Only one missing!

Spring from The Drawn Thread

This is the last batch of things that I did frame before vacation! I stitched up all the seasons except Summer a couple of years ago. I really have to get off my behind and get summer stitched up because I have a frame for it already.


Winter from The Drawn Thread

I picked up the frames at Walmart of all places. They were only $ 3 each and perfect sampler size so I didn't have a specific project in mind when I first bought them but it really worked out well with these.


Autumn from The Drawn Thread

I'm working on L and L's Angel of Winter at the moment and it's starting to get to me. Really boring but I want to finish it for my friend in in time for the UFO challenge deadline. I'll have to take a picture and share in a couple of days time. The new camera and I are starting to get along better.

Thank you for visiting and all your sweet comments

Nantucket basket from Lorri Birmingham Design

I made up this little basket as a gift for my MIL when we did go to Sweden. It has a little glass vase in it so can put flowers in it. She loves doing that and really liked the gift.


Acorn from Midnight Stitching

Mar designed a couple small acorns for our last retreat, I stitched up both of them but this is the only one finished. I forgot that there was 2 of them. I know, I'm a dingbat sometimes. The acorn shape came out kind of wonky, should I do something else with the other acorn?

It's another busy week here. My darn class is almost making me cry. I'm starting to see the end of the tunnel with it though. Some small things have to be tweaked but I have to ask DH about it. My son is in the high school musical and signed up for mock trial too so I'm going to drive a bit more from now on. There's lots of rehearsals and meetings. Good for him though! I love to see him getting active with different activities.

Weather is starting to turn to fall here. It's beautiful and I'm trying to do some last things in the garden before it gets really cold. I found a wasp nest in one of the bushes that I'm taking out and that has been a hassle. I did get stung bad when I first stumbled over it. Hopefully I have gotten on top of the problem so that bush can go this weekend.

Thank you for visiting and for all your sweet comments!

All boxed up!

Just Nan

I was able to save some of these last pictures from my poor dead camera. The week before we left for Sweden my DH went to Dublin on a business trip. I spent the whole evening and some of the nights finishing things and those boxes are a few of the things that I did get done.



I painted the boxes myself, don't know if it was the greatest idea but I'm going to try spray painting them next time.



I have started another class so I'm trying to keep up with that. But I'm slowly starting to visit my favorite blogs again.

Country Cottage Needleworks designs.


Thank you for visiting and for your sweet comments!

I think I'm ready to blog again!

I felt totally drained after our vacation and all the socializing. I really need some down time between dinner parties and such and it wasn't a lot of that. When I got back here I got really homesick and I realized that I didn't have time to do a lot of the more everyday things that I was so looking forward too. Next time I will try to stay a bit longer. I did suspect that something was going on with my camera during our stay and none of the pictures that I took came out. At least I had my husband take some pictures just as backups but they were not as many as the ones I thought I had taken. Sigh!

Anyways we were a bit more cultural this year, got to quite a few museums and such but this was my favorite! This is Läckö Castle, it's a well preserved barock castle with a lot of furniture and wall paintings from the 1600's. Isn't it pretty? There has been convents and forts on this little peninsula since the 1100's I think and I can understand why.



My son especially likes to pose with the canons, happens at every castle we do get too!



My DD loves checking out gardens and they had a wonderful vegetable and herb garden, authentic with plants they would have grown 400 years ago there.



Isn't this the prettiest view?



The kids had a great time with their cousins especially when my DH and BIL joined in the soccer games.



The weather was pretty good! I couldn't find any pictures from the beach house when we had a sunny day but the kids jumped into the water everyday anyways. It was kind of nice to have the beach to ourselves.



I did get some stitching done when I was there, this needleroll mostly, I really had to since this was for an exchange. I still have some pictures of finished pieces to share, I will get those up within a couple of days, promise!

Thank you for visiting and all your sweet comments!

Time out for summer!

I won't be here for a while since the kids and I are taking off for a visit home tomorrow. I have so many pictures to share but at the moment I'm really stressed out trying to finish everything before I leave! I can't wait to show you my finishes when I get back!

Thank you for visiting and for your sweet comments!

Needle and thread from Little House Needlework finish!

Here's my latest finish! It's Needle and thread from Little House Needleworks. I stitched it using the Crescent Colors that came with chart and the fabric is 32 ct Putty. The frustration level was high here last night, I ended up finishing this twice since I didn't like how it looked after the first time. So out came the scissors and I pulled the stitched part closer to the pillow and it looks so much better.

Thank you for visiting and for your sweet comments!

One finish and a new start!

Remember my mil's anniversery sampler? Well, I did finish it a while back and here's a picture. It's Just Nan's Peacock Cypher and I changed the verse to my in-laws names, their wedding date and the church's name. I can't say that the graphing of the names were my best work but it will do. I used some 32 count mystery linen and DMC.



Close up! Those beads were pretty!



And here's my new start! It's Papillions myster sampler, we are doing it with the guild this year. The other ladies started it in January, I'm on part 2!! Oh, well I guess it's better late then never.

And I did finish Needle and thread from LHN too. But I did get the little bed/pillow that went with it and I'm half way through the finishing with it (sweet) so I'll upload a picture of that finish tomorrow. It's kind of funny looking now. I did find the chart and the pillow at the new LNS I found and started it the same day. That's a first for me, usually I let the designs mature for a while when I'm obssesing over color/fabric choices.

I'm trying to catch up on commenting, I'm doing a lot of stuff with the kids so I only have 15 minutes here and there to enjoy my blog reading.

Thank you so much for visiting and your sweet comments!

Help me Rhonda!

Last week was one of those fun busy ones, the kids had a lot going on and I had to drive them everywhere. One my way to a piano lesson I spotted a great garage sale and this was what I ended up with. A lady had to move her FIL into a home and she sold some of the glassware and crystal that he had picked up at his travels in Europe.



This is my favorite bowl, my DD fell in love too!



The frames will be good for something eventually! I might repaint some of them. In all I spent $ 4.50 for everything! So I was happy!

In between golf camps, play dates, a visit to the water park and a garage sale where I sold some of my stuff (I didn't have it at my house though, just did a shift selling) I was lucky enough to find a new LNS in town. I'm so excited!! This lady is doing framing and shares the store space with a vaccum store so I have always had the impression that she didn't sell to much cross stitch supplies. I was pleased to see that she had quite a bit to sell and I will sure be back soon. One of the things I bought is almost finished since I hauled it along with me when I have been running kids around.

I have to take some pictures of my stitching, I have a couple more finishes, and I started a new wip so I'm updating again tomorrow!

Thank you for visiting and all your sweet comments!

Framing, finishing and more!

I'm happy to say that the mirror idea worked out perfectly to frame my dragonfly! It was so easy to take the mirror apart and the only snag was that the fit was really snug and I didn't think I would get the piece into it after all the lacing and pinning was done. It was a tense moment!! A bit more padding then I'm used too. But I was able to get it in finally, the fabric is really stretched out and tight and flat so I think in the end it worked in my favor.



Remember my daughter's butterfly? Well, this is how i finished it! She loves it and it hangs from the quilt rack over her bed.



Last year I had this santa in the car as my car project (I spend a lot of time waiting for my kids so I always have a project available). It's one of Mill Hill's Medieval santa's, this might be the Canterbury one. I don't do beading in the car though so the final beading was done last week.



Here's the back, I usually like to put some green felt on the back of these ornaments.



I'm thinking about using this frame for my Marjolein Bastin finish. But there is a bit more space on the sides then on the top and bottom so I have a hard time deciding what to do. What do you think? I can easily finish it to a pinkeep or something too.



I took the kids to Fort Atkinson this weekend. They had their historical enactment weekend, they do that every month from April through October I think. They did a really good job and we all really enjoyed it. My DD loved the lace makind demonstration and got to try her hand on it. I thinks she's hooked!



Here's all the kiddo's in front of the original ammunition storage house, the only original building. The fort was active from 1819 to 1827 so much of the wood buildings were rotted away but they built everything up again on the original foundations. Lewis and Clark stopped by before the 6th regiment moved down to Kansas. A lovely day trip if you live in this area, I can recommend it!

Thank you for visiting and all your sweet comments!

Ahh, summer has arrived in my house!

So it's funny that one of my finishes are a Christmas ornament from Earth Threads, I think it's called Jeffrey's ornament and it came as a kit with the tuck pillow. Easy finish and it was fun to stitch.



I also finished up this kit from Lanarte, a Marjolein Bastin one. A girlfriend in Germany sent it to me about 10 years ago. I worked on it as my car project this winter and just now got around to finish it. There wasn't enough threads so I had to just put the finishing touches on it, just took me an hour or 2.

It feels like this was our first normal day off. After I wrote my finals I had to get the house in order finish everything up for summer regarding camps and such. My kids graduated 5th and 8th grade so we had a little party for them each.

But today I just had to do my everyday stuff and no classes during the summer. I even pulled out my finishing supplies and will try my hand on some finishing. It has been really hard to find a round frame for my dragonfly but they had mirrors on sale at Hobby Lobby this week so I found a round mirror there that might work. Keep your fingers crossed that it will!!

Thank you for visiting and for all your sweet comments!

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!

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!

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!

Another BBD SAL finish!

This is Rite of Spring, another Loose Feather design from Blackbird designs. I stitched it with Suzanne over at Squazi and the Chicken (www.squaziandthechicken.blogspot.com/). It was a fun stitch but those circles were hard to line up, I did quite a bit of frogging.




This is my next WIP, Peacock Cypher from Just Nan. My MIL picked it up at Cecilia's Sampler in Branson during her last visit. She asked if I could stitch it up for her and change it into a wedding sampler for her and FIL. This is how far I have gotten on it. I want to finish it before we go home this summer!



Here's another Lilliput iris. It's really small and cute.

School has slowed down somewhat. We did get a longer time period to finish up that last 3 chapters so that feels kind of good. I was so stressed out there for a while due to short time lines we got and the fact that we had major hand ins and a big test every other week since the class started.

Thank you for visiting and all your sweet commments!

A finish!

I really hope this works! Blogspot has a problem downloading the pictures. Here's my BtSS finish that I did with Ranae http://crazyxstitcher.blogspot.com/ (my links are not working today, so this is as close as I will get to a link I guess).She finished hers a while back but now I'm finally done. The designs is one of Blackbird designs Loose Feathers.



My lilliput irises have started to bloom! This one is one of my favorites.

I don't even know if this will publish right so I'm doing another post tomorrow. Thank you all for visiting!