Happy Fourth!

It is Independence Day here in the USA. My shoulder has prevented me from dragging out the box with my patriotic decorations. I usually have swags on my front porch. Hubby will hang our flag out front though. At least I have a new decoration for inside my house.

Last summer I finished stitching this Fourth of July cross-stitch, but I never made it into a finished decoration. I remedied that this past week. 

Isn't that patriotic bunny adorable? This is from the June/July 1998 Crafting Traditions magazine. It is mounted on mat-board with fabric that I had in my stash added to the mat-board frame. Do you see the ribbon that I used for the hanging loop? Don't ask me why I saved such a small piece of ribbon, but that was the entire piece of red/white/blue striped ribbon that I had saved in my ribbon box. It worked perfectly for a hanger.

I have spent a good deal of time cross-stitching since school ended. So much so that I aggravated the arthritis in my thumbs and have had to stop the last couple of days. Here is how Santa looked for the last Stitch Along update. 

 I have since managed to add lots of stitches to Santa's beard and finished the holly. All of the light grey that outlines his beard is completed and I am now working on finishing the darker grey that also outlines the beard. There was some frogging at the bottom yesterday as I was one stitch off. Ugh!

I am looking forward to the beard outline being completed, because then I will start working on the gift that Santa is holding and add a bunch more color. 

Thanks so much to Avis at Sewing Beside the Sea for hosting this Stitch Along every three weeks.

Grab yourself a cup of coffee or tea and take some time to visit the other talented bloggers below who are part of this stitch-along. You will see a wide variety of stitching projects. These talented stitchers are from all over the world so please allow for the time differences and check back for each post. 

Avis, Claire, Gun, Carole, Constanze, Christina, Kathy, 

Margaret, Cindy, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Megan,

 Deborah, Renee, Carmela, Sharon, Daisy,

 Anne, AJ, Laura, Cathie, Linda, Helen  

Thanks for stopping by!