas Ornaments magazine. I just need to find the right thing to put on it for a cap.

I started Peppermint Twist from Little House Needleworks. This has been in my “Do This Year” binder for 2 years so I really wanted to get it done!

I also started on September from the Snowflower Diaries’ Joyful World calendar. I hope to have it done by September to stay on track to finish the month blocks by the end of this year. It’s such a sweet design and I can’t believe it was free. I am pretty sure you can still download it here:

Finally this month I am joining this #commonthreadedstitcher August challenge on Instagram. I don’t think I will post for ALL the topics, but probably most of them. If you are on Instagram you can follow me at marysthread. And why don’t you join in too? The #commonthreadedstitcher hashtag is a lot of fun. It is so neat to get to know all the participating stitchers better!