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.

Before and After

Sorry for the long absence.  First it was recovery from the mad dash to get ready for the Primitive Gathering Show.  Now its recovery from the remodel.  I think I showed you my work space in a previous post, it is the dining room table.  Yes I like to be in the middle of things, but I hate to have to pick up in the middle of a project because someone is coming over. So my solution.  I'm taking over one of the bedrooms. 

This is a kind of before picture.  The room was covered with wall paper. Step1: Remove wall paper.

This was what I found underneath, I think a lively child had this room as there were major repairs to the dry wall.

 Step 2:  Picking out a color and painting.  As you have seen in other photos of my house I do like color.  However it causes a problem when choosing floss and fabric colors when stitching, as the lighting of the room is affected by the wall colors. My solution was to put the color under the chair rail and a neutral color up top. 

So just like that it all came together, no not really if your ask my husband there was lots of *&%* to be heard, I think that was why he choose that week to go fishing!

Some more shots of the room.

This is the most awesome book case that I found at Ilona's Antiques, they had two but I had to be happy with one as that was all I could afford and actually fit into my house.

Inside the book case, the front just rolls up like a big roll top desk.  Nice to keep cat hair out.

I have to thank Kathy Barrick-Deiter for sending me a huge array of books that she hoped would help inspire me in my new adventure as cross stitch designer.  The ideas are all there, now its up to me.

This is the inside of the hutch, I thought that I could put my fabric on display on the shelves, I'm sure that it will stay in these nice neat stacks!

I only have one item to add to the sewing room and that is a sewing table.  I think that I have that covered, of course the call to Ilona's Antiques was made and Ernie said he had just finished the perfect one! 

Well I hope to be better at posting now that I'm done painting.  Hope your week is an exciting one till next post stitch lots!