Wednesday, March 4, 2015

New Designer

Merry Wind Farm
While Melinda is by no means new to the world of needlework, she is now branching out in designing and has started to reproduce some of her antique samplers and boy am I glad as she has some wonderful ones to share with all us sampler enthusiast.
 
 
Since this is Melinda's first sampler it may be awhile before it shows up in your LNS as she is still getting all the marketing logistics down, but have no fear as she does have a shopping cart button on her blog so you can purchase it directly from her blog YA!! 
 I'm heading right over as I think I need to start this baby right now.
While you are over there be sure to check out the rest of the blog as Melinda is a lady of many talents
Rug Hooking, Needlework, Gardening, Animal Husbandry the list goes on, I am just a tad envious but I'm hoping that if I get Elena stitched that some of Melinda's talent will rub off. 
I am just happy to have one more designer in the needlework industry so we will never be short of stitching material!


Saturday, February 14, 2015

A Handsome boy


Happy Valentines Day


From Handsome & Smarty
We get to cow sit this weekend so getting my share of slobbery cow kisses

Sunday, February 1, 2015

Winners

We have some winners!
The random number generator has selected.
I'm sure that many of you have used these little programs, so today I made two lists of names one for each pattern.  Googled random number generator plugged in the numbers and pushed go and there were two winners.  Since there were a handful of these program and me wondering how random the numbers are.... I opened another program and ran the numbers again just out of curiosity and the second program picked the exact same numbers as the first!
So without further delay 
Wool Woman has won the Jane Habgood Coppard sampler by The Sampler Works 
Diana won  Give Her sampler by La D Da
Congratulations ladies if you could please email me your address I will pop them in the post!
Thanks to all who participated I will have to go through some more patterns as I have fun with these little drawings.
Enjoy the rest of your Super Bowl Sunday

Sunday, January 25, 2015

Handsome is as Handsome does, with a Giveaway!

Well Christmas and the New Year have come and gone and I am back to my old ways of posting occasionally. 
Don't they same absence makes the heart grow fonder???? 
Well I am not going to lie to you and say I am going to do better only to continue in my haphazard ways of blogging, but as of late most of what I do is some what haphazard.
Picking what I'm going to stitch in the evenings is kind of a task in itself,  I will start with something and if I just don't feel it, on the pile of projects it goes and I will grab another.  I have been trying to control myself by not starting anything new though, so far so good.  
 
So over Christmas friends of ours decided that they wanted to raise some calves, mainly to mow their grass come spring.  So what does this have to do with me???
Well Danny found a source for some Holstein/Angus calves for our friends and then since we had access to truck and trailer we did the hauling. 
These calves were from a dairy and being bottle fed, when we picked them up the Dairyman said this one calf was born big and you have to really work with him to get him to eat.  He said when they are born big they are kind of SLOW.
This is how they got their names Smarty (smaller calf that had it all together) and Handsome (big calf that was Slow but Handsome)
Well first night no problems at feeding time. So our friendly duty done...well not so fast.
Our friends had much more trouble at feedings and then Handsome started going down in a hurry.
So they call us all concerned and so for the next 2 weeks we were feeding calves.
 Handsome had to be tube feed for a couple of days as he had gotten dehydrated.
Here they are all snuggled down for the night.  
No this is not how we in TN put the cow to bed at night but Handsome had a fever and so we took to covering him in straw and a blanket until he was back on his hooves.
 

During this time I was beginning to wonder if Handsome would ever learn how to suck, his tongue seemed to be to big for his mouth, and then one day it was like he always knew.
Here they are today ready for a bottle!
 

 
So I was looking at old rugs on pinterest  and saw one that was of a dog, but to me it looked just like Handsome so out comes the punch needle and here is Handsome.
I still need to stain him up a little and decide on a finish for him, so if you have any ideas they are welcome!

 
These next few pictures are not new finishes, but they are newly framed!
Emma Lerch by the Scarlett Letter has been sitting in a drawer for close to 10 years, poor thing but now she is hanging in all her glory.

 
Close up of frame
 

Here again the Huntsman by Scarlett Letter in the same drawer for the last 2 years, not so long, but he was very antsy to get back to ridding.  He is now gracing the living room wall.
 

 
I really love this frame as it has a little depth to it.
 
 
Now the last piece Red Deer by GIGI has not been in the drawer but a few months, but this one really did not need to languish for long as it is truly stunning.  If you want a fun sampler to stitch I would highly recommend it, all the colors and those funky flowers!
 

 
I did all the lacing on the three samplers but I got the frames from Kevin at THE BARN DOOR.  I'm not sure if he felt sorry for me or I was just able to stay away from the expensive Italian molding but I still feel like I owe him more money (how often do you say that coming home from the framer).  So if your close to Franklin you need to bring your stitching with you for framing.

 
Now for some fun!
Since it is getting close to market I was cleaning out the sewing "Stash" room and found that I had some duplicates of the same pattern.   I must have really like these two since I bought them twice, however they still are not stitched.  So I want to share them with two of you so they may get stitched!
All you have to do is leave a comment below and tell me which one you want and I will draw two names Next Sunday February 1st.
 

 Jane Habgood Coppard c. 1812
 by
The Samplar Workes
 
Give Her
by
La-D-Da
 
Both lovely Why are they not stitched yet??
 
Hope your week is full of lovely stitching see you next Sunday with some winners.