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)

yes, there are still cupcakes here

It's been overcast and raining here, so the picture is the best I could get, just a little peek of our strawberry cupcakes with strawberry frosting....

when the weather is like this, all I want to do is cook, bake, and make stuff!
Today for dinner I made oven baked cornflake chicken, garlic mashed potatoes, cheddar bay biscuits, and green beans. And of course, the cupcakes for dessert :-)
I had some leftover strawberry frosting (the recipe was enough to frost a three layer cake!)so that will go on some fluffy sugar cookies and with me to work later in the week...too much sugar for one household!

Speaking of sugar, did you know you can make your very own brown sugar? I was kinda skeptical, but tried it and DUH, it works! (I may be 45, but I can learn new tricks ;-) !
All you do is add one tablespoon molasses to one cup white sugar and stir it around with a fork until it's blended together. If you want dark brown sugar, add 2 tablespoons molasses for each cup of sugar. Store it in a ziplock bag and TADA!! No more $2 bags of brown sugar for me! Hah, take that Imperial, lol!

Stitching wise, a little more progress on my SB Sail Away SAL...



it seems very appropriate to be finishing up this SAL up as we head into fall....the best time of year to me!

sailing along...

A little more progress on my Sail Away SAL piece....



still need to put some initials and the heart charm in that flower wreath, but will save that for last.

Also finished up my Finch Song....



which was a joy to stitch!










On a non-stitchy note, we had a little, well, big actually, health scare with my hubby, but after visiting the cardiologist and then the family physician today, we got news that it wasn't anything serious. Still have some blood work results to look at, but so far, so good! Hubby's health is always an issue around here, guess when you have heart problems, that's to be expected, but sometimes even small things get magnified out of fear it could be something serious. At least now he goes in when I force the subject. Back in the 80's when he was sick with his thyroid (to the point of being hospitalized), I'd told him then, for months before the hospital trip, that something was seriously wrong. I just knew it! He wouldn't go. Turns out he had Graves disease, with all sorts of complications, you can't imagine. Then again in '97 when he had the heart attack, he didn't listen again and wouldn't go to the doctor, kept saying it was just indigestion, etc. Didn't go until three days later! The serious damage from that one he lives with EVERY DAY! But, ever since then, when I say "you're going", he doesn't argue! MEN! Gosh, it takes soooooo long to train them!

if only...

....I could be near a cool ocean breeze right now....that would be Heaven! Instead, I'm just pretending to be... as I stitch along with my fellow Sail Away pals...



I am actually further along right now than these pics show, but just haven't busted out the camera yet to get pics...



If you haven't guessed by now, this is Sail Away, a kit from Shepherd's Bush. To say I'm lovin' it would be an understatement!



Something else we've loved recently is a tomato pie recipe I found here, it is truly yummy, and just like she says, it's better served cold, so after I made this one and it cooled off, it went straight to the fridge and we ate it the next day...



Once again (this is our second pie), it was consumed before a picture could be taken of the baked pie, so you'll just have to look at the vanilla sugar blog to check out what the final product looks like! It's so awesome! Fresh Texas grown tomatoes, bacon, cheddar cheese, how could you go wrong?! Make it! (My pie crust looks so pitiful in this picture, it's a homemade one and doesn't look perfect, but it's the best!You can find the recipe to it in my sidebar.)

Thanks for visiting! Stay cool y'all!

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!

a big finish and some framing

Here's my "big" finish referred to in the last post.... it's my Blackberrie Sampler by Shepherd's Bush...



hard to get a good photo of the whole thing as it's a little long, so I took several close up shots...







the verse says:
" The blackberie tree is aftr his sort bushy
bearing that fruit that eftsones refresheth
the shepherde"



and if you're like me, and did not, or do not, know what the heck "eftsones" means, well then click here and learn! And you can even hear how it's pronounced :-)




wonder if that word could be worked into a conversion sometime soon :-)



Anyway, on to the framing part of this post. Today I went to the LNS and picked up two things I'd taken in last month.

This is The Song They Sang, by Carriage House Samplings...



it was stitched a while back and I finally got the frame for it last fall...



I have a thing for bird samplers and verses like this one, so I plan on hanging this where I can see it every day!




and here's my Plain & Fancy, also by Carriage House Samplings...



finally mounted into the really super cheap frame I'd found at Tuesday Morning a while back...



which was originally purchased for something else



but ended up being perfect for this sampler. At least I think so ;-)



That's about it for now! Working on another CHS, Westwinds....was finally able to turn the channel from the SB station. For at least one project that is, lol!

Thank you for visiting my blog! And for the sweet and kind comments you take the time to leave for me...I really appreciate them.

Have a great week!

movin' right along

Remember when we were kids, time just c r a w l e d by? Especially if looking forward to something. Now? I just wish the world would slow down a tiny bit and let me catch up! Can it really be MAY already? Summer is almost here and oy, the Texas heat? I can wait a while for that to get here.

Anyhoo, it's been a while since I blogged because let's face it, my life is sooooo boring! You have no idea people. The most exciting thing I've done recently is take an online class that was required for my job in which I was tested at the conclusion of, with TRICK QUESTIONS! Love that. Hopefully I passed. The test sheet has to be faxed in and if you get a certificate in the mail, you passed, if not, I guess you don't get to work? Maybe I'll get a forced vacation! Which wouldn't be all that bad except for the humiliation of being the only operator that failed the test at my workplace. So y'all, keep your fingers crossed for me, ok? Thank you ever so much!

Stitching wise, it's been all Shepherd's Bush, all the time. It's like I'm tuned to the SB channel and can't adjust the dial to anything else, ha!



This is My Heart's Garden...



I got twenty skeeter bites trying to get a good picture outside....



But since I am not French, I cannot take a good photo ;-)




This was just a teeny tiny finish, I actually have a big one to share with you, that I finished after this one, but need to post that later because, seriously? I am so ready to get off this computer and stitch!! (and scratch!)

Oh! PS. Almost forgot! Alice had a dare for us to post a picture of ourselves when we were 18 or a little older. Well, most of my pictures are still packed away, but this one is close to that time frame....kinda...



back in the very early 90's when I had short hair (the sides were much shorter than the top)! Listening to Bobby Brown and Paula Abdul and my kids were just little things, trying to do the "Hammer-Time" thing, lol! (Oh yes, they loved Mr. "MC Hammer", remember that crazy dance he did?) That's the Best Cat That Ever Lived, Chester, when he was a kitten, and yep, that's stitchin' stuff in front of us :-)

how to be happy

This illustration by Susan Branch is one of my favs :-)




There are a few things I could add to this list, but it's a good start ;-)
(especially the naps, lol)

Meanwhile, another Shepherd's Bush finish, yippee!!




this one is called Quaker Heart. A lot of fun to stitch, and I'm on a roll with SB again so stay tuned for another finish soon!



What do you think about these boys? Here they were fighting for lap space and Muttley is the winner as you can see, that's Astro under his foot....they were sleeping like this on Easter Sunday...