A finish!

I visited The Attic Needlework over a month ago, just as I was getting this cold from Hell. It is hard to believe, but I am on a second round of antibiotics for another ear infection/sore throat but that's neither here nor there as one good thing came from laying around the house listlessly for so long.

A finish!

I saw this finished piece while I was at The Attic:

It is from Threads Through Time and is a piece charted for DMC. Here is the cover of the pattern:

I liked that a verse had been substituted for the wording at the top. So I bought the pattern and since it seemed "small" (haha) thought I would stitch it while I was sick. It really isn't a small sampler, there is a LOT of dense stitching in this but I find that can be soothing, not having to change threads and going mindlessly row by row filling in with a color.

I pulled Olde Willow threads to stitch this piece, not really thinking deeply about the colors as I only have 100 of the threads and where the pattern said "dark green" I pulled the darkest green and "light green" was the only other green in my collection so I used what I  had which was very freeing. There was no agonizing and wondering if one shade darker would have been better as I didn't have one shade darker. I had two colors of green in my bundle of Old Willow so that was that. I really like how the piece turned out:

I will say that is the shaggiest tree I have ever stitched. My favorite is the extra large woman. I love oversized people that tower over buildings in samplers. I have never designed one so maybe I will at some point.

While at The Attic I took pictures of a couple of my designs on the wall. Here is Peaceful Paradise:

And two different versions of "A Patriot's Sampler" done with different colors on different colored linen:

Blue fabric!

And Pink! I love to see how stitchers make these pieces their own.

Last weekend we went to a lovely wedding, one of my best friend's daughters. We met when my daughter was 6 months old and Julia was almost two. I remember taking my kids to her second birthday party and she received a pink tutu and twirled and danced in it. My daughter told me she feels my friend is like family and is more like an aunt as she has been there for every birthday, Halloween and summer vacation fun. Where did the time go? I feel like Michelle Duggar in the latest commercials talking about her daughters getting married, "I just blinked!"

Luckily, living in Tucson makes March a perfect time for an outdoor wedding. This was held at the museum of art and was beautiful:

We had just arrived and the bridal party had just finished family photos. That's Julia in her dress.

And here are the newlyweds walking back down the aisle after the "I do's". Funny coincidence is she now has my maiden name and her and her husband's initials are the same as my parents.

And this is to show the reception but mostly to show the guy in the blue shirt. He just got a contract for a show on the History Channel. So we shall see where that goes. Nice guy, just got his graduate degree in geology and totally off topic, lol.

We also managed to slip in a weekend in Mexico this month. When we were there in January, I picked up a birthday present for a friend who loves the embroidered Mexican blouses:

I love that purple! I knew I had an embroidered Mexican blouse that I had bought in high school a hundred years ago so I dug through my closet until I found it:

Pretty much the same embroidery but mine is made more of white cotton sheeting and the other is a thicker, nicer fabric. The good thing about finding it is that my closet made me so disgusted that I collected up a garbage sack of old clothes for the thrift store. So win-win. Except they are still in the backseat of the car waiting for me to have enough energy to donate them.

Best place to sit around and be ill.

While I'm here, any ideas for a nice baby sampler? I am going to be a Great-Aunt in August! I really like Chessie and Me's piece but could use other ideas too.

:-)

Hello all, this is just a post to pass the time as I cough up a lung. My husband and I have been sick for two weeks. Just as we start to feel better, the virus morphs and we get one of the symptoms back, drippy throat, cough, earache, you name it, this virus is cruel. Last night I started up with the drippy throat and cough again.  So rather than lie in bed and cough, here I am.

I haven't blogged in so long, almost five years of a post here and there but from what I understand Facebook is the new place for stitchers to meet and post. I haven't gotten around to doing that in my own name. I currently have 20 or so friends on FB but under the name of my daughter's stuffed sheep. Yes, we are a strange family. I never wanted my own FB until the kids went away to college, so I took over the sheep's in order to keep up with the kids. She's now baaaaahhhhing that she wants it back. She doesn't like the direction her page has gone. So there will be important decisions made in the future. Here she is with Maggie.  Maggie is smiling but Francine is pretending to ignore me:

Speaking of, my kids, both live in Seattle now. My daughter graduates with her Master's degree next month, yea Maggie! Here she is at Christmas making her first glazed ham. Yea Maggie again! I didn't have to cook!

Good grief, could we possibly have more peanut butter in the background? I swear it's not mine, my husband has an addiction. From what I understand, it's a familial thing. Oh, and notice the big pot on the stove. I bought that set in 1976 and they are still as good as new. No, not because I rarely cook, just nice quality.

And here is my son who is loving Seattle:

He is working freelance as an artist. Now that I am back to designing, I wish he were home as he can pixelate anything I ask him to do. He recently created for me a Downton Abbey type house that I hope to use in a future sampler.

So, these were taken at Christmas, it was lovely having them home, we hadn't seen Nick in a year and last saw Maggie when she was here with her boyfriend at the end of June.

I have been reading a lot of thrifting/junking blogs lately. Like I said, I can't seem to get back into the needlework blogs, has everyone left for Facebook? And the boards seem to be nothing of interest these days.

So who loves thrift stores? I have become addicted, we have quite a few good ones in town.  I will show you one of my sicknesses:

SEAM BINDING!

And this isn't all of it!!! One day I decided to sort by color and threw a big purple blanket on the floor and started sorting. Took forever! I think I have over 300 packages. I LOVE seam binding! Sorry, already said that. Or did I? Nyquil haze.... Not bias tape, not cording but seam binding. Though I love a good package of vintage rick rack too.

And ELVES! I finally acquired so many that this year I put them on the bench usually reserved for my snowmen at Christmas.

My sister thinks they are absolutely creepy. So I love to send her close-up photos via text:

That's Leonard on the left and this year I found Little Leonard, shown on the right. He looks the same size but is about 3/4 the size of Big Leonard who thinks he is the leader of the elves.

I can a wee bit see why my sister thinks they are creepy but don't tell THEM that. They already have it in for her and I don't want to be on their naughty list too. Their feet are felt and I'd never hear them sneaking into my room at night. This guy has crazy eyes so who knows what he might do. Geez, one of them got heavy handed with the lipstick didn't he (she?).

But as I said, I love them. My first elf is one of the glittery gold ones in the middle of that bench. I received it in 1962 from my friend Nancy Edson. I guess you always remember the name of the person who gave you something special because Nancy moved away after third grade and I never saw her again. I remember she made a big scrapbook of newspaper clippings when President Kennedy was assassinated and her Dad had a darkroom for photography.  But the scrapbook? I guess we were about 8 and she is cutting and pasting articles? That girl was waaaaayy ahead of me! All I remember is being upset that the TV shows were pre-empted for the funeral coverage. I also stole the one and only thing in my life from her. Remember Betsy McCall?

There was one issue of the magazine where Betsy had a baby sister. Nancy had cut it out and left it on her dresser and my sneaky, thieving self grabbed it and took it home with me. I thought it was the cutest thing EVER. But oh the guilt! The remorse! Not enough remorse to admit I took it and give it back. Hey, I was 7! The guilt I felt made me throw that darn thing in the garbage after a day of hiding it at the bottom of a drawer in my bedroom. I never did play with it and  I often wondered if she missed it.

Well, I digress. I recently sent my sister this photo:

 She finally admitted that THIS put the elves into perspective for her. I was so happy to find something she could admit was freakier than my sweet elves.

But before I go, look what I found a few visits ago at the thrift store for $1! FOUR huge rolls of vintage seam binding! Swoon....

Later ladies....

I've been busy the past few months, designing again, stitching, framing and now finally have printed my latest charts. Jean, at The Attic Needlework in Mesa will have my charts as of tomorrow. She has them listed in her current newsletter, page 12.


She also has two of my out of print charts, Memorial Sampler and Peaceful Paradise.

Here are my newest charts:

Suzy Moo's Sampler

Time

The Noble Free

My Name Complete

In His Hand

Blessed is the Nation

As I said, two of my out of print charts are also available via Jean:

Peaceful Paradise

Memorial Sampler

Having lost many images in a computer crash, my son designed me a new cover page:

And finally, an Etsy shop is coming soon so keep an eye out here :-) I hope to have some currently out of print charts available there, though the files need to be worked with before I can say which ones.