Fireman

I was browsing through my photos last night and found a pic of the fireman piece that I did for my dad for Christmas. It was 2003, longer ago than I thought. I was really pleased with the way the frame job turned out. Unfortunately, the gal who framed it is no longer in business.

I stopped at Barnes & Noble on the way home from work this evening and the Just Cross Stitch Christmas ornament preview edition just jumped into my hand, it was amazing how that happened. I had to bring it home. There are 12 designs; my favorites are a cute kitty from Brittercup and a very elegant design called 'Tis Green, from Lori Markovic of La-D-Da. I've kind of fallen behind on my ornament stitching; I've got one in progress that might be a good project to work on tomorrow night.

Heat, Rain and SBQ

There hasn’t been a great deal of stitching done around here for the past couple of weeks, so I don't have any pics to share. I was traveling last weekend and this, and while I’m usually able to get in a little bit of stitching during the week, it’s usually not much.

I was in Northern Virginia and eastern West Virginia over the weekend. It was a great trip; the temperatures were absolutely sweltering, but we still had a good time. We went to Wolf Trap last night to a concert by Rain, a Beatles tribute band. My guy is a big Beatles fan from way back; me, not so much but I really enjoyed this. Well, apart from the heat. One of us had it in her head that the temperatures would cool down significantly when the sun went down so she wore jeans and a shirt with ¾-length sleeves. Biiiig mistake! I didn’t feel quite so bad after I realized that the poor guys on stage were hotter than I was. We were in the third row (!) and I could see that they were sweatin’ big time! They really sounded a lot like the Beatles and the guy who was "George Harrison" did a version of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" that just brought the house down. Oh my gosh, was it terrific!

A few weeks ago, Lee posed the following Stitching Bloggers Question:
Tell us about something that you have stitched or plan to stitch for any father in your life. Maybe it’s for your father, your father-in-law, your children’s father, your grandfather, your godfather, or someone who was or still is an important father-figure in your life. Why did you choose this particular piece of stitching? Tell us the story behind it.
I’ve stitched a couple of things specifically for my dad. Several years ago, I decided it would be a cool gift (Christmas or birthday, can’t recall for sure) to stitch his initials on some handkerchiefs for him, so I did. I forget how many there were, but I used iron-on transfers and them embroidered the hankies, each in a different color. They were stitched with satin and stem stitches, no cross stitch. My dad is one of the founding members of their local volunteer fire department and it’s something that’s very important to him, so a few years ago I stitched the Hinzeit “Fireman” design for him. I had it framed along with a picture of him in his fireman’s uniform and gave it to him for Christmas. There’s also a piece that I didn’t stitch for him but that I had framed and gave to him, and that’s a stitched version of the poem “High Flight”. That’s the one that begins with “O, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth”. It’s a great poem. Anyway, Dad always wanted to learn to fly and took flying lessons for a few years, although he never got his pilot’s license. I stitched the piece back in the mid-80s, on light blue 18-count Aida, and gave it to him several years afterwards.

Part 2 of the question was this:
Often times we identify our love of needlework and our skills with our mothers or grandmothers or other women. It’s understandable because often they were are first teachers or role models. Now let’s think about our stitching life as it relates to our dads. Is there anything about our approach to stitching that we can recognize as traits of our fathers? For instance, does your dad (or any other important man in your life) have an approach to one of his interests that you can observe and think, “Hey….if I substitute the word “needlework” for “fly fishing”, we’d be pretty darn similar!” So tell us about it.
That one’s kind of tough, but I think my dad and I are a lot alike in that when we get interesting in something (like stitching or flying!) we tend to jump in with both feet and go for it full-bore. My paternal grandmother was kind of like that as well, so maybe I get it from her via him!

Have a great week and happy stitching!

Close Encounters

So this morning I went in to make the bed after I got out of the shower and what should I see on the wall but a ginormous thousand-legger. I HATE those things! I’ve read that they’re harmless (icky but harmless) and that they are supposed to eat spiders (and just where, pray tell, was this one yesterday morning when there was a spider in the bathroom?) but they still creep me out. I went ahead and made the bed because I didn’t want to go after him and have him take a flying leap off the wall into the sheets (yes, in my mind they have super powers), all the while plotting the steps I was going to take to bring about his demise. Once I got the spread on the bed, I went back to the bathroom to get a paper towel. This small task took me all of 10, maybe 15, seconds tops, and when I got back to the bedroom….no creepy-crawly critter in sight. I had noticed that he had seemed to be having trouble keeping all trigajillion of his legs on the wall, so I thought maybe he had fallen. I looked around on the floor - although if he were there he probably would have gotten mired in all the dust and I'd have had him - and behind the books and magazines I have next to the bed and he had just vanished – poof! I wasted 5 minutes looking for him and finally gave up because I really didn't fancy being late for work and trying to explain that it was because I'd been looking for a varmint. I assume he must have made it to his bolt-hole, wherever that is; I hope it's far away and he stays there! I should have squashed first and then got the paper towel.

On a happier note, I saw a mama deer with her fawn (with spots!) as I drove up the hill to work this morning. They were just the other side of the guard rail. I slowed down to take a better look and of course Mama Deer decided it was time to bail and headed back into the brush. The fawn hesitated, but then he followed her. If I'd listened closely, I probably could have heard the deer equivalent of "Junior, come here this instant!" Pretty cool.

Summer reading is moving right along. I've finished two of the books I had in my "summer reading" pile, given up on two and am still working on another. I made a trip to the library last week ::sigh:: and got some more, not to mention the ones that I bought at the brand-spankin' new local Barnes & Noble a couple of weeks ago ::sigh again:: Anyway, right now I'm reading a book called "Death is a Cabaret", by Deborah Morgan, a new author to me. The main character is an antiques "picker", which is a person who goes to flea markets and yard sales and hunts for antiques amongst all the junque. It's pretty good; I'm traveling this weekend, so I'll probably finish it.

Finally, here's a progress report on Anna Thiess:

I think she's coming along nicely. The top part is a little tedious with the alphabet -- not a fan of stitching alphabets -- and the dividing bands, but it's moving quickly and once I finish the top, the motifs on the bottom will be more fun.

Everyone have a good weekend and happy stitching!

A Little Damp

Damp is a pretty good way to describe the view from the stitching chair the past few days. We've had some dandy storms this weekend. I'm very fortunate in that where I live isn't a flood area and I haven't lost power (knock wood!)

I've been doing a little stitching this weekend; here's progress on Anna Thiess. She's an easy stitch and is coming along pretty well.


Never let it be said that having a project (or projects) in progress prevented me from buying stash! I've had this book called "Roses in Cross Stitch" for years; the designer is Jane Alford and since the price sticker on the back is marked in pounds, I must have bought it on some long-ago trip to England. Anyway, the cover design is a bouquet of roses and I've wanted to stitch it for ages. I finally decided that HDF silks would be perfect to use for it, so I ordered them last week. Aren't they gorgeous? I haven't decided on a fabric yet, but I'm thinking Attic Lace from Lakeside Linens, either 36 or 40 count.

There a 3 marigolds remaining in my flower box, and they seem to be trying to recover:

No flowers, but maybe they'll come.

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And finally, I was on the deck this evening, looking at the flowers, and I saw this little visitor in the yard. It's a bunny. It's hard to see because I haven't figured out the zoom function on my camera yet, but it was very cute.

I was on the deck earlier today and saw a movement in the yard and looked down just in time to see a fat little groundhog haulin' it as hard as he could across the grass and under the deck. I don't know if he lives there or if it's just a bolt-hole for him, but I won't bother him as long as he doesn't bother me.

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Have a great week and happy stitching!

The Marigold Marauder

If you scroll down a couple of posts, you will see how the marigolds in my deck flower box looked when I put them out, a little over a week ago. This, alas, is how they look now:

Something has been after them; I suspect a varmint of a squirrel. I put out 6 plants; there are 4 left. Two of them were pulled out and thrown down on the deck and I replanted them, then this morning they were pulled out again. One was on the deck but the other had been thrown on the ground behind the rose bush, where I can't get to it. I put the one on the deck back in the box. I don't know what happened to #6. It disappeared the first go-around and I don't know what became of it. That's okay. You may notice some splotches of light brown in the dirt in the flower box. That is not dirt, the light brown stuff, but is cayenne pepper, sprinked copiously amongst the survivors. I've read that it works for keeping critters other than birds out of bird feeders, so we'll see how it works in flower boxes. I hope it doesn't fry the marigolds but, dang, I don't think they could be much worse off. Wretched squirrel. I hope the cayenne makes him sneeze for a week.

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On a happier note, I worked on Anna Thies during the news and "Jeopardy!" this evening and got the first row of alphabet finished.

Happy stitching!

A Peaceful Weekend

I didn't do any stitching yesterday but I did manage to sit down for a while with Anna Thies this afternoon and make some progress. The Celtic Knot thingy on the right corner repeats on the left and that's it for the top border. It wasn't difficult and not really terribly tedious. I usually don't care much for alphabets either, but I'm liking this one so far. I don't know about the E and F; the color gets a little lost against the fabric. It stands out better in real life than in the picture, so I'll have to ponder whether to pull it out and re-stitch it with something that will offer a touch more contrast. Since it does look better in real life, I'll probably end up leaving it alone.


A couple of cat pics from the weekend. This is the first time I've seen Timothy actually sitting in the window, checking out the view. There wasn't much to entertain him outside this afternoon, so he didn't stay there long.



I walked upstairs yesterday and found this:


It's nice when things are peaceful :-)

Happy stitching to all!

Flowers and Sunday Stitching -- A New Start!

I broke down last weekend and bought 2 hanging baskets, these orange flowers (I think they're called "goldies") and a pink verbena. The dish of dahlias came from a flower sale near work; I love the red and yellow colors.

I started the Anna Theis sampler this afternoon. It's in a past issue of SANQ and I've been eyeing it for a while. I finally pulled the flosses -- I'm using DMC -- and I found a piece of mystery linen in my stash. The chart calls for 32 count linen and what I ended up with is 28, but that's okay. I think it's one of the Country French linens, but I didn't have a label on it, so that's just a guess. It's been forever since I've stitched on 28 count, but I like the look that I'm getting using 2 strands of floss. It also stitches up pretty quickly. I started early this afternoon and stitched on and off until about 7:30. It doesn't look like much progress for so much time, but for me it's a lot.