Good news

The above painting is by Jerome Rozen and is something I came across while on my travels across the internet. I believe it's an oil painting and I loved the colors and mood of it.

Well, good news for me in that I've recovered my designs except for the last couple that I have not yet released and there is hope for those, even if I just have to chart them again. So yippee! Just waiting to find out if the family photos can be recovered and there is a good chance that they will. I do have backup but not for maybe the last year though many of those are on various photo sites around the 'net so not completely lost.

I'm busy designing again now that I've got another computer to do it on. I've just designed and am almost done stitching a pouch with a sampler look and also a piece I'm calling Sheep's Paradise which is sort of a Peaceable Kingdom with sheep. I'm also releasing this piece called Remember Me.

Cool!

I love looking at old samplers and I'm always on the lookout for familiar names. So I was pleasantly surprised to find this pair of English samplers with my last name THORPE!!!! One worked by Eliza Thorpe and dated 1822, depicting Ticehurst Asylum; the other worked by Charity Thorpe and dated 1834, depicting Queen's Palace.

Hearts for Thee

This is a new design coming out very soon called Hearts for Thee. It might be the last one for a while as my hard drive gave up the ghost and is now in the shop. I have little hope of recovering much but am trying to think positively. Luckily, I'm in the middle of stitching a new design and can rechart it without a problem. It's about half of the designs that I have out now that will most likely be "retired" so get what you want while there are still some out there.

Edited to add: the valentine pendants I put up here yesterday are sold but I did find a sheet I had printed before Xmas and will make a few more so keep an eye here in the next few days for a new post.

As far as the computer troubles, I know I should be much more upset to lose so much but strangely I'm not. I think I realize this is going to be a year of big change in our family and that is more on my mind than my designs. I've had a good run with them and plan to continue but am not buying a new computer until February 1st which is after mercury retrograde leaves. If you know anything about astrology you know that the 3 week period about 3 times a year of mercury going retrograde is not a good time to buy electronics, machinery, cars etc. I'm not taking any chances!DH gave me one of the new cute little laptops for Christmas so there is no hurry as far as being able to connect to the internet and get email. The tiny keyboard causes me a number of typos though. I do miss my mouse!

Speaking of change, DD graduates from high school in May and has applied to 8 different colleges, all on the west coast (except her safety school, University of AZ which is here in town). She's already been accepted to four of them and is just waiting to hear about the California schools. However, her number one choice was University of Washington in Seattle and she heard last week, to her delight, that she has been admitted. She also got her Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do last week so we've been celebrating.

DS just got back from a trip to San Francisco to check out the Academy of Art University and it looks like he is very excited about the place so I know the empty nest is finally here come fall.

On another note, I am discontinuing my webpage because I can never get it updated since DD is my over-busy webmistress and it just seems ridiculous to pay for it. I do much better here as I can update easily on my own.
Whoa, sort of a long post but I guess I had more to say than I realized. I hope everyone has had a great start to the new year. Thanks for reading.

Happy New Year 2009!

Happy New Year everyone! I've woefully neglected blogging during the holidays. Too much decorating and cooking and cleaning and all the other stuff including trips to Phoenix and cancelled trips to Sedona (due to weather) and Mexico (due to logistics). I wish everyone a blessed new year. I've accumulated some random photos to post here from our holidays.


Above is our big ol' tomcat Smokey after a nice meal on Christmas day. He lives for his food bowl in case you couldn't tell.


And this is Snowflake. He's sweet and quiet and loves "his" chair. We've piled it with comforters and pillows and he spends a good part of each day napping there.


Above is my daughter posing with her friend and our big pink sheep "Sheila" in front of the snowmen we put in our entryway each year. This was a few days before Christmas and they made a beautiful cake that day:

YUM...


Above are the kids on Christmas Eve, a little blurry but the light was low.


And oh yes, I had told friends I'd post the lemon ornament I wrote about in the 2008 Christmas issue of JCS and here she is in all her glory. My grandmother gave it to us years ago when I was a kid, no doubt bought at a Christmas church bazaar and I LOVE my lemon ornament. My siblings made fun of it every year we brought out the ornaments which made me love it even more, that plus the fact there are very few ornaments left from my childhood.


And the above photo was taken yesterday in Romero Canyon near our house. A nice 3 mile hike in some beautiful Arizona winter weather. That saguaro cactus is a couple hundred years old I'd guess.


And found in the back of my closet is my snowman vest that still had the tags on from FOURTEEN YEARS AGO! Daughter wanted to pose in a "Fugly Christmas Sweater" and this is what we dug up. Yep, quiet day, no school, something to do on a winter afternoon before Christmas...
I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and the new year brings joy to everyone.

Christmas projects

I made these yesterday and thought I'd post them mainly because I thought you'd enjoy the Santa holding the sampler. Yep, that's what I want for Christmas, a nice antique sampler!

Creative idea...

I saw this in Cathy B's blog. Barbara used one of my pendants to create a scissor fob for Cathy and I thought it was such a great idea, thanks for posting it Cathy.
If anyone is still interested in pendants, just email me: dsthorpe@comcast.net

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Birthday

I'm a little late but we were in Mexico for Thanksgiving, I guess that's a bit ironic but I can say I'm thankful to be able to go there.



Ranger portrays how we all felt after a nice Thanksgiving feast. Looking at him makes me want to take a nap right now.


And no post about Mexico is complete without the requisite photo of sunset over the ocean.


And Happy Birthday today (18th!) to my dear daughter Maggie, shown here with her brother who hates this photo, sorry Nick!


And finally, the photo of the eating of the meal. We celebrated with my husband's sister and her husband and their dog Ranger. It was a lovely, relaxing time with some of our favorite people. I hope everyone will have wonderful memories of their own Thanksgiving.

The Attic's 2008 Silent Auction for Breast Cancer Research

Here is my contribution to The Attic's Christmas ornament silent auction and was a really fun, quick stitch. It is in the current 2008 JCS Ornament Issue and was designed by Blackbird Designs. The auction will take place this Saturday, November 22nd. This auction never disappoints with many, many lovely ornaments up for bid. All proceeds go to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

As Jean states in her newsletter, "We know that many of you cannot participate in person, so all of the donated items received thus far will be photographed today (Nov. 18) and put in e-mails to you tomorrow ~ and uploaded to our Web site just as soon as our Web master can get it posted. Through Friday you may bid by e-mail. Please use this e-mail address (jeanlea@cox.net) to do that and put AUCTION BID in the "Subject" line.

Because there will be no one reading e-mails on our busy Saturday while we make final preparations for the evening's event, beginning on Saturday please submit your bid by calling our toll-free number prior to 4 p.m. MST, 1.888.94-ATTIC (1.888.942.8842)". Here is The Attic's website.

My thanks to Deb Hunter for a beautiful job of finishing this piece.

A few Christmas ornaments

I was thinking ahead to Christmas today and realized it's really not that far away. I wondered what else I could do with my ice pendants and came up with these 3 heart ornaments. They would look better hanging straight on a tree rather than laying flat but it's a bit too early for the tree yet! Let me know what you think!

Christmas Cheer

I just released a new design called Christmas Cheer and I hope you'll like it. This is a bit better photo than what is on the chartpack which was a roundabout mistake but I went with it as I didn't want to waste all the prints I had! Anyway, enjoy!

This is from Carol, I love the finishing.



Congratulations Mylene, your finish looks great!

The Sociopath Next Door

I've been doing a lot more reading than stitching lately and have been particularly interested in books about personality disorders. This was one of the best of the group. Basically, sociopaths are people without a conscience, people who can do anything and not have guilt or remorse. But contrary to what many think, not all sociopaths are making lampshades from human skin, nor are they only dictators of small countries. There are many shades and flavors of sociopaths and the one I wanted to talk about is the "covetous sociopath". Oh my, I've met her! In fact, I'd swear one of those pairs of eyes on the book cover are hers.

THE COVETOUS SOCIOPATH

Sociopaths do not always have a covetous nature, but when they do, a fascinating and frightening picture emerges. Since it is simply not possible to steal and have for oneself the most valuable possessions of another person ie: beauty, intelligence, success,or perhaps a strong character the covetous psychopath settles for besmirching or damaging enviable qualities in others so that they will not have them, either, or at least not be able to enjoy them so much. Here the pleasure lies in taking rather than in having.

The covetous sociopath thinks that life has cheated her somehow, has not given her nearly the same bounty as other people, and so she must even the existential score by robbing people, by secretly causing destruction in other lives. She believes she has been slighted by nature, circumstances, and destiny, and that diminishing other people is her only means of being powerful. Retribution, usually against people who have no idea that they have been targeted,is the most important activity in the covetous sociopath's life, her highest priority.

Since this clandestine power game is priority number one, all of the covetous sociopath's deceitfulness and tolerance for risk are devoted to it. For the sake of the game, she may devise schemes and perform acts that most of us would consider outrageous and potentially self-destructive, in addition to cruel.

And yet when such a person is around us in our lives, even on a daily basis, we are often oblivious to her activities. We do not expect to see a person direct a dangerous, vicious vendetta against someone who in most cases has done nothing to hurt or offend her. We do not expect it, and so we do not see it, even when it happens to someone we know or to us personally. The actions taken by the covetous sociopath are often so outlandish, and so gratuitously mean, that we refuse to believe they were intentional, or even that they happened at all. In this way, her true nature is usually invisible to the group. She can easily hide in plain sight among genuinely intelligent, professional people.

When people do not provoke in the sociopath a desire for something they have, or for something they are, then she does not target them. To the contrary, she may be especially charming and courteous when she believes that certain underlings, as she thinks of them, are useful in maintaining her sheep's-clothing disguise, a disguise that includes a presentation of herself as an extraordinarily nice, caring, responsible, and pitiably overworked person.

Sound like anyone you know? Beware...

Another finish!

This is from Shari
I love how she finished with the felt backing, thanks for sharing!

Three more finished!

The above is from Mylene

The above finish is from Petra!

And this solid color piece is from Joann. She used Sister Scarlett Belle Soie on 40 ct One of a Kind from Sassy's Fabbys. Thanks for sharing ladies!

First one done!

Mel in Dubai was kind enough to email me that she finished Jingle Sparkle Joy last night. Looks great, thanks so much for showing me! I like the year stitched around the cardinal's tail, cute! Update, Mel has finished her piece into an ornament, I love the jingle bells!

Freebie!

This is Jingle Sparkle Joy and I hope you like it and would love to see any photo of a completed piece since I only just designed this piece today and haven't stitched it. I thought I'd get it up on the blog though for those who like to get their Christmas stitching done in a timely manner, lol. Enjoy!

Celebrity Morph by MyHeritage

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities

Actually, not me! That's DD. This is such a fun site. You upload a full face photo and it will find celebrities with similar features using face recognition software.

Halloween!

I just released a new design called Halloween. I wish I could have thought of a more catchy name, oh well! The fabric is 30 ct Witches Brew from R&R Reproductions which makes it 15-5/8w X 3-1/8h inches. There are only 2 overdyes used in this piece and they are from Weeks Dye Works, Whiskey and Okefenokee.
Thanks for looking!

A zipper pull!

I thought it would be fun to make a zipper pull to match the fabric on my Vera Bradley stitching bag. I think it turned out pretty cute!

Cookbook Project

I'm not really sure what came over me to start this project other than my mother has dementia and it seemed like a nice way to preserve her memories. So I decided to put together a cookbook with about 2 dozen of her favorite recipes. I wanted it to have a vintage 50's feel and scoured the internet for '50's cookbook graphics. I think I was successful with the graphics but it was harder to find proper paper and so I just winged it. I scanned and printed many of her handwritten recipes and reprinted many old photos of her. Each of the books is different, though they have some of the same photos and also different photos in each. I personalized a bit for each recipient.

I've never done any scrapbooking and I was exhausted by the time I finished putting these together this morning. But they are off in the mail tomorrow to my brothers and sister plus I get one too. Sorry, photos were taken rather quickly and not very well. If I'd had more energy left I would have done better!