A Give-Away and the Solstice Celebration!

I am really glad that good old blogger is behaving today.  I appreciate all the suggestions and I think I will look at other options for reading my blogs.
I was going through my charts the other day and guess what?  I had two of the same design so that means a give away.  If you would like Little House Needleworks, "Patriot Inn"  just leave a comment on this post.  I will draw a winner on Sat.  It is a great little chart to be stitching over the 4th of July.
Each year on the Sat. closest to the Summer Solstice, Poulsbo has a celebration.  It is based on the   Norwegian St. Hans Festival. Last Sat. was the actual solstice and a picture perfect day.  My DH, DD and I went to the festival.  I will let the photos speak for themselves.

 Preparing the Mai Pole.  Many homes have their own smaller poles decorated with greens and flowers. This is not the traditional May Pole.

Every thing Norwegian!

 They are supposedly very sweet dogs!

 The arrival of the dancers and musicians.

Many wore the traditional costumes.

 We all had to sit behind the green garland for the rising of the pole just to be safe.

 It is up! It took several men with poles and probably 10 minutes to get the pole up.

 There was lots of Norwegian dancing.

 We missed the lighting of the bon fire, we got too hungry!

 The perfect ending to a lovely day! I hope your solstice was memorable!

Problems

Blogger is driving me crazy!! I can't get any posts  from the blogs I'm following except one at a time.  The minute someone else that I follow posts, the previous post disappears. The only way I could read posts is to sit by the computer all day and catch each one as it appears.  VERY FRUSTRATING!  That is why there have been no comments from me on any blogs. Any suggestions?  We sent a note to google but no help so far,  The view more button does no good. I would really appreciate any advise. Is anyone else having this problem?

Cross Stitch and Flowers

Thanks so much for all the kind wishes you sent to sweet Hannah on her first birthday. I appreciated them so much.  Her parents don't read my blog so I sent them an email suggesting they take a look.  Both of them did and thank you also  for your wonderful comments!
I think  I'll just comment on the pictures instead of writing a lot here.

 Here is Liberty Lane with the alphabet started and no words" Liberty Lane."  I do love it with the alphabet.  This part will be finished tonight.  The second row completes the alphabet and has the numbers 1-10. 

 This year I made a new goal for myself.  I decided to bring in my garden flowers so we would  enjoy them in the house. Here you see 3 types of peonies in the powder room.  They smell wonderful!

More peonies in the family room.

Roses on the island!

I planted a mock orange just for the smell of the flowers.  This afternoon I'm going out to cut a nice big branch.  It had just started blooming when I took this picture.

 When I travel, I always enjoy seeing what kind of wild flowers grow along the roadside.  Each year I look forward to seeing the wonderful display of foxglove that we have here in the NW. They bloom along our roads where ever there is a sunny spot.

I hope you all have a wonderful week-end and celebrate Father's Day in great style!!  The DH and I are going to one of our favorite little towns and doing some antiquing!!

One Year Ago

Just one year ago this beautiful little girl was born!  My only regret is that we live so very far away form our grand daughter and her sweet brother!

Happy Birthday Hannah!!!!!

 

Catch Up!

Thanks so much to all of you who said such nice things about the antique sampler and its frame.  If I did not respond, I'm sorry.  I expect your comment to show up on my email but many of them did not show up this time.  I have no idea why.  Blogger can be a pain at times!!
I'm still busy with PT.  It is really taking a long time to get this knee back in good working order.  I can walk just fine but definitely slower than the pre-knee .  They( the PT folks) want it to bend  to 120 degrees with ease.  I don't know if it will ever do that.  On the days I don't go to PT I work at home for at least 40 minutes on bending exercises! Well enough of that!!
I finished Betsy and have gone back to Liberty Lane.  My DH helped me to work out an alphabet instead of the words Liberty lane. I'm anxious to see how it will look.
The garden continues to look wonderful so I included a few photos!

I wish the white sheep stood out more, I used the suggested DMC floss except for the reds.  There I used 355 and 356.  This turned out ok but I'm not crazy about it.

 I finished the big white house last night.  Two more houses to go.

 The Black Lace Elderberry is almost covered with flowers.

The Ghost Weigelea  has pretty colored leaves in the fall.

 I love growing delphinium.

and Calla Lillies!

Thanks for joining me!

Framed Antique Reproduction Sampler

This is just going to be a very short post because I  wanted to show you the framed sampler.  I ordered the frame from Valley House Primitives.  They are just wonderful to work with.  Janet is a stitcher.  She knows many of the colors and fabrics that we use so she is able to help you decided on a frame that will look wonderful with your stitched piece.  Here in the NW, we really don't have many traditional options when it comes to framing.  I always use Valley House Primitives for my special projects!  Thanks so much Janet!!

This is the whole frame.  The picture shows the frame a bit darker than it actually is.

It has these pretty golden colors. I used a lot of GA Heirloom Gold in the design.  The frame really enhances the colors in the sampler.

This type of faux finish looks so good with all of the antiques and decorating that we have in our home.

Thanks again Janet for your beautiful work! I hope you are all enjoying the week-end.  We are having amazing weather-75 and sunshine!  You can't beat that!

Memorial Day!

On this special day I would like to honor two special veterans that thankfully returned form Iraq.

 Our son was a Blackhawk pilot in Iraq.

Debbie was there very early in the war.  She was a member of the Signal Corps.

A very special thanks to all the brave young people who have served this country through many years and many wars.

Flowers and Cross Stitch

I just realized that my post title is about two of my very favorite things. The yard continues to get prettier and prettier with more things blooming.  Plus, I'm really having fun stitching "Betsy".  All the different designs were just what I needed. Maybe when I finish, I'll be ready to go back to" Liberty Lane" and the three more houses. I had a wonderful surprise in the mail on Friday.  My frame for the antique sampler came from Valley House Primitives.  I ask them to make frames for my most special designs.  The frame is just perfect.  I'll do a special post to show it to you after we get the stretching done and the whole thing together.  My DH is my stretcher and he never does the stretching until we have the frame.  Today we got the glass and other things he will need to complete the framing.  Plus we made trips to local plant nurseries.  Slowly , we are getting the garden in shape.  It is kind of fun being the planner not the planter! All my physical energy still goes to PT.

 I spotted this at the local garden center last year and knew that I wanted to add it to the garden.  I love the unusual color.  Right now it has 7 flowers blooming on it.  Another 8 seem to be coming.  It is called Magical Encounter.

Our Sambucus nigra is full of buds and several are open. This is either a small tree or large shrub.  It will soon be covered with these pretty pink flowers.

 Rosa Mutabilis with a bee in the center!

 I forgot to mention that I have started my summer decorating(a good sign considering my knee).  I love using the wonderful Woolpets that my DD has made for me.

 My wonderful Crane just fits in my antique fish bowl!

 "Betsy", so far.  In fact, I think I have done a bit more than what shows in this picture.

I hope everyone is enjoying the long week-end.  We will be watching the Memorial Day program on PBS tomorrow evening.  We all need to take time to remember the wonderful men and women who have served our nation on this Memorial Day Week-end!

A Little bit of Everything

Well, it was 4 weeks ago today that I had my knee replacement.  I am so glad this month is over!!!!! ( Every time I think a thought like that , I think of my dear Mom who said it is wrong to wish your life away!!) Sorry Mom, I am GLAD this month is over.  I do PT twice a week at my Dr.'s facility and then on the other 5 days, I do it at home.  It always hurts but I am making good progress and that is what counts. Enough of that!  I have relegated "Liberty Lane" to a WIP and started on "Betsy" that is an older Sheepish Designs chart.  There are still lots of things I can't do and I think I needed my stitching project to have lots of different things going on.  I got a bit bored with the houses in "Liberty Lane".  I do love the design and I'm sure I will go back to it.  In the meantime , I am having lots of fun stitching "Betsy". Plus it is a good patriotic design and I will easily have it done before the 4th of July. I'm also sharing a few garden pictures with you.  Even walking down in my garden makes me feel better. The DH is doing a great job weeding etc.  These are actually things I like to do.  Both of my children were sweet enough to think of me on Mother's Day and I'll show you my wonderful gifts from them.

 The start of " Betsy"

 I have changed a few colors.  I am using more barn red and coral, not so much the pink shades.  Plus I am using my favorite Needlepoint Silks Inc. for the blue colors. More details as I go.

 I love the way it looks but I was just getting too bored with houses and I still have3 more to go!

 My DD, Laurie of Woolpets fame, made this wonderful Steller Jay to add to my bird collection.  I am trying to come up with an idea for sharing all my birds in one area.  I think that will really show them off.

 My son and his family sent me these beautiful tulips!  They were just beautiful and he knows how much I love flowers.

 I love this picture of a chive blossom just beginning to open.

 A dear friend gave me this Itoh Peony 3 years ago.  It was just a baby.  This year, it is filled with beautiful blooms.  This vaiety is called "Morning Lilac."

The ruler shows the bloom to be 8 inches wide.

Thanks so much for joining me and I hope you all have a wonderful week-end!

In Honor of Miss Elizabeth Mary Garbutt

First, I can't thank you all enough for your well wishes.  It means a great deal to me.  Progress on the knee is slow but steady.  I have good news.  Yesterday I finished my copy of the antique sampler.  It was an honor to stitch this sampler once stitched by a little 10 year old girl in England. If you read my blog , you know that I did change colors. Her colors would have not looked at all good in my home and I am a color picky person!!( Sorry Elizabeth) I will explain the only other change we made. 

 Here are the two side by side. 

 On the right side, Elizabeth ran several motifs into each other.  I can't help but wonder why she did this.

 On the left side all was well.

 Here is another close up of the right side.  We ( if you remember, the DH charted this sampler for me on some long cold winter nights 2 years ago) had to decided whether or not to make this an exact copy, to this point we had tried to remain true to her design, mistakes and all.  We decided to separate them just a bit.

 While doing research we found the names of all the children whose initials appear here.  Only one child was born after she stitched this sampler in 1887.

 All Done!!!

 I read somewhere that to age a new house grow vines.  I love old houses so vines were planted.  Here is the Wisteria over the garage.

 Dew on a Hosta leaf.

 This will bloom more than once if you cut it back.  It is called Euphorbia Polychroma.

I hope spring has finally come to everyone!! Have a wonderful week-end! Thanks so much for joining me!