With gratitude

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

So! May is unbelievably almost gone! BabyGirl is home for the summer and it's so much fun having her home. Except for the laundry part ... She and her SweetBoyFriend always keep it very interesting here.

We've had some very warm sunny days already, and a lot of overcast and sometimes rainy days. I love a good storm!



May and June are typically very busy months for our family, so I'm not surprised that I haven't stitched as much as I would like. I have worked a little on One Seed for Another. I still need to order the one green silk needed for the grass, vine and one of the trees in the part I've stitched, but I'm just working around it for now. (The picture is small, but Blogger was cutting off the image on the right side for some reason.)

One Seed for Another
Carriage House Samplings
40 count Lakeside Linen Vintage Pearled Barley
NPI silks

Mom and I also recently took a little road trip to a neighboring town and visited an antique store and a quilting supply store. On the way home we stopped at a wonderful locally owned pizza restaurant, Jonah on Johnston's, and had lunch. Not only is their pizza fantastic, they also bake wonderful breads and pastries.

More food related activities (I promise I have done more than eat since my last post!)

Dinner on the lake after a day of rain. It was a cool evening so we ate great catfish on the restaurant's screened porch. I only had my phone camera, so the pictures aren't the greatest, but it was pretty evening, clouds and all.

And one more food related activity! Friends from the office got together on day off to make cannelloni in the office kitchen. Our very talented Betsy orchestrated the event and the cannelloni was perfection! (phone camera again...)

Betsy and Gwen working that pasta!



Miona filling and rolling the pasta



Delizioso!

So, that's it for now. I hope everyone has a wonderful week!

It's time to post progress on Shores of Hawk Run Hollow. Progress? Did I say progress? Well....not really progress..... I've been reading more than stitching and interest in this project was low this month. I hope that's a temporary thing. But I am enjoying seeing everyone else's progress.

I've never had DMC thread shred the way it has on this piece of fabric (40 count Antique Cotton from R&R Reproduction) , so I've had to take out quite a few stitches whenever that would happen.

Here is what I stitched on One Seed for Another. I like working on this piece. I missed one of the colors when ordering my thread, so I've skipped over those parts for now. I didn't realize how long it had been since I'd used Lakeside Linen and had forgotten how smooth it is to stitch on. It will be fabric of choice again for awhile.

I saw Nicole's CHS etsy purchase and of course had to click right over to see what I couldn't live without. These charts now have a new home and came, like Nicole's, in a beautiful folder:

Field Aray was printed under Chartmakers logo. I adore the charts themselves for the pretty graphics that are printed on them:

On the Goode Huswife site's out of print page I found The Little Red R Sampler:

And, finally, I added Hands to Work's A Whistling Girl, Chessie & Me's Tree & Crown Sampler, and A Friendship Sampler by Plum Street Samplers:

I think I just went a little chart crazy there. And still only have a fraction of everything I'd like to own! I need several decades to stitch everything on my wish list!

That is everything for now! I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

It's the weekend! And it looks like it will be a great one! Before I start on my list of errands, I thought I would update here.

First, pictures of little things from my life lately:

wild azaleas outside

and inside

wild violets

the ever hopeful Miss Kitty keeps an eye on the bird nest

I saw Joy's wonderful finish of Goode Huswife's One Seed For Another and it inspired me to pull out my chart and order supplies for it. I liked the fabric she chose, 40 count Vintage Pearled Barley and her conversion to NPI silks, which she shared. Here are the supplies:

40 count Vintage Pearled Barley
NPI silks

and here is my start:

One Seed for Another
40 count Vintage Pearled Barley
NPI silks

I worked a little on Shores and finished outlining the first square and worked on the rocks. I'm still enjoying this design.

Shores of Hawk Run Hollow
40 count Antique Cotton & DMC

Remember cute little Mr. Carrot Nose on his spotted pony? Here he is now:

He apparently couldn't control his spotted pony whose head ended up being one square away from the tree trunk. Now they are both being removed and redone. Taking out this much of something I stitched would usually make me not want to finish the project, but I really like this design so I will keep working on it and will try to pay more attention to the count!

Today is a beautiful day and perfect for picking out annuals for the front porch and rummaging around in flea markets and antique stores. All of which I hope I to do.

That's it for now! I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Well, so much for a rotation schedule! Really, today my viewpoint is that it's much more enjoyable to stitch whatever I feel like stitching rather than having to stitch what's on the schedule. Then again, tomorrow I could feel differently about it.

I worked some on Shores this week. It's fun to stitch, but I am a slow stitcher and haven't gotten very far. I'm glad that I chose 40 count Antique Cotton for the fabric. It's my favorite gold toned fabric. I decided to change the thread for the outlining of the square as black seemed a little heavy for the fabric color, and decided on GAST Freedom, a deep navy, and I'm happy with it. I do need a camera that takes clearer pictures and captures truer colors. The fabric is very gold, but it's not showing up in the picture.


It rained for a few days here and poured yesterday. BabyGirl was home for the weekend. We stayed in Saturday afternoon because of the rain and watched Pride and Prejudice together while I stitched.

Miss Kitty tried to bring a little yellow finch into the house to show off her hunting skills, but we rescued the bird which fortunately was able to fly away. I asked Miss Kitty to please stick with lizards instead.

I don't have much stitching to talk about as my thumb injury still makes using a needle awkward. I did manage to put a few stitches into Shores, but not really enough to show right now. I am ready to get back to stitching on a regular basis.

My BabyGirl has been home from college on spring break and we've enjoyed having her here for an extended period of time. She's been on the go of course, but did get in some family time. A day with my mom going to yoga, lunch and shopping, and more shopping and lunch with me and my sister yesterday. BG knows how to shop!

My Goode Huswife "Fruitful Clusters" is back from being framed. I finished it last year, and just got it back from the framer. There is a little glare on the glass, but hopefully not to much of one. I really like this burled wood frame. It was stitched on 40 count Creme Brule with the recommended NPI silks.

Working on this piece made think of my own blessings, and so I modified the design a little. I added a cross on the smallest house. The red fox running down the side of design reminded me of Roxy, a dog BG and I found abandoned by a river and brought home with us. She was the light of my life (after family of course), but died almost two years ago. I stitched the fox without the charted white tipped tail to represent Roxy, who was indeed a blessing.

Roxy

This morning I caught the sun rising over the pine trees and through the cherry tree.


A beautiful weekend - hope you enjoyed it, too!

Finally!!

Finally! My cold/virus or whatever nasty thing that visited is gone and I finally felt like stitching. First - the snow! It has been a long time since we've seen snow and last weekend we were lucky to have four inches that lasted over night. Of course today it is close to 80 degrees!

I picked up Sarah Verrier 1737 to start back on it although I haven't added it into the rotation, but will probably work on it on weekends. It is an Amy Mittens kit with hand dyed silk threads and 40 count fabric. I'm concerned that I've miscounted enough that there will not be enough fabric to complete the sampler as designed, but I'm alright with it not being exactly reproduced.


It is a French-Canadian sampler with the Lord's Prayer in French. I am almost at my favorite part of the sampler, but here are some other parts of it that I think are very charming. The little diamonds with cream centers, the crowns and the half crown when she ran out of space:


The wavelike motif following the amen, the floral band, and the trees with white flowers:


I've been thinking of doing a Lord's Prayer theme, including Scarlet Letter's Elizabeth Ginger 1735.

I haven't gotten very far with my rotation. I thought I would do small pieces while I also work on Shores of Hawk Run Village. Here is Pears by Handwork. There is a cute bird in the upper right hand corner. It's worked on 40 count Park Avenue Blend with NPI silks:

Carriage House Samplings' Stitcher's Prayer, which looks boring in this picture, but it's not! It's stitched on 40 count Creme Brule with NPI silks.


Notforgotten Farm's Harvest Sampler. I don't remeber which fabric I'm using, but I am using DMC threads. Missing words and letters stitches miscounted and removed - I know I must be the Queen of Miscounting!


A very fun piece to stich is My Betrothed, Birds of a Feather. I don't remember this fabric, and it's stitched with the recommended threads.

Even with his carrot nose, one foot and no hands he's a cute little guy. I love the way the tree branches look, too.

I might be ready to start on this again soon. FingerWork's Elizabeth Saville stitched on 32 count Pearled Barley with the recommended threads:


My Beneath the Sunlit Sky, Blackbird, is framed and now in my study. I modified it to include my daughter's initials, as well as my husband's and mine. The colors in this sampler are beautiful. The branch of flowers the bird is perched on reminds me of the wild azaleas that grow on our land and the heron reminds me of the beautiful marshes along coastal Georgia:



This long post is finally at an end - have a wonderful rest of the weekend!