The Winner Is!

The random number generator has chosen. Do you think that it is a little man behind a green curtain that is picking them?

Santa will be winging his way to New York to live with Margaret from Days of a Sampler Lover.  Congratulations, please email me your address he may still be able to arrive before Christmas. 

Thank you all that entered I enjoy doing these give aways, I love to read your comments! Look for more to come in 2011!

Drawing Tomorrow

Don't forget to enter the drawing  for this Primitive Santa Clip.  He and his little tie on beard could be coming down your chimney!
Drawing is tomorrow.

Snow Days

What do you do with a Snow Day?

I must admit I used to pray for Snow Days while in school, but having grown up in Idaho these were few and far between.  After having moved to Tennessee they happen all the time, but I must be fair usually it's due to freezing rain that makes all of the curvy roads treacherous. When they call from work and say don't come in I usually don't ask any questions. 

Can you see the tiny bird I felt sorry for him as I ran inside to the warm house.

So what did I do with my Snow Day?

I made Primitive Santa Clips a modified pattern from Pineberry Lane. 

I will be offering two of the Primitive Santa Clips for sale tonight on the Cardan website.  So if you need a little gift for a friend or yourself  please take a look.

So my question to you is, What do you do with your Snow Days?  Please post a comment on your favorite Snow Day activity and you will be entered in a drawing to win one of your own Primitive Santa Clips.
 

Drawing will be held  Saturday the 18th,  I'm looking forward to hearing what happens on Snow Days!  If you live where it doesn't snow your favorite day off will work too.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful Christmas Season!

Framing

What have you been up to?

This week we had Danny's fishing club over for their monthly meeting, one of the members brought dinner, I put out plates and cleaned up, I think I came out ahead on that one.  I don't think that they noticed the fishing lure tree thought, it was in the same room as the food so there was no contest! 

Then Gabriella my daughter came home and we made Baklava and Toffee, so glad that she took that home with her, it is just to tempting.

Today I started off the day well.  I listen to the local fishing radio show on Saturday mornings 5-7am, because they give away all kinds of stuff.  Today I WON!!!! What do you ask, well about $500.00 worth of custom made duck calls.  I don't win things very often, but for some reason I do well on the Doug Markham show. 

So after all of the fun and excitement I thought that I should get to work on some stitching things that are piled up around here.  So framing was today

I have had a piece that Jean stitched for way to long and so...today its done at last.  I think the reason it has taken so long to finish it is because it looks perfect in my house! I will look at it for a month more and Jean can claim it when she comes to help with market!  Tomorrow more finishing!

 

  Jean's Carriage House Samplings "An Independent Mind", in an East Side Moulding Frame.

This is what the Kat Koo does all day!

Christmas

Oh my Gosh can you believe that Christmas is almost upon us? I don't know where the year went and I have so much still to be done. I did manage to get the house decorated a little so I will put up a picture or two to share.

 This is the main Christmas tree.  I have a few ornaments that I have made and there are snowflakes that my Grandmother crocheted, the tree is never complete with out them.  Can you see all of those tiny hemlock pine cones, I must say I'm quite proud of those all strung on fishing line for yards of garland.

 This is a small tree with stitched ornaments many made by me, but there are some that were made for me by special friends.

 

 Just a few close ups. I know the little black cat is really a Halloween ornament, but it looks so much like my Mim that we lost last year that I just new that she must spend Christmas with us on the tree.

 This little tree is for Danny who loves to fish so...

 A few lures so he won't feel left out. His fishing club is having their meeting here this week do you think they will notice?

 Here are a few Carriage House Stockings.  I stitched Noah and I'm not sure how I managed to get the two that Jean stitched, I must have looked pitiful when I was packing them up and she felt sorry, I think I'm going to have to perfect that look!  Oh who am I kidding I guess I already have because I have the stockings.

A few bottle brush trees and a favorite little Santa that is made out of a piece of wood.

I'm glad that I get to share these pictures with everyone here on the blog, it seem a shame that you all can't make it  over for some Christmas Cheer.  I hope that you all have a wonderful Christmas season it's a great time to look back on all that was accomplished and to be thankful for all that we have! 

What you can win

Drop on over to the Star Rug Company for a chance to win this cool rug, and to just browse at all the rugs.  I wish I had more time as I want to do it all!

Finishing

Its time for Christmas Ornament finishing!  While this one turned out nicely, unless you have unlimited time I do not recommend it!  Or may be it was just me and that day.

I started with one of the new Prairie Schooler ornaments in a neat hexagonal shape.

As my dear husband will tell you I can not just do a simple finish....so I thought that I would put the front and back together with a band in between (box pillow) and I would just cross stitch the outline on the back and band and join the three pieces by lacing though the cross stitches (easy). 

But what to do about the hanger?  Oh I have a wonderful idea of weaving a ribbon in and out of the band and having it for the hanger.  How to make the holes for the ribbon why just make button holes all along the band.  So as you can see the process began to grow and grow.  By the end of the day I was really hating this little ornament, but since it has been a few day and I have forgotten some of the pain I'm beginning to like it once again.

So maybe its better if you don't always know what your in for but remember to persevere because it may surprise you in the end! 

The Birds

Happy Thanksgiving

Hope everyone enjoys a wonderful day with family and friends!

Double Take and Sneak Peak

This morning while getting ready for work I looked out the window and took a double take.  What is that behind my planter?  Running from window to window I finally discovered what it was.

A handsome 8 point buck!  But why was he resting in the yard at 7:00 am?  It was all revealed when we were leaving for work and then we saw what was keeping him in the yard.  He had found himself a pretty little doe and was watching over her while she cleaned up my garden.  It is nice to be able to observe nature at close range, but boy did it put Fuzzy the cat in a panic.

I know that I have be lax in posting lately, but it has been for good reasons.  I have been busy with charting, stitching and finishing.  Here is a sneak peak of a Reproduction sampler that will be available at the Nashville Needlework Market in Feb of 2011.

Syrup & Honey

Well I noticed that time has been passing me by and I should be posting something.

I'm always checking blogs and thinking why have they not been updated I want to know what everyone is doing, but when it comes to mine all I can think is nothing much has been going on here.

But I realized that I have been up to something.....

First up I found a new Duffy song that I thought I would share with you Syrup & Honey.  If you don't know Duffy she sounds kind of bluesy with a sound from the 50's or 60's.  She has been keeping me company in the lab at work.

Now on to Stitching related things. I visited Ilona's Antiques and picked up my sewing table.  I must say that Ernie has some wonderful finds.  The table top folds down so it can look just like a small chest of drawers.  I must say that it is perfect and I have already spent a considerable amount of time testing it out!  The very best thing about it all is that I don't have to clean up each time, just close the door on my mess!

While on the subject of antiques I was given an amazing display tin for Boye Needle Co. It contains Needles and Shuttles inside.  Thanks Ramona.

You spin the arrow to point at the shuttle you want and then open the little door and they are in little wooden boxes inside.

The real reason I was at Ramona's was to learn how to solder, not to swipe all her cool antiques.  I got lucky and was able to do both.  Below is one of the pieces that I was learning on.  Oh my gosh the soldering is just too fun, having a good teacher makes a huge difference.  It is a good thing that I don't have all of the equipment yet, I need to finish some of my market items before I get side tracked.  I'm not sure why it is so easy to flit from one project to another, but I must be good, I will be good. 

 That was not all the fun that I had.  I got to spend a night at Jean's house and then a night at Candi's I forgot to take my camera, but I promise that next time I will, because they have really cool stuff that I sure they would not mind sharing with you. Well I'm off to stitch.  Tell me what you have been up to.

Winners!

We have winners two of them infact on the blog and One more on the website!
Winner of Pumpkin head basket is Siobhan
Baskets N Prims wins the 1808 notebook.
And Barbara Ray wins the Cat head Pincushion on the website.

Thanks everyone for participating in the drawings keep posted as we will have another in the near future as they are fun to hold!

Those of you that won please email me with your address so I can get your winnings in the mail.
Have a good week!

Fall Festival and Give Away

We are so glad to have you visiting both our blog and website, so as a Thanks to all we are having a  Fall Give Away!  The first item is the Cat Head Pincushion I picked my favorite with a Spooky Halloween look.  Visit the website for directions to win the Pin Cushion.

To win either the Pumpkin basket or the 1808 Sampler Notebook, become a follower and post a comment.  Good luck to all, we will be drawing on Sunday 10/24/10.

Last weekend we could be found at the First Annual Tennessee Beerfest.  The weather was perfect and with all the different varieties of beer and vender's you were sure to win.

There were lots of attendees, and the outdoor setting 

 provided a relaxed atmosphere.

We were very lucky to share a booth with three very talented ladies.

Paul Hock with Divine Art Toffee, truly worthy of the Gods.

Wanda Miarecki with her lovely Murano Glass Pendents

Sheri Barfoot with a large array of hand knits.

  For those of you that stitch in the cold she had some awesome
fingerless gloves that would not interfere with your art!

My table. 

The Festival was a big hit and I'm looking forward to next year.