Thrift store love, WIPs and current charity stitching finish

I have really made out like a bandit lately at thrift stores.  We only have one teeny little one where I live and I went there yesterday.  I ended up with a huge armload of hardcover books filled with patterns and tutorials for cross stitch, embroidery and needlepoint.  Also a few random patterns, kits and one discarded WIP.  Here's a picture of just part of what I ended up with.

But I have also discovered a crafting thrift store where I found two needlepoint kits, with canvas and yarn, still new in the package with the price tag from the store - $110 each - and I got them for $10 a piece.  Now don't you know I felt like a lucky lady that day!

I have been busy stitching too ~ not just stash shopping, lol.  My charity (see our FB page here) is winding up a project for a hospital nursery and I stitched four bibs and did one blanket, embroidering each of the four corners.  This was a lot of fun and I especially enjoyed stitching the blanket.

I have so far finished two of the ornaments in my Night Before Christmas Series.  I'm using 28 ct. Irish linen for these and I'm so pleased with how they are turning out.

I also did a quick 3-day stitch based off of a scene from the Harry Potter stories.  This one was a lot of fun.  It's on a hand dyed cashel linen and unfortunately the picture doesn't do the fabric justice.  It's a lemon lime swirl and as soon as I saw it, I knew it was the perfect piece of fabric for this piece.  (Excuse the wrinkles, this was fresh out of the Qsnaps.)

Garden Party is also coming a long nicely, although it has suffered one major setback.   My fabric got cut such that I am going to have to now stitch this in two separate designs instead of one.  Lucky for me, the pattern is such that I will be able to split it in a 2/3 - 1/3 manner and make two pieces out of it.  Not ideal, but onward and forward, yes?

And last but definitely not least, I'm working on a plastic canvas market tote.  So far I have the side panels, bottom panel and back panel finished.  Honesty, I've been seeing these squares in my sleep!  I was so glad to get them done.  The front panel will be much more interesting with lots of fruits and veggies stitched on.  This entire tote is stitched using the Continental Stitch, except for the overcast stitches I'll use to put it all together.

So that catches us up!  I'm off to pick up my needle and thread.  :0)