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!

framed and otherwise

Finished back in 2010, framed in 2011, and now, finally posted...

Home of a Needleworker Too design by Little House Needleworks Stitched on 40 ct. Vintage Light Examplar by Lakeside with called for threads

Adam & Eve Design by The Primitive Needle

Stitched on 36 ct. Mello linen, by Picture This Plus with called for threads.

Ann Sandles Design by With Thy Needle & Thread Used threads and linen called for in design

Thank you so much for visiting, hope to post more finishes soon.
Stay happy!

some finishes and some winners too

Apologies in advance for these horrible pictures. I've been fighting a cold bug for weeks and it finally hit pretty hard the past few days, so everything I try to do just turns out cruddy!

I recently sent a few things to Tobie for finishing, she makes awesome pillows and other things. Got two of them back today...

Here's Jingles & Jack (design by Becky's Boos)...



and the Daisy Sampler (design by Little House Needleworks)....



Also, I recently stitched up this little freebie from Shepherd's Bush, called Halloween Grins...



Stitched once for my hubby, as he picked it out when he was with me at the LNS last fall. The Frankenstein one is his. Then stitched again for my daughters, the grinning kitty. They are in some tuckable hanging banners that Tobie made for me a few years back. Can't remember what they were originally for, but these fit perfectly. My original plan was to make these into little hanging ornaments, but I feel too shaky to even attempt that, so here they go. I may need to spruce up the banners a little...when I feel better...maybe some cute buttons in the corners.

Thanks to everyone who entered my giveaway. The random generator thing was done and the winners are Tracey for Lot A, and Deborah for Lot B. Congratulations ladies, I will be emailing you soon for your mailing info...or if you see this first, please go ahead and email me with it :)

Back to my Mary sampler...which I've managed to work on in-between my Nyquil shots, lol! She's almost done :)

Happy Fall Y'all! Yippee!!

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)

gift from a friend & rosemary!

Still plugging away on my Village and some other things too...I seem to be having some Attention Deficit problems where my stitching is concerned, ahem. So in the meantime, I wanted to share something my friend Patti stitched for me.
It was actually a Christmas gift this past year, and finally, four months later, I post about it!

Isn't it lovely?








Patti used some sparkly threads in the wings of the bees, it's kind of hard to pick up with the camera though. Thank you again Patti, your stitching is perfect, as always!

OK, see this pretty little rosemary plant?



Well, I am infamous for my plant killing skills. Trust me. Even my hubby calls me "the Morticia of the plant world". Plants come here to die. It's not pretty. But despite my knowledge of this, I keep on lying to myself! I got this on the way into Central Market with Patti a couple of weeks ago, maybe a week and a half. Because there's a killer (oh hahahaha) potato recipe I've been making that uses rosemary and I thought, oh boy, FRESH rosemary, how wonderful would that be? (Silly, stupid disillusioned woman)! So....we're walking through the store and a lady working in the deli department spotted it and said "oh, are you going to plant some rosemary? It's very hardy and easy to grow, it'll take over". I said, "yes, I'm going to try, but I kill everything"! She said "I can't get rid of mine, it keeps coming back, even after I put a big rock on top of it, it grew back up around the rock". I'm just shaking my head, thinking, lady, you don't know me, I'm the grim reaper of plants, seriously.

So can you see where this is headed? I won't show you a picture of it, but believe me when I tell you that part of it is already dead. It's in my sun room, getting plenty of light (indirect), I've watered it, misted it (which did perk it up some), read the directions over and over (not watering too much, etc). But yep, still trying to die. I'd like to plant it in the back yard but with three male pugs that use the back yard as their bathroom, there's a lot of hiking and peeing on things, so that's probably a worse idea. Maybe out front....we have a flower box on the front porch that gets a lot of sun (direct)...any ideas? Put it in a pot or plant it in the ground?

I'd like to keep it alive at least until I make the potatoes again ;-)

home of a needleworker (too!) and a winner

This past week, I managed to finish this little design




from Little House Needleworks, it's "Home of a Needleworker (too!)". I'd always loved the first one but never got around to stitching it, and then when this one was released, I knew I had to do it instead :-)



This was stitched on 40 count Vintage Examplar from Lakeside, with Crescent Colors threads, one over two.



And I couldn't help but think of these ladies while I was stitching this. What do their homes look like? Is their home even still standing? I know their lives are so very different from mine. Yet, they are stitchers, needleworkers, crafters, just like me and that makes us sisters in spirit. I prayed for them, their family, and for their homes, which are the homes of needleworkers, too. :-)

Thanks to my readers that posted about the Haiti by Hand craft supplies drive.
There were five ladies who did and I entered their names in the random generator thing and Angela came out on top, so the needlecase goes to her :-)
Hope you like it Angela!

my frappa

Here's my Frappucino, all finished up and back from the finisher



It's just about perfect, don't ya think?

curly q ewe, framed

Picked this one up last week too. It had been a shop model for a couple of months.



Such a fun stitch. And I really loved the frame, which is from the Crescent Colors company.



Brr! It's cold here today, snowing even! Pretty rare in North Texas. Gives me a chance to fire up the oven and make some banana bread and then some pizza for dinner, yippee!!

Thanks for your opinions on the June Morning framing. I do think I'll take it back in next time I'm going. This will be the second thing I've had to have her remount...but my framing options are pretty limited around here as far as I know.
Anyway, thanks again for the feedback!

Have a great weekend!

opinions please

OK, so I finished the Frappuccino the other day and right before it was done I remembered some little cupcake buttons a friend had given me and was thinking, hey, those might be cute on the sides, but after searching high and low for them with no luck, gave up and posted the finish.

Here it is again:




And here it is with the found cupcake buttons perched on it. I haven't sewn them on yet, because I'm just not sure....




Too much? Better without? Maybe better with just one? What do you think?



Help me out here if you will and give me your honest opinion :) I'd be ever so grateful!

sleepy frap finish

One of my most favorite things in the world are Caramel Frappucinos from Starbucks. Love them! I try to be "good" when I get them and get the light version with no whip and non fat milk, but pretty sure the venti size does me in anyway, hee!

Anyhoo, this cute design is from Little House Needlework's and Crescent Colors, there's a whole series, which are all adorable, but I knew when seeing this one, it was a must stitch for me!



It was the first time I'd stitched with the CC Belle Soie Silks. Oh my goodness, they are just heavenly!



I could use one of these right about now, with a double or triple shot of espresso. Yep, that would get me going I bet.

finally

A finish!



This is Curly Q Ewe by Little House Needleworks and I stitched it over one on 18 ct. Waterlily with Crescent Colors and DMC as listed.

A really fun stitch but it seemed to take me forever, probably due to work getting in the way.

Here it is under the frame that was purchased for it. It's from Crescent Colors as well and made for this design, it's the one pictured on the chart model.



Gosh, I can't believe Thanksgiving is only one week away. Time to get my menu ready and go shopping! Hopefully the weather will cool down some, I really don't like it when it's so hot outside and there's so much baking to be done...I end up hot and sweaty and not even in the mood to eat anything when it's finally all cooked.

Today I am sitting here waiting for the service tech from Haverty's to come over. Our new leather couch stinks! Not sure if it's just "new leather" smell, or if it's some chemical they used to treat it with or what, but I have to cover it with a blanket just to sit on it, otherwise it gives me a raging headache. Just what we had in mind when handing over all that dough, lol!