finishing by faye

Last month I sent Faye a few things for her to work her magic on, and here they are, in no particular order..

"Boo" design by Blackbird Designs, I think it is in the Trix or Treats booklet...

This one is also a design by BBD, called Morning Star...

Faye included a beautiful skein of hand-dyed floss inside the box :)

Below is a bag she made out of my finished BBD Gathering Basket....love it!

A really, really old Ewe & Eye & Friends finish, Pea Pod scissor fob, or something like that....my oldest daughter claimed this one when it arrived home...

One of three designs from a chart from Heartstring Samplery...

Heart in Hand Grand Old Flag...

Little House Needleworks Peace ornament...

A little freebie from Pineberry Lane...

Boo from Lilybet Designs...if you would like to see the inside of this little thing, look here, Faye posted a few pics of it on her blog :)

Design by Lizzie Kate, cannot recall name of chart...

Thanks for your work Faye!! Love everything!

a few more flags

It is so dang hot here today...hubby was helping me move some of these things out into the sun room so I could get pics, and about halfway through, about to faint, we gave up! So while this is not all of the rest of my patriotic stitching, it is a little more, for your viewing pleasure ;-)



as you can see, a lot of it is not "finished"...need to work on that!



Looking at the picture below, here's some information, from left to right in each row
back row:Blackbird Designs Home of the Brave , Carriage House Samplings Long May She Wave;
2nd row: Shepherd's Bush Olde Glory, Birds of a Feather Land I Love, Blackbird Designs Stars & Stripes
3rd row: Handwork America Pillow, Shepherd's Bush Peace for All
4th row: Blackbird Designs Union Forever, Ewe & Eye & Friends Liberty Days




and a few of the framed ones....



On the left, in the back, is Lizzie Kate's Land I Love, and all the rest are from Bent Creek kits, except for the bottom left one, which is from Chessie & Me and is called Love Liberty.



All of the links I've posted are just convenient ones I found online, for easy reference, I am not affiliated with any one of them, or promoting their website :)




Thanks for visiting. I appreciate each and every one of you, especially the sweetie-pies that leave comments ;-)

I leave you today with some fat pug legs, these belonging to Muttley...



Smile!

days late and pesky husbands

Had a couple of patriotic finishes to share with my faithful readers, way before a few days before the start of July, but life went a little haywire and messed with my blogging plans.

That's life!

Well, here's one from Little House Needleworks....



and from Heart in Hand....



Anyway, hubby had an accident at work and long story short, he dislocated his shoulder and bruised a couple of ribs, but he's OK and will go back to work in another week or so, after being HOME for three (count them...t h r e e )weeks. I loves me some hubbies, but when they come into the bathroom to watch you pee, they have to go. There's only so much one can deal with. Seriously, I'm happy it wasn't much worse...in fact the doctor told him that most men his age (like he's 90 or something, ha, he's only in his early fifties) would have needed surgery, but hubby is healing nicely and for that I'm very thankful.

and Muttley is also very thankful for some quality Dad time




All of this happened during the big birthday week, so the birthdays were a little subdued this year, as he was in a lot of pain those days. I think we'll celebrate this next week by going to see Toy Story 3 and my plans are to put so much butter on my popcorn that I will just slide right out of my seat when it's all over! Yay!

Here's a picture of the birthday girls, lo, all those years ago....(22 to be exact). She was brand new and at 24, I pretty much was too, lol!



weird look on my face, huh? Probably just tired. Babies are exhausting.




Here are some random pictures of some patriotic things I have gathered from around the house...



please excuse dust and pug hairs as I'm just not a good housekeeper, let's be honest here. There are lots of framed patriotic pieces around too...someday I'll gather those up, knock off the dust and take pictures...bet y'all can hardly wait ;-)



**edited to add some designer info, to the best of my recollection :)**
(in the picture above, from upper left to right: the large flag with acorn wreath is from the Blackbird Designs Fine Collection book, and is called July Celebration; the America Fob (only bottom half shown) is from Shepherd's Bush; the May You Be Blessed ornament is from the Blue Ribbon Designs Patriotic Wishes Volume 1 leaflet, it was a gift from a friend; the tall skinny flag with America under it was a kit from Twisted Threads; the lady holding the flag, dated 2003 in big letters is called Liberty House & is from Ewe & Eye & Friends; the little pudgie guy holding a flag is called Glory Fob from Shepherd's Bush as is the Oh Say sheep and the little mattress pincushion in front of it, from a kit called Tiny Flag ; Pray for Peace is from Birds of a Feather. Hope this helps! Any questions, just shoot me an email!)

Hope everyone had a happy 4th and are heading into summer by having fun and staying cool in this heat. It's just unbearably hot all over the country...our first electric bill for the summer was double what it was this time last year! I'm not complaining, a/c is a Godsend, whatever the cost...don't you think?



(me, circa 1966)

April sneaks in and brings us a winner!

Gosh, time sure does fly! Hard to believe it's April already! And I realized this morning that yesterday was actually Wednesday and the day I was supposed to have the drawing for the Noah chart!! Well, I declare! I have to admit, I was just too busy all day with a girlfriend, shopping and having lunch and then making dinner and playing with my stash....the drawing completely slipped my mind!
But better late than never though, so I entered the names into the Random Generator this afternoon and Cari in VA is the winner!
Congratulations Cari, I hope you will enjoy stitching this wonderful design...it was one of my very favorite stitches! I love all things Noah :-) Anyway, please email me your mailing address and I will get it off to you!

Thanks to everyone that entered for the drawing, and those that didn't but left sweet comments anyway. It's always fun to hear from y'all, and I really appreciate you taking time to let me know you were here!

So anyway, Happy April!



Here's an oldie from Ewe & Eye & Friends I stitched a while back and actually finished into the little stand up myself. He is not perfect, but I think he's cute!
Have been working on my Village and didn't get pictures this week because of having too much fun!

Meanwhile, Astro is feeling pretty good lately, he's over the broken nail incident



although, he's not over the baby food and still wants to have some twice a day, pill or no pill! Pugs have good memories, I'm just sayin'!

Well, I'd better be off, lots to do to get ready for Easter Sunday coming up. That one sure did sneak up on me!

Take good care Peeps!

dusty tuesday

Broken hot water pipe under house + twelve inches of foundation to jackhammer through + TONS of concrete dust over every available surface in house = ONE BIG HEADACHE! Oy.
I'd just done a major cleaning after putting away Christmas stuff. And that my friends, just proves my theory that housework is a complete waste of time!

Remember, too much housework, when done correctly, can KILL YOU.

Make it your motto!
Oh well! With not much else to do, I am camping out with the Pugs in the bedroom, as the workers jackhammer away across the house, in the laundry room. The noise is only mildly ear piercing from here. I am keeping the doggies calm by using Cesar's advise of being the strong and confident pack leader, but all this licking they are doing is almost driving me insane!! What is it with Pugs and licking, anyway?! Dang it!

No stitchy news this week, since with all that cleaning, and subsequent shower of concrete dust,the conditions are not that conducive. I was working on the big beautiful red cardinal from the BBD Joyeux Noel book (what's he called?) but put it away so all the lovely silks wouldn't get covered in dust. Meanwhile, here's something I got back from the finisher back in December I think.

It's an old Ewe & Eye & Friends design, and if I recall correctly, from an old JCS magazine, but it's been so long, I can't say with certainty.


I'm really very, very picky on how I like my things finished, so this was the SECOND time I had to pay for finishing....



but at least it's right this time.



So the lessons today are these. The housework thing...remember, it kills. And Pugs lick a lot, even when they're remaining calm. And be careful who does your finishing for you the FIRST time, or else you end up paying twice for it, like me. And that's just silly!

an old wip and some little finishes

Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts with me on the last post, it sure was helpful to have some opinions on the matter. I've decided to just leave the framed sampler as it is....I had lived with it for all the years that it awaited a frame, (TEN!) so there's really no good reason to freak out over the missing parts now...

And speaking of things that are ten years old, here's an oldie from Ewe & Eye & Friends that has been in the WIP box for a looooooooooong time....




I feel pretty certain that I did not start on this in 1999, but that's the date on it....



had all of it done but filling in the grass area...and it's really shameful how long this was waiting for me to do that part...



After finishing up that, I was in a patriotic mood, so I pulled out this little quickie kit from Shepherd's Bush...



as you might guess, it's called Peace for All....



And of course, I cannot do just one SB design at a time, and this one had been calling my name...



it's called Glad Heart



such a joy to stitch



I especially loved the cherries on this!



From bright and cheerful to terribly morbid, that's me....wait until you see the next thing I'm working on, lol!

rosebud and companions

Organizing my new stitchy closet today, I came across some finishes that I got back from the finisher late last year and never got a picture of until now. There are three or so "smalls" and a big one to share, and here's one of them now:



Design by Ewe & Ewe & Friends called "Purple Rosebud Scissor Companion".
I think it was a kit but now may be offered in just chart form....



I'll share the others later this week :-)
In the meantime, there's something I have to vent about. There's a coworker at my workplace that got his son a puppy for Christmas. So I've asked about it a few times to see how she (the puppy, she's a Lab) is coming along in her new household. Every time, he starts ranting about it, how bad she is, she jumps on the couch, pees on the floor, etc. Tonight he told me he went to let her out in the rain last night, thought she was outside, but when he turned around, she was at his feet, peeing on the floor. So he said he "lost it". Meaning, he spanked her, probably too hard and too long, as if any of it is warranted in the first place.
It just chaps my behind that a grown man is spanking a puppy! For anything. PERIOD. It's all about behaviour modification with a dog, they don't understand yelling or hitting. So instead of "losing it" with my coworker, I tried explaining some puppy training methods that I've used with our Pugs. Like the water bottle...boy hidee, just SAY "water bottle" around Muttley and he's all "Man, I'm cool, it's all good"...he stops whatever it is he's doing (that's wrong) IMMEDIATELY. And we've only ever actually squirted him with it three times! It works!
So anyhoo, he acted like he was going to take my advise and hopefully he will...
I look at our boys and their sweet faces (see below)...and it makes me sick to think anyone would spank such a loyal and loving companion...



Muttley would like to say "Hi. Can you tell my mama I'm a good boy and she can stop with the water bottle threats already? Thank you so very much."

wee snowman

wee snowman
Originally uploaded by Deep Fried Cupcake

Another precious finish back from the finisher..

I don't think I've posted this here, have I? My brain is on eggnog overload ;-)
Anyhoo....design by Heart in Hand, believe it's called Wee Snowman (could be wrong, please inform if I am, lol!) and I stitched him with recommended fibers....


Hey y'all....HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
Hope you all have a wonderful, healthy, happy and prosperous 2009 and stitch your little hearts out, all year long!

EE&F Snowman

eef snowman
Originally uploaded by Deep Fried Cupcake

This little snowman is a Ewe & Eye & Friends design, the name of which escapes me at the moment....
but he was stitched sometime earlier this year and then sent to (....)for final finishing. When I first got him back from her, we were having a lot of rain and a good picture was not to be had...
not too late to share now though :-)

stitching and cleaning...

...but mostly cleaning. Except that it's too darn hot to clean, so that's when I stitch...

recent WIP's include EE&F Pansy Basket, progress so far:



and Plum Street Samplers Fishes and Bait progress:



Enjoying them both but have to admit the Fishes and Bait is a dream to stitch.

Can't show any progress on the cleaning front, I'd have to roll over and die from embarrassment if anyone saw the state of my house right now. Although, my good friend Sheri is coming over tomorrow for our stitch day and she won't mind, we're cool like that, our priorities are in order ;)

What led to the cleaning frenzy was the purchase of two large bookcases, one for the dining room/kitchen area to hold all my cookbooks, and one for the bedroom for all my crafting books. If you ever want to turn your house totally upside down, just decide to redo a room or organize and there you have it. OMG.

....(oops, I did it again)....edited to remove rant, i'm movin' on!

So back to life....a cool drink on a hot day, good friends, a wonderful husband and kids, stitching projects galore, what more could a girl ask for?