Designing and Stitching

Good morning world!  I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend.  Ours was a much needed effort at winding down after a long and sometimes difficult week.  More on that in a minute.  First, I wanted to share some stitching.  I have released a new pattern, which is shipping to shops today.  It is called "Give Us Liberty" and is a small design that can be easily stitched and turned into a cute pin pillow:

The model is stitched on "Heroic" linen from Picture This Plus using overdyed cotton threads from Weeks Dye Works.  It was fun to design and stitch, hopefully a few of you will enjoy stitching it as much as I did!

I also had time this weekend to work on finishing some pieces that I stitched earlier this year (or the year before).  Both of these are kits from Chessie and Me.  I backed each with a different patriotic-themed fabric (should have taken pictures of that!) and here they are:

I am debating adding a trim on the edges of one or both of them, but there's nothing at the house that works for me.  I'll check Mom's stash when I drop by her house later today and then maybe swing by M's as well.  I always love these little designs of Chessie and Me!

Which brings me to the reasons why this week has been so challenging.  For starters, my husband spent most of the week out of town on a business trip.  He doesn't love the traveling, and I don't love his not being around, so we were mildly stressed to begin with.  In addition, this week was Vacation Bible School at our church.  For the first time ever, I volunteered as a teacher.  I hadn't been to a VBS since I was a child myself!  Do not get me wrong, I very much enjoyed my teaching experience.  The kids were funny and sweet and adorable.  But keeping them safe and happy takes a lot of energy.  A lot.  Totally worth it, but tiring.

Then, Tuesday evening, this cute little grey guy here put the scary in my week.  About 9:30 pm, he starts peeing in all the wrong places.  Gross, and a sign that of a bladder infection or uti, which can be deadly in cats.  So off to the emergency vet we go.

We arrive back home around 12:30 in the morning (yep, see where that exhausting part is happening), with some meds and instructions to check back in if things do not improve within 24-36 hours.  Lucky is quarantined in the master bathroom with all the rugs removed so that, should he be unable to use the litter box I provided, at least he wasn't going anywhere I couldn't easily clean up.

The next day is full of worry and concern as he fails to really improve his bathroom behaviors.  How long is too long? Is my cat going to get better or is he going to fall out and die before I realize he needs more help?  No significant improvement, so Thursday am bright and early it's back to the emergency vet before the start of VBS.  By Thursday afternoon, the vet informs me that his kidney levels are bad and they want him to stay overnight for an iv treatment.  My poor little cat!  My poor heart!  I'm just sick on my stomach at the thought that he might be going into kidney failure.  That was a long night for me, probably longer for the cat.

Happily, the vet called the next morning to say that his kidney levels were back to normal, he was urinating appropriately, etc, etc.  I brought him home after VBS and returned him to quarantine.  I've spent an anxious few days watching over him, making sure he was still acting right and giving him tons and tons of pills (he loves that, not!).  He's out of quarantine now, and seems to be over the hump.  I hope so.  He'll be back at the vet's on Thursday for a checkup, assuming there are no more crises between now and then.  I think about my anxiety and worry for him and then I think about how much worse it must be if it's your child instead of your cat.  Wow!  Tough to think about.

Hope that wasn't tmi for anyone.  Hope everyone is enjoying the beginning of summer.  I am off to package some patterns.  Later!

Life goes on

Howdy folks!  Hope everyone had a great weekend.  Things were nice and relaxing here.  Not too much going on (although fun stuff is in the works).  I thought I'd share a photo of my geraniums.  I really love geraniums, and I have some on my front steps every summer.  I decided to dial back on the summer flower purchases this year though.  Only three pots of geraniums, and nothing in the porch baskets.  Just seemed like a good summer for a break.  I'll be back in flower power mode next summer though.









We've been enjoying our usual crew of visitors to the bird feeder so far this year.  And a new guy showed up this evening: an eastern towhee.  I'd actually seen a pair of them in the back part of the yard in February, but this is the first time I'd seen any at the feeder.  Always love seeing new birds on the porch!

I've been up to quite a bit of stitching recently.  Some of it I can't show you just yet (waiting on my first magazine publication, squee!), but here's a sneak peek at a reproduction that I hope to released in February (yup, we're doing some long term planning here).  This is the mostly finished top third of a rather large sampler.  I am having so much fun stitching it, and hope others will be interested as well!  Not only do Adam and Eve make an appearance, complete with explanatory verse, but there's a gorgeous rendition of Solomon's Temple as well!  Like I said, lots of fun.  It may be a little early to start sharing previews, but I wanted to show something I've been working on!

The cats are being, well, cats.  This first shot is a rare snap of the elusive Miss Priss.  Most of our house guests never get to see her sweet little face.  She's so funny, and so very, very shy!

Princess is highlighting the fact that I am not the world's best housekeeper by holding down the pile of 'clean' laundry on my dresser.  At least she hasn't thrown the tap shoes on the floor.  I'm auditing a tap class Tuesday evening to see if I can still hoof a bit.  If all goes well, I may be spending my summer stomping my little heart out!

Dear sweet Lucky!  He looks exhausted doesn't he?  Must be from all that unwanted smashing of buttons on the keyboard.  He can make typing a blog post quite challenging!

Til next time, stay safe, and stay crafty!

St Charles Needlework Market

Hello everyone!  So I say I'm going to post more regularly, and then I go about two weeks without a new post.  Well, at least I have a decent excuse (or two).  Here's the first excuse: my computer has been otherwise occupied:

She even managed to turn the computer on, access the internet, and try to print a blank Word document!  As I am typing this post, silly Princess is trying yet again to climb onto the keyboard.  I guess it is pleasantly warm on her tummy.  Sigh.

My other, even better, excuse is that I have been at the St Charles needlework market for the past 5 days or so, helping Mom with her room, and checking out all the other great releases as well.  It was a very busy show, and lots of shopping and buying was done.  I am glad that I can finally show you what most of my summer stitching time has been devoted to.  Here are the new releases from Cherished Stitches:

Autumn Whimsies is a limited edition kit that includes everything you need to make this sweet little pillow except the stuffing.  It was Mom's best-seller at the show and it is sold out!  In fact, it sold out the first night, and she ordered supplies to make another 6 dozen, and she's sold out again!  So if you like it, better get in touch with your favorite needlework shops quick and see if they have one available.

 Next up are 9 of the Fairest Flowers series.  Only the three in the center front are brand new.  There is a pattern for each month of the year (with three months still to come), and each flower is one that you would find in a 17th century English garden.  Such interesting uses they had for these plants!  Did you know that thistle can cure baldness?

There were three new Halloween releases as well: a sweetly grim little pot of flowers, a biscornu kit, and the ironwork-inspired "tis time."

And finally, the Quaker family tree, which I think is my favorite of all the new releases.  It comes with suggestions on how to modify the chart to suit your own family, as well as lots of graph paper for drawing out all the names you want to stitch.  I just love how this one looks!  There was one other new release that I don't have a picture of.  It's called "Fall Tribute" and has a cute pair of squirrels on it.  It's one of the ones on which I did the model stitching, so I'm bummed I didn't get a photo.  Of all the releases you see above, I put thread to fabric on all of them except the LE kit, the biscornu, and the smaller Halloween piece.  Now you know how busy I've been in the stitching department!

I do have some other stitch-related news to share.  I am going to try my own hand at designing!  I have already been working (in a very on again/off again style) on reproducing some of my antique samplers.  Now I'm trying to be more consistent with my efforts.  Next year, at the Nashville market, I will be joining Mom and presenting designs of my own.  At this point, I think there will be two reproduction samplers (Rachel Mauger and an Adam & Eve sampler that I don't think I've shared on this blog) and several smaller patterns of my own design that are inspired by my antique sampler collection.  February seems so far away, but really close, all at the same time!  I will share more as we get a lot closer to market.  I guess only time will tell whether this is a great idea, or a very foolish one.

Next time, I will share a little about the pit stops we took on the loooong drive from North Carolina to Missouri.  Til then, stay crafty my friends!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Yes, we finally have all the Christmas decorations and lights up, inside and out.  It took a little while because of illness, injury, and weather, but we are now ready for the season!  I thought I'd share a little of our holiday look with you today.  First up, of course, is the foyer.  I've swapped out the old metal ornament stand for a 3 ft fake tree.  I thought I would have more room for my hand stitched ornament collection.  I think I was wrong.  It's already almost completely full!

To the right of the tree, you can see my newly framed Quaker Christmas sampler.  I finished it in '09, but just got it framed this past weekend.

Here's a closer view:

During most of the year, this spot on the wall is occupied with a papyrus art piece that we picked up on our travels to Egypt, but over Thanksgiving, this Shepherd's Bush piece hung there:

I know, it doesn't go with the Christmas decor theme of this post, but I wanted to share anyway.

Moving on to the living room, we have the world's most crooked, but stable, Christmas tree:

This photo doesn't show how crooked the tree really is.  Try as I might, I could not get the darned thing to stand straight.  So I gave up and decorated away.  I love each and every ornament on this tree.  So many fun memories are attached to each one.

I had a lot of fun decorating the mantel this year.  As of 2 nights ago, the kitties have been having a lot of fun removing balls from the mantel.  This may not end well for some of my decorations.  Sigh.

And finally, here is the dining room:

One of the samplers that usually hangs here has been replaced with Celtic Christmas, which I don't think I've ever shared before:

In other news, there's been plenty of stitching and finishing going on.  I will try to get another quick post up before the end of the week to share those.  Meanwhile I leave you with three of my favorite 'decorations.'

She knows she's not supposed to be up there, but that never stops her!

I have to say, Lucky looks rather squished.  But he didn't complain when Scout jumped onto the couch and joined us, so I guess he enjoyed the snuggle.

Til next time, happy creating, everyone!

A winner, TUSAL, and prepping for dinner

Yeah, I made that stupid title just so I could do some rhyming.  Maybe it's the early hour of the morning.  Or I'm just in a silly mood.  Who knows?  Sorry I've been away so long.  It's just been a blah kind of month, and I haven't really felt like blogging very much.  Haven't stitched all that much either (eek!).  I did finish a couple of scrapbooking layouts, so that's something.

The toe, and foot, and tailbone, have all been healing nicely.  I see the doctor tomorrow for a progress review.  Hopefully I'll get a big thumbs up and be out of this stupid boot before too long.

November TUSAL update:

If you want to read about the TUSAL, go here.  Daffycat will be doing this again next year.  I am thinking that I will sign up again.  That jar is almost completely full.  I think I will look for a clear ornament to stuff with orts during my post-Thanksgiving shopping.

While I was trying to photograph my ort jar, I let Princess enjoy a little outdoors time.  After I was done with the jar, I took a few photos of my sweet girl.  Some of my cats could care less about going outside.  Some don't go outside because they won't let me catch them when I am ready to go back in.  But Princess not only loves the outdoors, she doesn't run away from me.  Some might blame this on her large, fluffy size.

 Most of the time, this was the view I got when I tried to photograph her.  Not her best side, I'm thinking:

Okay, enough delaying.  An announcement of my 100 followers giveaway is looong overdue.  I used the random number generator, but I'm not tech savvy enough to figure out how to share a webshot on this blog.  Without further ado, the winner is...

Miss Pants!!!

Heather, I don't think I have your email address, so please shoot me a line with your snail mail... and be patient with me.  I will start stitching on your prize ASAP, but I doubt I'll get much done over this next week as I will be very busy with Thanksgiving prep.

Yup, that's right.  My man and I are hosting both our immediate families for Thanksgiving dinner.  And I'm cooking a turkey for the very first time.  I have to admit, I'm a bit scared of the whole idea.  Turkey totally intimidates me.  I'll let you know how it goes.

That's all for today folks!  Stay safe and stay crafty.

I'm ready for my closeup now.

This post is all about cats

It's been so dark and overcast here lately that I just can't get any good pictures of my stitching or my Halloween decorations.  So I thought I'd share a few photos of my silly cats today.  I took this first one a week or two ago, when the weather was much nicer.  We were having a wonderful time leaving the windows open, feeling the cool breezes and listening to the birds twitter.  I think Scout and Lucky were especially interested in the birds:

Princess, on the other hand, wasn't as interested in the open windows.  Just give her a warm sunbeam and she's quite content.

Spike is the closest I've got to a Halloween decoration.  I came into the foyer one day to find her lying on my Halloween tablecloth, like a pretty little statue.

And that's it for today.  The other two cats can't be bothered to pose for photos.  The North Carolina State Fair begins Thursday.  Hubby and I are planning to make our trip on Friday, if the weather is nice.  I love peering at all the farm animals, admiring the art exhibits, and checking out all the plants and vegetables.  But I have to say, the thing I'm most looking forward to this year is sampling a fried Girl Scout cookie.  I just don't see how you can go wrong if the cookie under all the fried dough is a caramel delite!

It's time to start the wedding album!

Yes, I've made two shower albums, and although I have decided to make another mini-album documenting activities from the day before the wedding, I don't have the budget for acquiring the perfect album yet.  So, I am taking the plunge and starting on the wedding album itself.  There are somewhere around 800 photos to sort through and organize.  The mind boggles.  I have decided not to try to plan the whole thing out ahead of time, as my head might explode.  Instead, I'll take one little bit at a time.  So, I started with a simple page showcasing the invitation:

This page is sporting some seriously old Rusty Pickle paper.  Ah, what a fun paper company that was!

One more page has been finished.  I used a ton of Websters Pages for this one, which is about the way I felt waking up the morning of my wedding:

I had some issues with the title, I started by adding a light layer of gesso to the paper, thinking that would make the letters stand out.  When that wasn't enough, I went back and outlined the letters with black ink.  Someone small and furry distracted me mid-trace, so I didn't do a perfect job.

I cut the wedding dress, the scalloped paper, and the heart out of spare bits of paper, and then added a few pearls to the dress to give it a little more bling.

It was a fun page to make!

It seems that any time I'm working on an album, I end up with way more photos than I actually use in the album.  Some people might be able to choose what they want to scrap ahead of time and order only those pictures, but I just don't seem to be able to work that way.  So what do I do with the leftover photos?  They are perfectly good images, and it seems crazy to throw them away.  But shoving them all together into a large bucket (which is what I had been doing) gets a little nutso too.  You can't see any of the pictures, and should I for some reason want one of them, it takes forever to dig through everything.  The other day, I found these 200 image albums at AC Moore for only $1 apiece.  I grabbed a few, and I think I'll end up going back for a few more.  I'm going to stick labels on the sides so I know what's in each one, and hopefully this will make for a more organized photo collection.  And look, I found albums with birdcages on the front!

On the stitching front, I have been working a bit on 'Black'd Skie', but I don' t have a photo tonight.  I'll have to share later this week.  I've also been working on a couple of Halloween ornaments.  Photos will go up when I finish them.  I have finished gather goodies for my Halloween exchange, and I plan on making a trip to the post office later in the week.

I have started going through my stash looking for supplies to make some of the cute ornaments I've selected from this year's JCS ornament issue.  This turned out to be a bit more frustrating than I'd expected it to be.  For starters, I found a rather large handful of stitched, but not finished, ornaments.  I thought I'd done away with that problem last year, but sadly, I have not!  I also got a little frustrated by these two skeins of thread:

I won't name the company, but THESE TWO SKEINS OF THREAD ARE SUPPOSED TO BE THE SAME COLOR!!!  And dude, they aren't even close.  I purchased them a couple of years apart, but still, that is a crazy color difference.  I guess I'll just put them both with the rest of the fibers for the project and decide which one I like best.

Okay, that's enough complaining for one night.  I guess I'm blessed that my biggest worry this evening is nonmatching dye lots.  So I leave you with miss Spike, who is celebrating the cooler weather by snuggling on our bed now that there is a nice cozy blanket thrown across it.

Til next time, have a crafty moment or two!

It's a frameup!

As mentioned in my last post, I spent most of yesterday hanging out with Mom at her house.  While Dad was busy framing the four pieces I pinned a couple of weeks ago, I spent some time checking out the new goodies Mom had picked up at the Baltimore market (and no, I didn't realize there was a Baltimore market until she announced she was going... I think it's a newer market).  I got to see some beautiful new overdyed cottons from Weeks and Sampler Threads, and some delicious looking silks elizabethan silks, but I've forgotten who they were from!  Horn books, new linen fabrics, there were so many lovely things to admire.

I showed her some of my newest finishes, including this little guy from the 2010 JCS Halloween issue:

I've been wanting to stitch this piece since I first saw, but only just got supplies and time all together for stitching and finishing.  I used a piece of black (or dark gray) flannel for the back.  You can see the slight pattern in the fabric in this overexposed photo:

Once show and tell was over, we settled down to business, discussing design options for our Cabinets of Curiosities.  I have just about decided that I will be primarily relying on panel designs that are being provided to us, while Mom is much more ambititous.  She's trying to come up with designs for a North Carolina themed casket.  Next month's lesson is finally going to have us actually putting needle to thread for the first time (so excited), and we had some prework to do in tracing the image we will be stitching onto a piece of linen:

Please believe me when I tell you that tracing onto such dark linen and lining it up so that it's square on the fabric is easier said than done.  Can't wait to see what our next lesson brings!

I was also able to pick up an issue of this year's JCS Christmas Ornament issue while at Mom's.  I loved so many more ornaments in this issue than I have in recent years.  As you can see, I've picked out quite a few that I'd like to stitch up this year... wonder how many I'll actually get around to stitching!

Now on to the framed pieces.  I took these photos before the glass was added to the frames.d  This first one was my first stitching finish for this year, Jenni Bean's Creation Sampler:

 Here's Janet Gibson in her uber-ornate frame:

 I finished the North Wind last year, and had some issues finding a frame to fit it, as the recommended frame did NOT work at all:

 And finally, a piece that I finished years ago, and that has never been shared on this blog.  Winter in the Park is a Chatelaine Mystery design, the first Chatelaine design I ever bought, and the only one that I've actually finished.  It's hard to see the sparkly gorgeousness of this piece in this photo.  It's much prettier in person.

That's about it for today.  I will leave you with an image of what I found clogging up my sink last night while I was getting ready for bed:

Silly Lucky!  Til next time, have a creative day, everyone!

Aloha album, part two

Well, it has certainly been a rather interesting day around here.  I was starting to straighten up a bit as we will be having a guest staying over this weekend.  I was cleaning out the boot tray, which sits in our breakfast nook, when I noticed that the cover on one of the outlets looked like it was coming off.   Upon closer inspection, I discovered that this rather soft plastic covering was warping away from the wall, the plugs themselves felt a bit warm, and there was moisture running down the wall from under the cover.  Yikes!  THe outlet is directly under a window, so I can only assume that there is some sort of leak on the interior of that wall (wish I'd found this a week ago before our new home warranty ran out).  I think the problem has been going on for a while because I noticed what looked like a drip mark beneath the outlet 3 weeks ago, but I thought I'd splashed something out of the boot tray and just cleaned it up.  Anyway, the electricity to the outlet has been turned off (after many tries to find the fuse that belongs to said outlet), and I'm now waiting for hubby to pull the thing apart and decide what comes next.

Enough with the homeowner drama, though.  It's time for the rest of my shower album.

 This was another two sided insert tucked into a pocket.

 In this next pocket page, I tucked some papers that we used for playing games at the shower behind the photo insert.  As you can see, the photo is labeled 'prizes.'  Since the prize is a rather silly one, I will leave it discreetly hidden inside the little pocket!

 This was one of several funny stories about some of the wedding gifts we received.  I had registered for this pretty glass pitcher at Belks.  For whatever reason, the fact that someone had purchased said pitcher was never reflected in my registry, no matter how many different times it was scanned in.  So I received two pitchers at this shower.  And a week later, I received two more.  There's no telling how many pitchers we would have ended up with if I hadn't finally just deleted it from my registry completely!  But I love them, and ended up keeping two of the four.  They've been used a couple of times already, and are sure to be filled with much sweet tea in the future.

 One cool thing that some of the guests did was write down a short story about a favorite memory of me on the back of a card enclosed in their invites.  I tucked those cards inside the last pocket in the album.

The inside back cover was used to display one last photo:

And there you have it.  Wonderful memories of a wonderful party in a wonderful little album.  

I leave you with a snapshot of my most foolish cat, loving on my broken toe, which was (thankfully) safely protected by this ugly black boot.

Til next time, stay safe and be crafty!