All Is Calm

Surprisingly, it is calm even though I am in a flurry of shopping, wrapping, decorating and baking! I love this time of year and it is going by too, too fast.

My first completed ornament of the year is this sweet design from Little by Little.  I've always liked it and it was a fun stitch.

All Is Calm, Little by Little

Lakeside Linen Vintage Light Examplar, 40 count

conversion to GAST, WDW and Thread Gather SNC

My other Christmas project is started and probably won't be finished this year. I love the color of this thread. It feels Christmas-y to me and is nice to work with on chilly nights.

Quaker Christmas Sampler, Carriage House Samplings

Lakeside Linen, Vintage Light Examplar, 40 count

Gloriana silk, Schoolhouse Red

Little Miss Miriam is finished and ready to be framed. I was a little sad to finish stitching her because I loved the spirit of the sampler and enjoyed working with these colors.

 Miriam Chilvers 1833, Samplers Remembered

Lakeside Linen, Vintage Maritime White, 40 count

AVAS silks 

My newest start is (finally!) Isabella Johnstone from the Summer 2010 issue of SANQ.  I absolutely love the linen I am using. It's a gorgeous color and the picture just doesn't do it justice at all. It's dyed by Jan of  Tree of Life Samplings and is called Almond Creme. 

1854 Isabella Johnstone Sampler, SANQ Summer 2010

Tree of Life Samplings, Almond Creme, 40 count

DMC threads

Although the leaves are now almost gone from our trees, I wanted to share this picture I took at the end of November. This is the view from my study window and if I'm at my desk working I can look down our driveway. I love this view because it changes often and I can just see a few of the pink rosebushes and our crepe myrtle we planted earlier this year. 

Miss Kitty loves the front porch, too. She keeps watch for anything that moves from her command post. 

 

When she's had enough of the view from the front porch, she will often grace me with her presence in my study and take a little nap on the loveseat.

Thank you for visiting today. I hope you all  have a great weekend!

What a busy few months have passed since my last post! I am very grateful that summer is gone and fall is here.  I absolutely love everything about this time of year.  

I only have little bit to talk about on the stitching front.  The little patriotic design Eagle by Sheepish Designs is now finished. It really was a fun stitch!

Eagle, Sheepish Designs

40 count Antique Cotton, R&R

Recommended overdyed and DMC threads

My current project is Miriam Chilver's Sampler 1833.  I was so drawn to this design stitched by nine year old Miriam. The little girl/lady's curly hair seems to underscore the irrepressible joy of the sampler itself. When I look at it, I think of a child dressed in new party clothes who barely stands still long enough to have a picture taken before the child off and running. It would interesting to know if the girl/young lady that Miriam included in her sampler is a representation of herself or someone else she knew. I love the colors in the design, too.

Miriam Chilver's Sampler 1833, Samplers Remembered

40 count Vintage Maritime White, Lakeside Linens

Recommended AVAS

My daughter and I participated in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure with friends this year. She ran and I walked. The race had about 1,000 more participants than last and year and raised $25,000 over goal! Here's my wonderful daughter before lining up to run.

The Georgia National Fair was also this month so we made our annual trip for corn dogs and peach cobbler with ice cream. Thank goodness fair food is a once a year thing!

It's always fun to tour the exhibit halls, especially the art and needlework exhibits.  It was surprising how few cross stitch entries there were.  Here are a few things that especially caught my eye.

That's it for now.  Thank you for stopping by to visit.  Have a great rest of the week!

summer stitching

Summer is definitely here in all of its very hot and humid glory! I hope you have had a fun summer so far. We are spending more time in the air conditioning rather than playing outside. More stitching time!

Here's a little finish, 1863 Honfleur Sampler originally stitched by Lucie Beharel. It's from the Summer 2011 SANQ magazine. I know I've said it before, but whenever I work on a reproduction sampler, I always wonder about the stitcher. It was especially so with this sampler as Lucie and I apparently share the same faith.  It was very moving to think that over 200 years ago she was celebrating her faith the same way I do today.

1863 Honfleur Sampler, SANQ magazine

Lakeside Linen 40 count Vintage Light Examplar

Sheepish Design's Eagle is my patriotic piece this year. I've had a lot of  fun stitching this design! I think the fabric, patchwork motifs, and the little scalloped border really give it a vintage feel.

 Eagle, Sheepish Designs

R/R 40 count Antique Cotton, recommended threads

This sampler has been on my to stitch list for some time.  When I first saw it I thought of my own daughter when she was little. She was forever bringing me wildflowers, especially very tiny flowers that grew close to the ground. I also have collection of tiny, round, smooth stones she would find for me.  The little girl on the sampler represents my own little girl, who turned 21 this summer (!).  I added her initials and put her hands on her hips!

From His Hand, Plum Street Samplers

40 count Vintage Maritime White, Lakeside Linens 

NPI threads

This is picture of her from about the same time she was bringing flowers and small stones. She loved that hat and those pink sunglasses!

I love my stash. I love to go through my WIPs, kitted and not touched projects, and stacks of charts. It makes me happy and I love almost everything in it, but it makes me want to stitch everything at once.  I was playing in my WIPs and came across Kind Fond Love and realized I missed it! So I pulled it out, added a couple of motifs, finished the large part of the house, and restitched the off-centered pot and birds.  The color of  the house bothers me though, and I'll probably redo it at some point. I'll see how it feels when I get closer to being done.  If you're susceptible to vertigo, you may want to skip this picture. It was taken at an angle to try and capture all of it.  

KFL, Sampler Company

40 count Maritime White, Lakeside Linens

NPI conversion

A closer view.

 

In case you were wondering, Miss Kitty and Cooper are still around. Cooper has really grown and is about 75 pounds now. He is one loud and messy dog with a huge heart and not a mean bone in his body.  Here he is watching the ducks at the lake.

 Cooper

 I have a little white table with two chairs that sits outside my office window. Joe and I like to sit there and have a cup of coffee weekend mornings, or an end of the day beverage in the afternoon if the weather's nice. Miss Kitty has claimed it as one of her favorite lounging spots. She can keep an eye on me while I work and one eye on the lookout for lizards that scurry across the porch.

 Miss Kitty

That's it! Have a great week!

virtue planted

My first finish of 2011 is my New Year's Day start - Plant Virtue. What a happy little design with a positive message. I thought a lot about the virtues I would like to, or probably should, plant during 2011.

My favorite stitching bits in this sampler were the jaunty rooster, the cheerful sun and those pretty flowers. While working on the rooster, I remembered a book that I used to read to my DD when she was little. For the life of me, I cannot remember the title, but it was about a little rooster whose job it was to wake up the world every morning. Time spent going to the library with my DD and reading every day are really some of my favorite memories.

Least favorite stitching parts were the bricks and mortar. I also didn't notice until I finished it that the lower right window is off by one stitch. I wonder if I had noticed it on the chart before I stitched if I would correct or leave it!

Goode Huswife - Plant Virtue
R&R 40 count linen, mystery color

Here are the other things I've been stitching. I tried to do a different design each of the first 15 days in January. Seriously, it made me nervous! I'm still working on my list of 15, but have changed the fabric on a couple of them and am still considering swapping some out for other pieces. I'm not posting photos of those designs where I've just stitched a snippet of a border.

A little design to honor my sweet husband and our marriage of many years. Not a good picture at all - the colors aren't true; it's really much prettier in real life. One of my goals for this year is to learn how to take better pictures!

Goode Huswife - Quaker Marriage Sampler
Lakeside Linen, 40 count Vintage Light Examplar
Needlepoint Silk 635

I am in love with almost every one of Blackbird Design's Rewards of Merit. Here is Bluebird, and I hope it's the bluebird of happiness and will hang around for awhile. It did take a little adjusting to get used to working on 30 count fabric, but I like texture of fabric and thread for this piece.

Blackbird Designs - Bluebird Reward of Merit
R&R 30 count Cafe Kona (I think)

I've always thought that Dainty Housewren was a quaint and charming little design so I'm glad I decided to stitch it this year. Here is my start, which looks a lot like the noose/tree in the Hangman word game we used to play as kids. For some unknown reason, I started this with the tree instead of the border; hopefully I've counted correctly! Maybe I was getting tired of stitching borders.

Carriage House Samplings - Dainty Housewren
Lakeside Linen 40 count Vintage Light Examplar

I also started a reproduction sampler by Muriel Brunet and was halfway through the left upper quadrant when I realized I had ordered the wrong size fabric! That's what I get for not stitching at least the width and length of the border. I'm not posting a picture, although I loved stitching the red alphabet - it's just too painful!

I don't want sign off without taking a moment to remember Lisa. She was a very upbeat person, encouraging, modest, creative, supportive, funny. She loved primitives, old graveyards with interesting stones, horses, reading, her VW bug, Halloween, but she especially loved and was so proud of her family. I think about her quite a bit when I stitch, as I'm sure many of you do. I was very glad to know her the little bit I did.

Have a good week.

Remembering Lisa - a generous, creative and lovely person ...



Lisa Roswell
Sampler Sisters of the Thread
The Primitive Needle

Happy New Year to my stitching friends! I hope everyone had safe and joyful holidays. I'm glad a new year lies ahead and I look forward to seeing what it brings. A new year is a hopeful thing.

"Hope smiles on the threshold of the year to come, whispering that it will be better." - Alfred Lord Tennyson

I'm excited about the Crazy January Challenge. Half the fun was digging through stash, makings lists and more lists, and pulling supplies together, and reading how other stitchers were mapping out the challenge to meet their personal goals. Not only that, but this challenge has really motivated me to work on those charts I've wanted to stitch for awhile. Each night while I stitch I always wonder about all the other stitchers around the world stitching for the very same challenge. So, here are my chosen 15, appearing in alphabetical order:

Alphabet Sampler - BOAF
Bluebird Reward of Merit - Blackbird Designs
Christmas Angel Ornaments - BOAF
Counting Magpies - BOAF
Dainty Housewren - Carriage House Samplings
Eagle - Sheepish Designs
From His Hand - Plum Street Samplers
Hornbook Angel - Primitive Needle
Il Etait Une Fois ... Demain - Muriel Brunet
Penny Angel - Primitive Needle
Plant Virtue - Goode Huswife
Prairie Schooler - Parrot in a Cage (from Forget-Me-Nots)
Quaker Christmas Samplers - Carriage House Samplings
Quaker Marriage Sampler - Good Huswife
Waiting for the Harvest Reward of Merit - Blackbird Designs

My NY Day start was Plant Virtue, which I should surely make a point of doing. So far I've also worked on Quaker Marriage Sampler, Waiting for the Harvest, Bluebird, Il Etait, Hornbook Angel, and Quaker Christmas Samplers. I would show pictures but I would be boring you with shots of only borders.

Middle Georgia is expecting snow and ice on Sunday and Monday. Woohoo! The grocery store was packed this afternoon in true Southern style - a prediction of one inch of snow will pack the aisles and empty out the shelves. I hope it does snow as long as we can keep our electricity. We have lots of firewood, a gas grill and my grandmama's little perculator coffee pot. Oh, and a stocked wine shelf. I can stitch for hours!

No stitching pictures, but I'll leave you with images from my few days in the Charleston area. DH's sister and BIL invited us to their Charleston place for New Year's. It was a lot of fun and much different than my trips in earlier years (think bathing suits and coolers ...). This was a "grownup trip," more or less. Pictures are of things that caught my eye and that I had time to shoot while out and about: the oldest Catholic church in the Carolinas and Georgia, lunch at a restaurant in what was once an old church, Folly Beach and the Polar Plunge on Folly Beach. We were always on the go and had a great time, but we did get in our blackeyed peas and collards on New Year's Day so the money should be rolling in this year. As I said earlier, a new year is a hopeful thing!







Have a great weekend!