Cross Stitch and Flowers

Hi there cloud friends!  I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day! We had a nice quiet one here in the very rainy Pacific NW.  As my title says, the rain has been good for flowers.  Plus the temps have been fairly warm(50's) so things are starting to grow.  After my PT 30 minute walk, I treat myself to a stroll through the yard.
I stitched my second Santa. As I said in my last post, I am trying to do one a month for the tree that I bought.  I am very close to finishing Ann Topley 1802 by The Scarlett House.  It looks very different from the original as I did not use the suggested dark linen.  However, the colors are nice and soft.  I think they would stand out more on the dark fabric but I do like the way this looks.  Ann used lots of colors.  Who knows, maybe she just had scraps way back in 1802!  I am thinking of my next big project.  I am enjoying the rotation of 2 small designs each month (one Halloween and one Santa)  and one big project to work on when the small ones are finished.

 When I said soft colors, they are not this soft.  It is so hard to get a good photo when it is so gray outside! Just a few more days and Ann will be finished.

 I love the rocking horse in this design. 

 That hyacinth flower is coming out of the ground!

 Tulips!

 I have never seen these little guys this early!!!

 Flower buds, not just stems!

 Of course, the beautiful Hellebore's are starting to bloom.  That's more what I expect this time of year.

 This should be lovely in a few days.

 Here's one of my Valentine gifts from my DH.  I look out this window every day.  It is right by the kitchen sink.  We went shopping for these Primroses last week and he did the planting.  I smile every time I look out of that window!

Thank you so much for joining me today.  I hope you all have a great week.  Here in the US , Mon. is a holiday so enjoy President's Day!!

Another Catch Up!

Hi there cloud friends!  It seems that I am always catching up these days.  If you are in the East, I hope you have managed to stay warm and safe.  I heard how many people died of heart attacks shoveling snow.  I am thankful we have very little snow out here, at least  in the lowlands where we live.  My DH would be one of the ones out there shoveling like crazy.  We are just dealing with lots of rain-no surprise there.  It's what Seattle in known for, that and coffee.
Last week we stopped in a shop in town and found a cute Christmas tree for 60% off.  I thought it would make a great Santa tree so I am stitching one PS Santa a month.  It will take awhile to fill the tree, but in the mean time , I can put other things on the tree with the Santas. I'm also still working on Ann Topley 1802.  I will stitch a Santa at the beginning of the month and then go back to Ann for the remainder of the month. At least that's the plan for now.

 Here is the tree.  Sorry for the mess, it is already in the attic waiting for next Christmas!

 This is my second Santa.  It is from Book No. 20 "St. Nicholas". I changed the red and the gold.  The red is 3777 and the gold is 437.  I also changed a few of the minor colors. I used a small piece of linen from my stash. I'm not sure what it is.

 I have most of the letters stitched.  This design has a lot of different colors. I am enjoying the stitching but still not sue about all the colors.

 I picked this up at the grocery store for $7 after Christmas. These two flowers are worth that money!

I closed with a mountain view last post.  This time I will close with a beach post.  We had a nice sunny day last week and part of my PT is walking for 30 minutes.  This was the perfect place to take that walk.

Thanks so much for joining me today! I hope you are all having a great week, stay warm and safe.

Catch Up!

Hi there cloud friends.  We have had a busy time since Christmas.  First, I want to let you  know that according to the surgeon, my back has fused as he hoped it would.  Thank Goodness! That means that PT can get harder.  I am actually happy about that.  I saw a diagram of all the tiny muscles in the back.  Mine have done very little since that difficult day in Sept.!! That means that I still have quite a bit of discomfort in my back.  The only way to get better is exercise and strengthen those very lazy muscles.   I do my series of exercises everyday faithfully!!  Thanks to all of you who have wished me well.
I have been able to stitch all along(thank heavens or I would have gone crazy).  Books , cross stitch, and my wonderful DH have kept me from going crazy!! I'll show you the stitching I have been up to.

 This was my first finish of the year.  It is LHN "Christmas in the Country" from The Sampler Tree Ornament Series.   I am in the process of getting several of these finished.  This is the last one to be completed. Finally a house that isn't red! The color of all of my designs is very poor today due to the dark day we are having.

 I was waiting for some linen to be delivered so why not stitch a Halloween design!  I have this in my to do basket and it was all ready to go.  It is a PS design called,"Knock! Knock!" I will just keep this in the basket and when I finish a design if I have to wait for supplies to come in the mail, I will work on this one. I do plan to add color.

 Here is the design I am stitching on now.  I am not using the black linen.  I am using Lakeside Linen Sand Dune.  That is requiring me to change a few floss colors.  I didn't like the idea of stitching on black linen and I stitch for fun!  It's that simple.

Yea! The border meets.  When I am stitching a piece with a border, I always do the simplest part of the border.  That way if I have to frog, I won't have as much to deal with.  Now I can go back and add the details.

I will close with a photo of our amazing Olympic Mountains. We are all so happy to have all that snow this year.  If it is a sunny day, this is my view as I go shopping! I think I'm very lucky!! 

Thanks so much for joining me today! Have a wonderful week!

A Christmas Finish!

A very Merry Christmas to all of you, my cloud friends.  I finished "Promised Lamb" by Plum Street Samplers.  It was fun to stitch and I think it will make a beautiful pillow.  I have changed the colors so if anyone would like to know what I did, I will be happy to share the flosses that I used. I'm also sharing the adorable Woolpet Elf that my DD made for us.  Again I hope you all have the Merriest of Christmases!!!

 As you can tell, I have not pressed this or blocked it yet.

Doesn't this just make you want to smile!!

Thanks for joining me on the Christmas Eve!

Advent Calendar Blog Hop

Hi all!  It is December 14th, my day to post on Jo's Advent Calendar Blog Hop.  Thanks so much Jo, for organizing this blog hop.  Jo has a great blog at Serendipitous Stitching.  So if you haven't been over to visit her, take a look and I know you will enjoy her blog.
I have chosen a piece that I stitched in 2009 to share with you today.

This is " A Weary World Rejoices" by Shakespeare's Peddler.  I have added the explanation of the symbolism that the designer chose. I still put this up in my foyer each Christmas season.  I love it for two reasons. One, the title is taken from one of my favorite Christmas Carols, and two, it is designed as a sampler.
  We are asked to describe our traditions on Christmas Eve.  This is not easy because it seems like ours keep changing.  Our children are grown and that makes a difference.  Every other year we go to Alabama to spend Christmas with our son, daughter-in-law and our two wonderful grand children.  This is not our year to go so it will be much simpler.   I picture that we will spend the day quietly.  I will probably do some stitching and my DH will do some Sudoku.  We will go out for a very nice lunch at one of our favorite restaurants in the early afternoon.  The most important part of the day will be attending Church services that evening.  We are Lutheran so we have not been singing Carols only songs that celebrate  the Advent season.  I always look forward to the candle light service and the singing of the Christmas Carols. After Church we will watch a Christmas movie and enjoy some eggnog and cookies.
Christmas Day will be much busier as we are having friends for dinner. I hope all of you have a very Merry Christmas!

Hannah's Ornament

Hi there cloud friends!  I have really enjoyed reading all your blogs and seeing how you are preparing for the coming holidays.  We have all the decorating finished thanks to my DH.  I have done quite a bit but when I poop out due to a very tired back, he takes over.  I have started PT.  So far, they are just trying to get my stamina built back up.  I am not allowed to do any real bending or twisting until I see the surgeon in Jan. Hopefully at that time, the bones will be where he wants them and I will be able to go on with more strenuous PT. This whole thing is just taking patience which I am not very good at demonstrating. At least I can stitch as long as I take a walking break every hour. So I finished little Miss Hannah's Christmas ornament. As you know, I don't love finishing so it did take a few days to get it finished.  I used the flat ornament directions from "The Twisted Stitcher".  Vonna gives wonderful directions. Thanks Vonna!!

This is "Peppermint Twist!" by Little House Needleworks. We are having a very dark rainy day  so sorry for the dark photo!

 Here is the cutie herself! Miss Hannah!

 This was last year's ornament. I have forgotten the title but it was also a Little House Needleworks design.

I am also stitching The Promised Lamb from Plum Street Samplers.  I am really enjoying that project.  I will show my progress on the next post. Thanks so much for joining me today.  I hope you are all doing well and enjoying the season!

Happy Thanksgiving!

A very Happy Thanksgiving to all my Cloud Friends!  I am thankful for all of you!

A Little Bit of Everything!

Hi there cloud friends!  I'm sure this is a busy week for many of you here in the US with the big eating holiday coming on Thurs.  We were suppose to spend it with our son, DIL, and grand children this year.  Due to my back, a 12 hour travel day is just not going to happen.  I am not complaining as a dear friend has invited us for dinner.  Plus, she won't let me bring anything!! I do have so many things to be thankful for that I think it will be a good holiday. We went out for a very brief walk in the garden or what is left of it, so I have a few final garden photos to share with you .  Plus we got some wonderful snow in the mountains. Last but not least, I stared a Christmas sampler at the end of last week.

 Well, you can tell I took this photo when the sun was fading.  The linen is Lakeside Linen Vintage Examplar, a light pretty color, not this nasty drab color you see here! The design is by Plum Street Sampler called, Promised Lamb.  The border is very pretty and the entire design has the look of a sampler.

 The majestic Olympic Mountains!

 The Golden Rain Drop crab apple is just full of these little golden crab apples. The sky really was that blue yesterday.

The Santa Claus fushia  still has a few red and white flowers.

 Thanks so much for taking a look at my blog.  I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Just Stitching

Hi there cloud friends! Well after two days of rain and gloom, it was nice to see the sun this morning, however, it is already gone!  Thankfully we live up high and never flooded.  Lots of folks up here are flooded out today.  We did loose power for 9 hours yesterday.  We are lucky to have it back as they said on the news, it would take several days to restore all the power. Anyway, I decided to show you the stitching I have been doing.  Last year I won an ornament chart from Mary Ann at the blog "Just Stitching".  She so generously decided to give me each of the ornament sampler charts for the entire year.  I love them and will try to get most of them stitched.

 This is "Old Colonial" I did change the house to red.  I have a thing for red houses.

 Another red house on" Merry Christmas" Actually now that I see them together, maybe I have too many red houses.

This was my favorite  called "Sweet Apples".  The colors are not at all true to the pretty colors of the ornaments.  By the way, I love Lakeside Linen 32 ct. sand dune.  I use 123 Stitch and they don't seem to have it any more.  Any ideas where I can find it?

The next challenge is to get them made into little pin keeps for the bowl I had planned to use for the Halloween pin keeps that never quite got finished. Next, I am planning Hannah's ornament for this year.  I have made one for her each year since she was born.  This will be number 3.

Well, thanks for joining me and have a wonderful week!

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!