I have some stitchy things to share this week, including a finish that I completed late last year, an update on “All Shall Be Well,” and a very special gift that came in the mail a few days ago.

First up, is the finish. I love the Belle & Boo characters, and I adore the cross-stitch designs that have been made from the original illustrations. I snatch up all of the British cross-stitch magazines when they have new Belle & Boo designs. I stitched one design for myself a couple of years ago, but I wanted to stitch another.

When I found out my sister-in-law was expecting a little girl last year, I knew I had to stitch a Belle & Boo design for my new niece. This “Dandelion” cross-stitch pattern was in the July 2015 issue of CrossStitcher, but you can also find it as a PDF download on the Belle & Boo website.

I shared a couple sneak peeks of this while I was working on it last year, but here is the whole thing finally completed and framed.

I am finally able to share it because I delivered it to the recipients this past weekend. Hooray!

Second, I have been working slowly on the “All Shall Be Well’ pattern model. I am happy to report that I completed the initial letter “A” and am now moving on to the other lettering. So, here is the current progress:

The pattern calls for all DMC threads to keep things affordable, but I swapped out the brown thread for an overdyed thread from The Gentle Arts for the lettering because I wanted to see the slight color variation in the letters. My hope is that the variation in color will give the letters an antique look like ink on old parchment. All of the letters have backstitching, too, but I have not yet added the backstitching to the two “l”s above.

You can see what the complete “All Shall Be Well” project will look like in this post, and the pattern is available on Etsy.

Thanks for reading!