Blessings from Above

I have a new release coming out this week, it's called Blessings from Above. The verse says "Home, Garden, Family, Love These are blessings from above".
It is stitched on 40 ct flax linen using mostly DMC threads and 5 different colors of Gentle Arts threads.

Friendship Sampler Exchange

Our mission was to stitch Moira Blackburn's "Friendship Sampler" using whatever fabric and threads we wanted. We had an exchange partner and we then switched samplers. All the samplers came out unique, it's impossible to pick my favorite.

Sweet World

I had a small piece in The Gift of Stitching online magazine last month. www.thegiftofstitching.com
I just received notice that the September issue is now available and realized I meant to add this post ages ago.
I had a lot of fun stitching this design as I chose pale colors that I normally don't work with and used Anchor threads which I love but don't use nearly enough.

New Releases

My first release is Blue House Sampler and uses Crescent Colours throughout on Flax linen.



This is called The Sampler Stitcher and is stitched on Sand linen with Gentle Arts Sampler threads.

So many birthdays, so little time...

I stitched a Blackbird Designs piece a few months ago for a friend and can now post it without ruining the surprise. Another friend taught me to lace the piece and I inserted it into a ready made frame and the backing is decorative paper.
I love punch needle. Not only do I love the look of little mini hooked rugs, but I love that it's so quick and easy to make and so quick and easy to finish. Here are a few I've finished recently for friends' birthdays. The above is from Meme's Cottage Collection.

This is from Prairie Grove Peddler and is called Autumn Bouquet. I see they have another in different colors called Spring Bouquet.

And this little sheep is from Stone and Thread.
Happy Birthday dear friends, I hope you'll enjoy.

It's Just Stuff

I recently received two small boxes of "stuff" after my dad died. That's all that was left, two small boxes and nothing important, some house keys, his wallet and driver's license, a few photos and letters, a small Matchbox car in an unopened package and a small lap comforter with blood stains on it.

I'm a natural born collector and come by it rightfully, so was my dad. My mother is neat, clean, has no attachment to "stuff" and doesn't like clutter. She would just as soon throw out something that I think has sentimental value as to keep it.

Recently when I've visited her, I've noticed things missing. "Mom, where is the clock Ted gave you?" "Mom where are the fans?" "Mom, where, where where???" She never knows, her memory is either gone or foggy and pretty soon her life will be down to two small boxes also.

My hairdresser also has a mother with dementia and said he's been wondering the same thing. Where's the stuff? "Mom, where is that coin collection I had as a kid?" "Mom, where did you put that artwork I gave you?" No answers, no explanations, things are just gone. He conjectured that the older we get, the harder time we seem to have holding onto our "stuff". People are in and out of the house, on a whim things might be given to someone who will appreciate them or just dumped in the Goodwill bin. It's just stuff after all and the people and the memories are the things to be cherished.

I've lovingly put the two small boxes of stuff from my dad into one, washed the comforter, put it on my sofa, looked through his wallet, saw the Golden Age pass we got him when we were together at a national park at Christmas and realized it was probably the last time he ever signed his name. His mind was gone but his signature was as strong as ever. There were little receipts, a list of members of his retirees club and a $20 bill I gave him 3 years ago when he said he didn't have any money. Being the sentimentalist and the collector that I am, I will keep these things, I will cherish them as much as if he'd left me a Picasso and I realize that "stuff" is just "stuff" but if you are like me, it's still "good" stuff. I love that line in a Don Henley song about hearses not coming with luggage racks. So true. It's just stuff.

Act Without Expectations-some rambling thoughts..

Not long ago my daughter was complaining because her brother had received a good deal of praise regarding some stories he had written. In trying to look at it from her point of view, I realized that I coudn't. I told her that when I was growing up I had honestly never had jealous feelings about my brothers or sister. I was always proud when they accomplished something and it didn't take away from me as a person if they had done well. She thought a moment and said "you're right, I am proud of him, I guess I just want attention too." Well, she gets plenty of attention for doing many things well and realized it by the end of our conversation.

I think the common denominator between being jealous and upset vs. happy and proud for another person has to do with love and maybe a little age and wisdom. I have a true and abiding love for my siblings and of course my children and husband and if something good comes their way I'm just as happy as they are. The mark of a true friend is when they can embrace all that happens to you, the good and the bad.

As humans, we find it much easier to be a good friend in a time of crisis, to lend an ear for a problem, to be there when the chips are down. It's not nearly as easy to be a good friend if you are jealous because someone won the lottery or lost a good deal of weight leaving you the fat one in the relationship. When we start feeling uneasy because of good things coming to a friend and not to us we sometimes try to level that person, take them down a notch of two to make sure they aren't standing taller than we are. It's so much harder to stand just as tall though a little shorter and even harder to raise ourselves to their new level.

I think we all want friends who will be there not only for the tragedies of life but also for the celebrations, friends who will celebrate along with us and not just in their actions but truly in their hearts. I don't want a friend who is willing to listen when the world looks bad but equally willing to chop at me when my world looks rosy and theirs doesn't.

One of my brother's favorite quotes is "act without expectations" . Wouldn't the world be a nicer place if people just did the right thing and didn't sit back waiting for a payoff, whatever that might be? He told me he and his wife went out for breakfast on Father's Day and saw an elderly gentleman eating alone. He told the waitress to put the man's bill on his tab but not to tell the man anything except the person buying him breakfast no longer has a father he can buy a breakfast for on Father's Day. I love that his actions weren't pre-meditated to give him anything except a little satisfaction. He was thinking only of brightening the day of the elderly man and honoring the memory of our father.

When we act expecting to hurt others so that we can feel good about ourselves, that is acting WITH expectations. When we buy a present for someone expecting to make a friend, that is acting WITH expectations. Offer an ear for a friend to vent not because you want to store their words for future use against them, but because you want to help their stress level. Act without, do things because they are right and ethical, be proud of your actions, don't expect a payoff, whether the payoff you want is good or bad. With this one simple quote, act without expectations, you can raise yourself higher than you ever expected and will no longer need to level anyone.

And dear sweet brother, thank you for always teaching me something when I badly need to know it. The above cats are for you :)

Memorial Sampler

When my dad died last month, I almost immediately started stitching on a memorial piece for him. It was very healing to sit and stitch and I thought of him with each stitch I made.

I decided that once I get photos done, I will release this piece and will donate all proceeds to the Boy Scouts. He was a leader and very involved in scouting for many years. I picked this up from the framer yesterday and am very pleased with how it turned out though my photo is not the best. So stay tuned, I'll write more once it's ready for release.
P.S. click on the photo for a better view.

Song of Solomon

"Lo the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing birds is come."

I love the Song of Solomon and chose to release this design last week. The verse has even more meaning for me now as my father died last week after a long few years of disappearing inch by slow inch. By the time he died, he was a sweet elderly man, but he was not the vital man I'd known all my life.

The afternoon he died, my daughter and I arrived home at the same time. She called for me to come around to the front of the house to see some bright purple flowers that hadn't been there earlier. She said "isn't that weird mom, where did they come from?" We have this particular ground cover in another area of the yard but not by the front door and I certainly would have seen these flowers as the color was almost fluorescent. We both admired them for a few minutes and went inside to find out dad, and for her, grandpa had died.

The verse brings me great comfort. The past 5 years were a very harsh winter for him but the rain is now over and the flowers appeared and he's in a better place. I know I'll see him again. In another post I'll write more about him, but that won't be this week so for now I just want to say I love you Dad, I'm so glad you are free again.

James Thomas Cox 1930-2006

Treasures of Thy Life So Dear

Finally! I took the Merry Cox class in November for this piece and was pleasantly surprised to be able to finish so much of it but my friend, Tedra, finished the needlebook and inside pocket and watch for me. I'll be honest, I'm finishing challenged. I'm happy to finally have it done. The pocket watch goes into the little inside pocket and has the initials of my husband, kids and siblings. It was well worth all the over one stitching and the grumbling as I tried to stitch it in time for the class.

Quaker Values

I have a new design coming out in time for market and I've called it Quaker Values. It is stitched on R& R Reproductions "American Chestnut" with Weeks Dye Works and Gentle Arts Sampler threads. I've never seen Quaker people on a Quaker sampler before and thought it might be different to include them plus seven different words that typify their values. There is a red rose border and full and half medallions. I hope you'll enjoy this one as I had a fun time creating it.

Drawn Thread Cruise Report

I wrote this report last year BEFORE the Drawn Thread cruise and was getting ready to take it down when I thought I'd post it for anyone who hasn't yet read it. I'll keep it up a while longer. I had the best time writing it and finding photos so I'd like to share it with more people.

This is a Word document and some might not be able to open it without Word on their computer. It also takes a moment for all the photos to download. Enjoy!

www.mehve.com/cruisereport/cruise_report.doc

Happy New Year

I read somewhere about a dime store that had closed due to the owner's death. The store sat untouched for 40 years until someone rediscovered it. When they went in to explore, it was exactly as it had been 40 years earlier. The products were still on the shelves, nothing had been moved or taken. It was a snapshot of another era and time.

That story has always fascinated me. Once upon a time I thought it would be fascinating to be an archeologist. That store represented the ultimate in an archeological dig to me. No digging required! I wonder what it would have been like to visit that store? What items were on the shelves? What were the prices? What products were still there that were no longer made? Would I discover items that were selling for exorbitant amounts on ebay and listed as "vintage"?

I'd love to simply stroll up and down the aisles to see what was there. Time tiptoes away from us so quietly that we don't notice it's gone until it's too late. Can we remember when the label of our favorite cleanser changed to look more modern? When exactly did we get the new scanning cash registers? One day we go shopping to find that something we need is no longer made. How is it we realize when something becomes "old fashioned"? Piece by piece, yesterday is replaced and becomes "today".

I met my husband 22 years ago on New Year's Eve. Thinking about that this morning, I realized that we have landed upon "today" and I sometimes wonder how we got here. I can remember what I was wearing that night but wonder what became of those clothes. I can remember the people we were with that night but haven't seen them for years. I also realize that my parents were probably at their own party that night and they were completely different then. They both now have dementia and I wish I'd understood 22 years ago that their minds were not going to last forever. I would have tried to appreciate them more, tried to dig deeper into their memories before they disappeared so quickly it took my breath away.

22 years ago my dad was probably the life of the party and my mother was probably displaying her quick wit to the other partygoers. They were able to get into a car and drive themselves wherever they wanted. They were planning for retirement in a few years and looking at maps and travel brochures. My dad's greatest joy now is candy and his regularly scheduled meals at a group home. My mother is living alone and each time I visit her it's like another little piece of who she is has been pinched off.

Yes, time tiptoes away from us so quietly that we don't realize it's gone until we look back and compare what was and what is.

Happy New Year to all, Happy New Year Mom and Dad. I miss you.

The Flowers of One Garden

I'm getting ready to release "The Flowers of One Garden" which has a lot of elements I love in samplers, a mermaid, Adam and Eve and a large red house. The verse reads "We are the leaves of one branch, the drops of one sea. the flowers of one garden". I released (in pastel colors) the very top part of the this sampler with Adam and Eve earlier this year. I decided to extend it to make a very large piece that looks totally different from the earlier design. It's stitched on 36 count Meadow Rue from Lakeside Linens and is 315 stitches wide by 385 stitches high and measures approximately 17 1/2 inches by 21 1/2 inches. She's a big girl! I used all Gentle Arts Sampler threads with the exception of the red and that is "Bandana" from Crescent Colours.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! This is the time of year to count our blessings and to give thanks. My life has been blessed in many ways and first and foremost are my husband and children.
I'm thankful to have such a wonderful husband, someone who is kind, considerate, a great dad and who loves me despite myself. He's always there to pick up the slack and after 20 years he's still happy to accompany me on any journey. My only request: in order to continue this bliss he must never retire and get underfoot.

In eleven years, my children have gone from this:

To this:
I'm thankful they have grown up to be good friends, thankful for their senses of humor, thankful that my daughter is a risk taker with a gentle spirit and that my son, despite struggles in grade school, has a heart of gold and has advanaced to college and is doing well. I'm thankful for what they have taught me by being their mother. I'm also thankful my son got a decent haircut a week after that photo was taken.

I'm grateful that I have good friends and that by marrying my husband, I was blessed with acquiring his sister as my friend. I'm thankful that my hobby has allowed me to meet more people and to add them to my list of friends. I'm thankful we have neighbors who are our friends. I'm thankful my mother-in-law lives 100 miles away. Don't ask...

I'm grateful I'm not an only child and that my sister and brothers are there to help with our parents who aren't doing well. When one of us gets tired, another picks up the load. I'm thankful my siblings all turned out to be adults that I enjoy and my only regret is living too far away from them.

I'm thankful to live in the United States, and no matter what problems we have,( and every country has them), I'm proud to be an American. But I'm also thankful for the opportunity to visit other countries and places.

As usual, I have more to say but will end it here. On this day of Thanksgiving let us give thanks for all our blessings.

Happy Halloween!

I love vintage images, especially Halloween and Valentine's Day. Lucky for me, I have an aunt who is very similar, unlike my mother who de-clutters whatever she can find. My aunt gave me an old scrapbook full of cards, postcards and other ephemera from when she was a young girl. Many people, my mother included, would have felt it was junk and just thrown it away. To me, it's a treasure trove of images from the 1930's and I'm grateful to have it.
I think almost every Halloween as a kid, I was a witch. I had a black hat, a black cape and a rubber bat on a stick that I carried with me to trick or treat. Witches fascinated me then and continue to do so now. I love collecting vintage witch images.
I certainly am not into devil worship but I suppose witches represent magical possibilities to me. With a spell or a look or a twitch of the nose (Bewitched) they can make things happen. Whatever they want can be obtained. Not that I think that's necessarily a good thing, but it could come in handy sometimes.
I love Halloween today, maybe not as much as when I was a kid, but I still love the season, the excitement of trick or treating and remembering the hope that magic was open to me on that night. Happy Halloween to all!

Deftly Wrought

This is my newest design that I call "Deftly Wrought". The tiny samplers at the top are stitched over one and the rest of the piece is over two. I got the idea for the mini samplers from my friend Tedra who added an over one sampler to her French Alphabet design. The poem is original and since I like Mary Engelbreit I decided to give it a Mary E. flavor with the cherries and checkerboards and teapot in the first mini sampler. It is stitched on 28 ct Country French Cafe Mocha linen using DMC threads.

Football and Doughnuts

Years ago my son's 6th grade teacher was so excited that Krispy Kreme doughnuts built a store in town. She told me "when I'm in that store I'm with people who are just like me. I feel so comfortable there." I assume she would have felt completely out of place in a health food store.

My friend Connie came to visit recently from Nashville. We used to work together years ago and were pregnant with our boys at the same time and have stayed in touch ever since. She's a rabid Tennessee Titans fan and got us tickets to see the Phoenix Cardinals and the Titans play. For me, football is remembrances of hearing the crowds on TV screaming when my brothers and dad would watch the games on the weekend. To say that I am not a fan is to put it mildly. I don't even understand the game. A football game to me is a health food store to my son's 6th grade teacher.

Connie's enthusiasm was contagious though. Despite the amount of testosterone in the stadium, she was in her element. This was her Krispy Kreme store. She brought us both Titans jerseys to wear to the game, she had temporary tattoos that she wore and even Titan earrings. She was thrilled that my sneakers matched the Titan colors, though I certainly didn't plan it that way. Here she is 45 minutes before game time:

She had a poster made because the game was on CBS. It said:

Came

By air to

See McNair

McNair being the Titan's quarterback. Sadly, he had an injury and didn't show up at the game. But that didn't ruin her enthusiasm though the 90 degree heat was fixing to ruin mine. Especially when I learned football games last 3 hours. How they last 3 hours when each quarter is only 15 minutes long is still a mystery to me. I learned the man in the green cap signaled a commercial when he stood on the field but the commercials certainly weren't 2 hours of the game. As I said, I know nothing.

I do like to people watch and that was fun, in fact I probably missed most of the important bits of the game in being distracted by the people around us. The young couple who were pregnant, thank goodness the two huge beers he bought were for him and the friend next to him. The man in front of us who had a freckled neck like my brother and couldn't stop screaming "Cardinals!!!!!!" every 15 seconds. His enthusiasm started after his second beer. I wondered if he'd be able to talk the next day. And the cutest sight of the day, the dad with his son who must have been four. He had a sparkly cardinal painted on his left cheek and a Cardinal jersey to match his dad's. They left halfway through the game, maybe to seek a seat in the shade rather than the full sun or maybe 3 hours was too long for a 4 year old, I know it was a tad too long for me, but then I'm over ten times his age and don't understand football.

I do wish they had marching bands during the halftime in pro games, that must only be for college games. The cheerleaders were cute, the fireworks with each Cardinal touchdown were exciting and I was amazed that the crowd noise sounded just like the noise from TV football. Maybe I assumed that sound was really like a TV laugh track? It just struck me that it was for real.

Unfortunately for Connie, the Titans lost 20-10. But we had a great day anyway. She told me of an elderly lady she sees at the Titans home games. She sits in the same place and is at each game. She also found her working as a volunteer in the gift shop at the hospital where she works as a nurse. Behold your future Connie...and thanks for a great day.

Gardening

My friend Laurel is the one who inspired me to take a more active interest in gardening. She loves it so much she even planted her subdivision's common area with trees and cactus. Her free time is spent on her knees digging and planting. My free time is spent more with stitching but I still love the results I get when I focus on gardening.

I wish I had more time to devote to it as the results are worthwhile. especially in a climate where it's difficult to keep things growing and anything green is cherished. I love pots of flowers, lots of seeds and plenty of water. I love birdhouses and garden ornaments. I like the surprise of throwing out seeds and discovering what pops up. It's like a treasure hunt to find an unexpected beautiful flower. This is the time of year when we are weeding and cleaning out the flower beds. I'm getting ready to plant seeds now in October as the autumn and winter rains are great for the wildflowers I like. I especially love poppies and found some different poppy seeds when we were in Switzerland, ones I've never seen before and I'm hoping they'll work here in the desert too. As I said, a treasure hunt and I look forward to hopefully finding my Swiss poppies blooming in my garden someday soon.
Before we built our pool, we built a small pond with water lilies, water hyacinth, horsetail, cattail and fish. I loved it especially since it attracted colorful dragonflies but it had to come out when the pool went in. I think it inspired my friend Nancy to build her own pond and I was happy to give her all our waterlilies and now I can still see them when I visit her.
Gardening is such a sharing experience, I have some Nile River plants that Nancy had in her garden and they are so easy to pluck a stalk or two off and plant in the dirt and soon there is another plant. Hers eventually died off and she now has them back after plucking stalks from my plants and taking them back home to plant again in her garden. Geraniums are wonderful for the same reason, pull a leaf and part of the branch off and stick it in the dirt and you soon have another whole plant. I also love sharing seeds. When my flowers go to seed I pull all the seeds off and put them in a big jar and they are ready to give away or ready for me to plant again the next season. I'm sure many of my zinnias are the great-great-great-great etc grandchildren of my original zinnias.

Gardening is always a work in progress. I've never gotten expert enough that I'm happy with the results in all areas of the garden. Some years one spot is barren and another is boldly blooming. Other years it's the opposite. Every year the garden landscape changes especially since I throw out so many seeds, I'm never sure what is going to sprout. This year I thought I'd have a zillion zinnias like I do every year but they seemed to poop out on me and I only got a handful. But I keep on trying, keep on spreading seeds and digging holes and planting pots. I love color and I'll continue to garden and be pleasantly surprised with anything that blooms.

Switzerland

Whenever I travel, I find it hard to believe that I can be plopped down fairly quickly and easily in a completely different setting from the place I just left the day before. It's almost surreal.

We returned from Switzerland recently and the differences between where I left and where I went were extreme. I left 100 degree dry heat, adobe type houses with weeds that are left in place just because they are green and went to a country where everything is neat as a pin, flower boxes are in every window and the temps at the time were 20 to 30 degrees cooler than home. The cars are smaller, people actually walk or bike everywhere, public transport is superb, dinners last for hours and the table is yours as long as you want, and the people are multi-lingual.

We traveled by planes, trains, buses, trolleys and gondolas and every bit of public transport was spotless. Zooming through the Swiss countryside by train I wondered if Disney had designed the path as it looked too beautiful to be real. Not a piece of grass was out of place, flowers bloomed in every window box and gardens were rampant. Our hotel rooms sparkled and I joked we could have eaten off the bathroom floors. People were helpful and all the public transportation was on time to the minute. Swiss precision and Swiss engineering and Swiss timing are legendary and definitely not a myth. The trains were so smooth I felt like I was gliding and even in the gondola traveling up into the Alps while dangling thousands of feet in the air, I felt like I was in good hands.

We spend a lot of time in Mexico and wondered to ourselves how two cultures could be so extremely different. There is no way I would trust dangling in the air in a Mexican designed gondola (is there such a thing? I doubt it...). The country is not neat as a pin, if things get done, they get done on "Mexican time" which is to say, maybe they'll get done and maybe not. Quite a few years ago we had a front door installed in the Mexican house and it took the workers all day to install it using a hammer , screwdriver and a chisel, no other tools were in sight. That door was crap, it never worked right, always stuck and scraped along the floor, it was hung wrong and was a pain to use. I can't imagine the Swiss ever giving the A-OK to indicate that a good job was done on that door.

In trying to be fair to Mexico, it's a large country that is only now starting to get a middle class. The climate is hot, and not conducive to wanting to do a lot of work in the heat. Switzerland is about the size of Arizona and is a prosperous and stable modern market economy that is well educated. Their unemployment rate is 1.8 percent. Mexico's unemployment is officially double the Swiss rate but more importantly "underemployment" is at least 25 percent. We have only to look at the rush of people trying to illegally cross the border to know that times are hard and have been hard for years in Mexico.

But people are the same everywhere and we found the Swiss to be just as welcoming as the Mexican people. Their countries are different but both are proud of their heritage and both are interesting countries to explore.

And lest one think that Switzerland is the most idyllic place, as I was beginning to believe during most of my trip, it took one stop in Zurich to realize that all countries have a seedy underbelly and the Swiss had theirs displayed for all to see in their national museum.

Carefully placed along the walls in the beautiful medieval art section of the museum was a powerful photographic exhibit of four Swiss drug abusers, a no holds barred look at drug abuse in the Bern area. And while I really wanted to concentrate on the medieval art, the photographic images kept pulling me over to have a look, sort of like a horrible accident that you slow down to view. These weren't the images I was expecting in a museum that showcases all that the country cherishes, all the items that are beautiful and spectacular and represent hundreds of years of Swiss history. But they are the images I brought home in my mind and they answered the question that I had, yes, Switzerland has its share of problems just like any other country and there is no country on earth that is free from trouble and heartache and pain. It was a little like finding out there is no Santa Claus but it was also a relief to realize this country wasn't as unreal as Disneyland, no matter how clean and tidy.

New Designs

I released 3 new designs last week. The first is called Quaker Meetinghouse. I used traditional Quaker half medallions for the border and added a "meetinghouse" as the focal point. I don't think I've ever seen a Quaker design with a house on it and since meetinghouses are a major part of Quaker communities I thought it would be nice to have one. A stitcher can add initials of their family around the flower using the traditional Quaker alphabet.


My second release is a small Adam and Eve done over one with non-traditional colors. I thought it might be fun to see one done in pastels. The linen is "Bittersweet" by Lakeside Linens and is a soft pink. The threads are Crescent Colours. The verse reads "We are the leaves of one branch, the drops of one ocean, the flowers of one garden". Stay tuned for "Adam and Eve Revisited" which will be a very large Adam and Eve in more antique colors, lots of red and a very large house at the bottom.
And last is Medieval Mermaid. I love mermaids (if you'll notice, I even put one in my Adam and Eve piece) and thought this might be a different look than what I've seen in other mermaid designs. The quote is from Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream". It's all in one color, which makes it easy to stitch, and uses Gentle Art's Shaker Threads, Black Raspberry Jam.

I'm busy stitching away on a model that I call "Remember Me". It has a large floral border and I'm using NPI silks including one of their new "Northern Lights" overdyes for the border. I started this 3 times using 3 different fabrics and 3 different colorways before I landed on the current one. I love bright colors and in trying to make this a more muted, antique looking piece I just wasn't satisfied. I have another very large sampler waiting in the wings to be stitched. I'm calling it "Sweet Bird" for now and am still mulling over thread colors in my mind as I stitch up Remember Me.