Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Stashing and a butterfly!



Recently I finished this little butterfly for my daughter. She has a serious butterfly obsession at the moment so she was mighty pleased. Debbie Mumm designed it for Mill Hill that sells it as one of their Button and Beads kits (I think, it's a little kit at least). I have been carrying it around with me looking for a fabric that might work for finishing it.



I have been a bit stressed out lately and the result is starting to show up in my mail box! I have a tendency to do a bit more shopping when stressed. And I haven't had time to stitch so I did the next best thing, getting more stash. Some of it came from JJ's Collectibles Easter sale.



Some of it came from Ebay. Since Kathy of Carriage House Samplings are retiring I mostly got charts from her. Just so I have all the charts from her that I love. Which is quite a few.

Thank you for visiting and for the sweet comments! I hope everyone has a warmer and dryer week then we do, it's freezing here!

Sunday, May 09, 2010

Brazilian embroidery class and finish!



Last weekend I took a Brazilian embroidery class with the lovely Ms Jean Mann. I had a great time with our group and I realized that I like brazilian embroidery much better then stumpwork. I worked on the dragon fly class piece and I was able to finish it at the end of the class. It's so sparkly and pretty. I hope I can find a round frame for it.



Here it is as a work in progress!



Here's most of the ladies taking the class. Our EGA group in town organized it, Omaha Needle Artists. Jean is in the middle next to her husband.



Since we were a mix of beginners and more advanced brazilian embroiderer's 3 different class kits were offered. This is the advanced one, an autumn fan.



And these autumn leaves. This project was so pretty!



The retreat was held at the lodge at Mahoney State park. It's so pretty out there, close to the river and it has a lot of wild life.



Like these wild turkeys that munched away outside the window! We had lots of orioles and blue jays later in the day when I didn't have the camera ready!



A quick update on my WIP! I'm working on this exclusively at the moment since I want to finish it fairly soon. It's just nice to know that it's done before we leave for Sweden since I'm doing it for my in-laws.



More and more of my irises are coming in! This one smells like a freshly peeled orange, yum!

Thank you so much for visting and your sweet comments! I'm planning to catch up on my blogreading today. DH is in Japan so the kids treated me to breakfast in bed, aren't that sweet. But I plan to treat myself to some time visiting my favorite blogs today too.

Happy Mothers to all the wonderful moms out there!

Thursday, May 06, 2010

So excited!



We got our tickets to go home to Sweden this summer! And we are going through Amsterdam's airport (Skiphol, I probably spelled that one wrong). Last time we went by there 6 years ago I bought a bag of tulips, a mixed variety one. As usual with tulips they looked great the first year and then most colors started to die off. Except for the yellow ones!! I think they are those self dividing ones and I'm just getting more and more of them. This is just one of the patches, I started out with ca 3-4 yellow ones here and look at them go.

So guess what I'm picking up on my way home? Yup, at least 2 more bags. We just have 1 hour or so at the airport so if I you see a small chubby swedish lady jog through the airport in July with a bag of tulips under each arm, that would be me!

I went to a retreat this weekend and took a brazilian embroidery class. I finished my piece so I have to take a picture of it and share it here. It's just been busy with field trips, fun and field day at school and lots of laundry since DH is leaving for Japan for a meeting tomorrow. It's easier for me if everything is clean since then he's doing his own packing. If it's not he tries to involve me in it, don't know why? And I really don't want that to happen..

Thank you so much for your sweet comments on my finishes!