The Garden and a finish!

I want to start by  thanking all of you who take time to read my blog!  I appreciate all of you very much!! Thanks for the wonderful comments about the beach.  It was truly an amazing place. We still are very cool and mostly cloudy.  Our highs are primarily in the 60's.  In spite of that our yard is starting to look great.  We have two Sambucus nigra "Eva" bushes planted in the front yard.  They are just beautiful right now, full of pink flowers! I finished John Foster on Friday!  I'm doing a quick little project, LHN's "Summer Splendor." I decided to make the plunge and order the Lizzie Kate Halloween Mystery Sampler.  I have never done a mystery sampler, but I do love anything to do with Halloween so I decided I couldn't go wrong! The first chart should be out the beginning of July so I won't start anything too big. I hope this is proving to be a good week-end for all of you!!

 The dark foliage and pink flowers look great with the light green tree in the background. this bush is about 5 feet tall.

 This one is more like a tree.  It's about 12 feet.

 A close up of the flowers.

Here we have the finished John Foster.  I made lots of changes in the thread.  If you are interested, I can let you know about the changes.  This was a great stitch!! I love the way it turned out! Now for a frame!!!

A Field Trip!

First, I would like to thank you for all the very kind comments on John Foster.  I will have him finished tomorrow. I'm thinking of a small to make into a little summer pillow for my next project.Our summer has been very cool and cloudy.  I think we have had  only 3 days in June in the 70's. They are calling it Junuary or the June Gloom.  We were beginning to complain.  So yesterday the weather lady showed a map of the temps in the country!  Wow. it's HOT!  So no more complaining from me!! Yesterday it was 76  so we went to a new beach.  The last time we worked at the lighthouse, a lady told us about this beach.  It's only about 45 minutes from our house.  It's called Kopachuck State Park. The beach was full of amazing things.

 Here is a view from the shore. This park is located near a town called Gig Harbor.

 This is a live sand dollar.  All those sparkling things you see are little moving feet.

We saw lots of these little crabs, all different colors!

 Have you ever seen so many star fish??!! It  was almost creepy.  It reminded me of snakes.

 Such amazing colors!

 This poor guy is missing  a few arms.

He was watching over the beach.

I hope this field trip has cooled you off a bit.  Thanks so much for taking a look!

John Foster ,Almost Done!!

I am finally able to get back to my stitching!! Yea!! John Foster will be done in just a short time.  I totally changed the border color.  I'm using the soft gold.  The color that was called for was a very light sort of lavender.  It would not have gone well with the changes I made along the way.  The pattern called for a pinkish red house.  I changed it to a barn red .  That required a few more changes.  I do love the way it has turned out.  The SBA says it might become his favorite!! Tonight I will finish the bee hive and the bees and the red flower on the far right.  That leaves half of the border,  the first half took 3 nights of stitching.  I guess that means it should be done in 4 stitching nights!! Thank you so much for taking a look!!!!! Hope the week is going well!!

 Wrinkles have caused that line in the bottom part.  It's really all the same.  I iron after I'm all done.

 I love that garden maze.

That border takes a bit of time to stitch!

Friday and the Edmonds Art Fair

This has been a very busy week-end!  On Thurs. I did my volunteer job at the school.  Then on Saturday, we worked out at the lighthouse.  It was fairly quiet because the weather was not the best.  The best day of the week-end (weather wise) was Friday.  The SBA, our daughter, and I went to the Edmonds Art Festival.  Laurie used to sell her Woolpets at this fair but she no longer does the festivals.  It was a beautiful day and we had lots of fun! Edmonds is a ferry ride away but we just walked on-that means you don't take a car.  It is a much cheaper way to travel on the ferry plus we got a nice walk up to the art fair.  I have mentioned Edmonds before.  It is probably my favorite town across the water.

 Almost each corner has a small garden.

 This is a view of the festival.

Edmonds is right on the water and you can see the Olympic Mountains in the background.

 All along our walk were pretty houses .  Almost all of them had pretty gardens.

 The SBA took this picture of Mt.  Baker from the ferry ride home.

Last year I bought a bird house(the one on the far right) at this fair.  I wanted to add a few more this year.

 I loved the shape of this one.

I couldn't resist this little patriotic one.

Thanks so much for taking a look! I hope this has been a good week-end for you.  I took the SBA out for a Father's Day Brunch!! Now it is time to go for a walk!!!!!

Happy Flag Day!

Good morning and thanks so much to all of you who take time to read this blog!! After looking at several blogs this morning, I decided to do a Flag Day post.  Over at The Sampler Girl's Blog, she has a wonderful history of Flag Day.  I just walked around the house to see where I saw the flag.  Now it helps that yesterday I did my 4th of July decorating!! Our house colors are predominately navy blue or cobalt blue, barn red, and gold, so patriotic colors fit right in! I hope you enjoy my little flag parade! 

 

This flag is special.  We bought it at an antique show.  It has 48 stars.  Our house in Louisville was built at a time when the flag had 48 stars.  We displayed it in our family room.  When we moved out here one of the movers handled it with such respect and care.  I will not ever forget that.

This was a Christmas gift from the SBA.  That man really knows me!

Another antique show find.

Have a Happy Flag Day!!!

Samplers and Flowers

Well, I'm typing with my right hand and the big old bandage is gone!! Yea! The stitches won't come out for another week but I'm doing more everyday. I tried a bit of stitching yesterday but it wasn't too easy so I think I'll wait for a few days, then try again.  I decided to show my favorite non-Quaker sampler.  It is called Mary Livcey 1832.  It is by Of Female Worth( good title for a designer!!) Anyway, it was the second sampler chart I bought in Victoria,BC. A stitched one was in the window at Christmas time and I  loved the reds and greens.  The description says Mary was only 13 when she stitched this sampler. The chart says," The colors and design are very Scottish in appearance however the turkey in the lower left corner assures us that this is an American work."  I found that very interesting. I have added a few pictures from my garden.  The peonies are finally blooming.  It is still cool and cloudy with an occasional sunny day.  I'm not complaining-I moved here partly for the cool weather!

 Mary is large, 15x15 3/4 on 32ct.  I think I did it on 28 ct.  That was before I found magnifiers!!!!

 The verse is all over 1-not my favorite!

 I worked all the connecting green line first.  I wanted to be sure that border met before I added all the flowers!!

There's the turkey they were talking about.

 This is a very beautiful bush/tree.  It is call Sambucus nigra "Eva" better known as black lace elderberry.  This one is about 12 feet high and in June it is covered with beautiful clumps of flowers.

Next are 3 different peonies. I don't know the name of this one.  It was a clump given to me.

 Peony, "Morning Lilac"

Peony "Primevere"

Thanks for taking a look. I appreciate it very much!!! Hope you are having a very good week!

The Quakers

I hope this has been a good week-end for all of you.  I'm happy because this big annoying bandage comes off tomorrow.  It will be one more week of the SBA doing the dishes because I can't submerge the hand in water for another week.  But at least this bandage will be gone. I might even try cross stitch to see if it hurts.  The plan is do it (that is anything) unless it hurts! Today I thought it might be fun to show the big Quakers that I have done.  I love to stitch Quaker designs and have several done for the holidays as well as the ones I'll show here.  I'm not sure of thread or linen color but if anyone really wants to know ,e-mail me and I'll try to figure it out.

 This is how my love affair with Quaker designs started, the original Beatrix Potter's Quaker Sampler by Needleprint.  I saw  this on line and just had to have it.  I do know it is stitched with Needlepoint Silk,Inc.

 This one is called Sampler 4 Seasons by Monasterium Design.  Again I used Needlepoint Silks for thread.

 As usual, the colors are much prettier than this shows.

 

 This is a wonderful Ellen Chester "With MY Needle" design called "An Emblem of Love". I put in family initials.  I did this for our 32nd anniversary.The blues are all from the Atlantic Blue Range of needlepoint silks.(Color in photo is off)

 

 This is a Handwork Sampler called"The 1830 Judith Townsend".  The original is in the DAR museum in Washington DC.  I am a member of DAR so I wanted to stitch one from that museum.

This has nothing to do with Quaker Samplers, but I love spiders and we have a great batch of babies on our deck!

Thanks for taking a look and have a great Sunday!