When a Husband is in charge!!!!

As many of you know, my back surgery has kept me quite out of the normal.  This week I got the heads up from my Dr. so I am slowly trying to do more and more things.  One thing that had really bothered was the kitchen sink. Keeping it nice and clean and sparkling was not a priority of my DH. I never mentioned it because he was truly doing everything and taking wonderful care of me.  So on Wed. I decided it was time to clean my sink. Look what I found......... This was growing in the area of the drain just below that little thing that drains the water.. We finally identified it as a pumpkin seed trying to grow in my kitchen!

There are so many sad things going on in the world today.  I hope the humor of this does not offend anyone. Even in times of trouble we need to find something to smile about while sending our thoughts and prayers to all the people directly affected by the tragedy in Paris.

Happy Veteran's Day

Today we would like to thank all the people who have served our country!! A special thanks to our son Jeff.

Return to the Relm of the Living!

Hi there cloud friends!  I am so happy that I  finally have the energy to blog.  I could write blogs from now till Christmas about this ordeal and back surgery but I have decided to just get on with life.  I will say that I will be in lots of PT, etc. probably for most of the winter but at least the worst is over! I actually did finish the Halloween project for my grandson and another small piece. We had ordered the frame early so they got the PS design in time for Halloween. If you have read my blog, you know that finishing is not my strong suit.  So now I have quite the pile of Halloween/Fall pieces to finish.  I guess that breaking my back does give me a good excuse for not getting my finishing done.  I have now turned to Christmas stitching and will show some of that in my next post.  Thanks again for all the well wishes and prayers.  It all meant so much to me!

 I thought this was a great design for a family with children! Plus it was mainly for Caleb who is 10 years old. All the orange was stitched with metallic floss.  I found that a big pain but the effect was worth the effort.

 Another ornament to finish before next Halloween!!

 Thanks to my absolutely wonderful DH, we did celebrate Halloween.  Our DD came over and helped hand out the candy.  So the evening ended up successful!

Thanks again for all your wonderful support!!!!!

Part 2

Ok, since you were all so great about my back, I decided to share the "new" news! Not good at all.  After going to the local ortho last Tues. she said the original diagnosis was not correct and promptly arranged for me to see a back expert in Tacoma.  He has practiced at the big hospital in  Seattle.  The upshot of a cat scan etc , is that I am having back surgery next week in order to stabilize the vertebrae. I am thankful that up to this point, no serious damage has been done.  Sometimes you just have to count your blessings! I will be looking at all your blogs as I can but probably no posting.  I am in this miserable brace until the surgery.  So thanks again for all your positive thoughts !

I'm Back! (Sort of)

I always thought my cloud friends were the best but you all just proved it!!! I can't thank you enough for all the get better wishes you have sent my way.  It's been hard not to be depressed and your comments did more than you can imagine to keep me on the right track. I am better each day but it is a slow and painful process. Well that's enough of that.  I have been able to stitch and just before we left on that ill-fated trip, I got my Thine is the Trick or Treat framed.  So I do have some stitching to share with you today.

 Here is the PS "Trick or Treat".  As I mentioned, this is for my grand children so I have added some glitz. It's hard to see on here but the orange head and the green in his outfit are stitched with metallic threads.  That just proves how much I love those children because the metallic threads have been a pain to stitch with.  The orange floss was especially difficult.  It kept falling apart. I also bought buttons to add to the design.  I stitched enough that we could order a frame so I do hope they will get it before Halloween!

 Here is my lovely frame by Valley House Primitives.  This is proudly hanging above my fireplace!

I'm sorry that the true wonderful colors don't show up.  It looks muddy here and the under color is really a warm old gold ! Much prettier than the picture.  Thanks Janet for your amazing work! 

Well, that is about it for today.  I hope those of you in the East are staying safe! Thank you again for all your encouraging comments! You are the BEST!

News

Hi dear cloud friends, Just a quick note to let you know why I have not been posting or commenting.  We took a short trip down to CA as we had tickets to use or loose.  While down there, I tripped fell and now have a compression fracture on one of the vertebrae in my lower back. I'm in lots of pain so I'll see you all when mother nature helps me to feel better.  Barb

All Stitching!

Hi there cloud friends! I hope you are all doing well and enjoying some great Fall weather.  We are finally nice and cool after the hottest summer on record.  We had 51 days over 80 (our normal is 25) and a record number of 90+days.  I have been looking forward to Fall for a long time.  I think you will agree that my longing for Fall and cool weather is reflected in the designs I have been stitching.  I tend to stitch fairly big pieces and frame most of them.  Well, I have this wonderful bowl that has been in my family for at least three generations.  I decided maybe it was time to stitch some smalls to put in this bowl.  That's what I have been doing.  Now I have to finish them.  I really wish I had the eye for finishing that several of you seem to have.  I will just have to try my best. Here are the smalls.

 This little witch is from PS book 140 Pumpkin Patch.

 The owl is from the same chart.  The fabric was my inspiration for this design.

 Quaker Boo! from The Sampler Girl.  I have always liked this design.

 

 This design is from Boo Moon by PS.  Just to let you know what a finishing slacker I am, this was stitched 2 years ago!

 This pretty design is by Nan Lewis of Threadwork Primitives.  It is called Pumpkin Watch.  Sorry for the very crooked photo!

 Here is the inspiration bowl.

 You can see this has been a very well used bowl. That's before I got hold of it.  I remember my mom chopping cabbage  to make coleslaw.

 I love seeing the marks left by hand tools.

This is my current project.  I am making this for Caleb and family.  I will be jazzing it up as it is for a family with children.  I have ordered several buttons and plan on using some of the metallic floss.  I think it's a great design especially for children.

Thanks so much for joining me and have a great week!

The Rest of the Trip!

Thanks so much for your nice comments about the trip to Victoria.  I have been stitching quite a bit so my next post will be all about stitching.  However, today's post finishes the trip pictures.  All the pictures are taken at the British Museum and the grounds of the museum.  My favorite part was the NW Native exhibit.  I hope you will find it as interesting as I did.

 This is the native version of a cross stitch chart.  It is called a pattern board.  They use this as a pattern for the final product. 

 Here is the final product!

 The NW tribes are known for their beautiful cedar boxes.

 This is called a button blanket.  If you enlarge the picture you can see the beautiful designs they create with buttons.

 A whistle beautifully hand carved.

 These spindle whorls were so pretty. You could see the marks of the tools they used in carving them.

 There are so many amazing totems.  It was hard to decide which pictures to show.

These poles all have meanings.  Some are story poles, some are house family poles,and some are memorial poles. We were amazed that some of these decorative poles actually supported the house. The museum has some  newly carved poles and also some very old ones.

Thank you so much for joining me on my great trip to Victoria, a beautiful city in BC Canada!

Time for a Trip!!!

Hi there cloud friends!  If you read my blog just for stitching, you will want to skip this post.  My DH and I celebrated number 37 last week so we took a short trip to our neighbors to the north, Victoria BC
was our destination.

 We got the 8:15 ferry from Port Angeles.  It takes about 90 minutes to get over to Victoria.

 As you enter the city, you see this wonderful community of house boats.  I would love to explore them!!

 Victoria is a great blend of old and new.

 If you lived here, this could be your walking place!!! This sidewalk went all around the inner harbor.

 They have many whale watching trips from the city.  This beautiful Orca was made entirely of plants including the wave!

  Bring a plant lover, I was in paradise!

 The famous  Empress. Many British Royals have visited this hotel.  The grounds are full of flowers and plants and maintained just perfectly. One Christmas my dear friends from Chicago were visiting and we had high tea here.  It was lovely!

 Victoria is the capitol of British Columbia.  This is the parliament building.  At night it was outlined with white lights. A gentleman told us that the best lunch(and the cheapest) was in the basement of this building.  I guess we better make another trip!!

 We were told that the only place with more float planes is in Alaska!

We had dinner at an Irish pub so of course, we had to try some Irish beer!

Our first afternoon was spent at the British Museum.  It was full of amazing things.  In my next post, I will share a bit of that and show you some wonderful totems!! I must have a hundred pictures of the Native Art.  Don't worry, I won't put them all on my blog!!

Thanks so much for joining me today!

A Frame and a Finish!

I hope you are all doing very well! If you watch the news, you will know what a trying time it has been here in Washington with the wild fires.  Our air quality was so bad last week-end that it was actually rated unhealthy.  The minute I stepped outside, I could smell fire.  This is really different for us because pollution is usually not a problem.  We generally have beautiful blue skies.  I tried very hard not to complain because the poor people in Central and Eastern Washington are living with so much worse conditions. Please keep the West in your thoughts and prayers.
I finally got around to ordering a frame for the Mary Smith Sampler.  Janet at Valley House Primitives is just wonderful to work with.  I told her that I wanted a bit of blue in the frame.  She even sent me a few samples so I could be sure it was the right blue.  I absolutely love the way it turned out! Thank you Janet!!! The frames that they make at Valley House Primitives are just beautiful.    I finished " Bittersweet September" yesterday.  It is such a pretty design and thanks to Carol Fun at the blog, The Polka Dot Chicken,( a great blog about stitching ,quilting, knitting etc.) I was able to stitch the design.  She loaned me her copy.   It was a quick little design, not sure what I will do with it yet. I loved stitching all the pretty Fall colors!

 Lots of hand work in the design.  I love designs with faux finishing. 

 I put this picture on the blog so you can see how well the blue matches the blue in the design.

 Bittersweet September by BBD stitched on 32 count linen using the suggested floss and a piece of linen that I had in my stash.  Just love the Fall colors.

 This is the color of the sunset due to all the fires.  Usually the mountains are much clearer.

 Beautiful but hard to enjoy knowing the cause.

Thanks so much for joining me! I really appreciate the time you take to read my blog!

Stitching and Dahlias!

Hi Cloud friends!  I hope all of you have had a great week-end.  The DH and I had a nice slow one so that was good.  We actually had a very good rain on Friday and then a bit more on Sat.  We needed it so badly.  It was kind of interesting.  We went for coffee Sat. AM  after the Farmer's Market and everyone was smiling and saying , "Isn't the rain great!"  I forgot my camera but the veggies at the market were wonderful.  I think plants have liked all the sun this summer. One thing I look forward to each summer is the U Pick Dahlia farm.  I grow my own but find that I hate to cut them.  The farm has a deal  I can't pass up, 12 flowers for $4.  I try to get up there every week! There are about 20 rows of flowers to choose from.
I am busy stitching "Bittersweet September" by BBD.  This was a selection from the Ladies Prim Society in the Fall of 2013.  I am using the suggested floss and just some linen from my stash. It is such a sweet little piece.  I finished the house last night. I did get quite a bit of the house done on Fri. watching the Hawks in the first game of this year.  We didn't do too well, glad that game does not count!

 The top border calls  for a satin stitch.  I will do this when the rest of the design is finished.

 The alphabet is done over one, I do one row in the afternoon when the light is good!

 Enjoy the dahlias!! Remember 12 blooms for only 4$!

Thanks so much for joining me today.  I hope you all have a wonderful week!