if it feels good …

I must say I’m awfully glad that I made that little blunder bidding on the Plant Virtue chart because it feels great to be stitching again. Not that my chickens, goats, geese, Guineas, dogs, cats, or children are coming up short for attention – never fear! But that last batch of flowers/seedlings/herbs is taking a bit longer to get in the ground. Here’s where I stopped last night. I would’ve gotten more done, but I was enjoying a movie with Liam Neelson. Well, not with him, but with him in it. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have gotten any stitching done at all.

Dawn mentioned in her comment that she hadn’t stitched with silk yet, so here goes a shout-out to anyone local who might like to get together to try out new-to-you stuff: a different kind of design, fabric, floss, etc. I think it would be great fun to have a little soiree here at Chateau Chaos (or a quieter venue if that’s preferable) and try out each other’s favorites. Anyone interested?? Leave a comment or contact me by email if you’d be interested. I’m very willing to share out of my own stash.

I was really happy to see this gorgeous redwork reproduction being offered for free at Needleprint. It’s from Den Haag (aka s-Gravenhage in Dutch), where I lived for about a year and where I worked right up till I left the Netherlands. I’m picturing it done over-one in a silk on a distressed piece of linen. Many thanks to the wonderful generosity for this and many other freebies offered regularly at this blog.

As I write this, it looks like my bid on Plant Virtue will be topped (phew!) so although I can’t offer a Goode Huswife pattern giveaway, I would like to offer this little charmer. If you’re interested, just let me know in a comment and I’ll draw a winner at random the next time I sit down to do a blog post. Just a little thank-you from me to you for sticking with me and for finding the humor in bidding on charts we already have.

Hmmm. Is it just me or does this post seem to be at least a little bit about chickens even though it isn’t about chickens? LOL.

family fun

Did anyone else, as a kid, spend lots of Sundays visiting their grandparents? As I remember it, we spent nearly every Sunday with one set of grandparents or another and it was usually great good fun. (Okay, I will admit that I remember being bored out of my wits from time to time, but my brother and I usually created some adventure if nothing else came up.) Anyway, yesterday we spent a very pleasurable afternoon visiting Niek’s parents and his grandmother. I really love doing family stuff like that. I took over 50 pictures (!) but I’ll spare you and only show one collage.

And, hold on to your hats, some stitching has been done. When I saw this freebie from Plum Street Samplers, I pulled out a piece of linen and my little orts box and got right to work on it. I haven’t stitched the ‘bok bok’ part of the design because I’m thinking of making this into a 2-sided ornament and putting that part on the back. I blended threads to try to create an overdyed look. I’m not sure I really succeeded, but I had fun trying. (Excuse me for not ironing this before taking a photo.)

The linen is white 35 ct HDF linen that I abused first with Chinese herbal dregs and then with a wild concotion that included red onion skins and chestnut shells. It’s dyed, overdyed, and then rinsed out (becasue it came out too dark). The many shades give the larger piece of linen a really nice depth, but I like my smaller, first experiment better. Sigh…

Today’s showing number three on our house. Please cross your fingers and toes for a sale!

drips and drabs

No, the title isn’t a typo of  ‘dribs and drabs’ – it’s raining (again) and I decided to take liberties with the phrase. This weather is good for cooking, even if it tends to get a bit depressing. Yesterday, I baked a couple loaves of bread to celebrate the kids’ summer holiday, and here’s the chocolate bread that disappeared almost immediately after the photo was snapped.  (It was another attempt at using flour other than wheat, and I’m now ready to concede that it’s not as easy as I thought it would be.)

Yesterday I started a new project over one that I am just loving. Here’s a picture I took during a sunny break yesterday (I’ve gotten a bit further with it since then). I’m stitching it with DMC over one on 32 ct mystery linen that looks a lot like Lambswool.

As a matter of fact, I’m loving it so much that I went off and ordered a large piece of evenweave from Silkweaver’s Odds & Ends to finally do SOHRH over-one. I’m taking it easy on myself, as it’s a 20 count evenweave and should not wear my poor old peepers out too much.

I’ve also continued to work on this round of our Quaker RR, with the intention of having one panel done before we go on vacation to Maine. That only leaves the other panel to do after we return, which shouldn’t be too difficult (she said, full of confidence, LOL!).

Our kitty, Spin, seems to have adopted a quieter family one street over and I miss him. I’m not sure which house he’s been going to, but I keep finding him down that street. I carry him home and feed him, but he only picks at his uninspiring dry kibble and leaves after allowing me to pet him a little bit. Though I can’t blame him for seeking out quieter lodgings, I’ve always felt that a home without a cat is just four walls with a lot of windows and doors.

 

Tomorrow is the first ‘real’ day of the kids’ summer holidays. I’ll need to get busy today printing out the activities we’ll be doing. Gosh, I should’ve checked our supply of printer ink yesterday when the shops were open. I hope to also get the Five Birds chart emailed out and the giveaway prizes posted as well – sorry for the week-long delay, but it really was a crushingly busy week.

Best wishes, all!

13 July, Edited to add: I’ve sent the two CHS freebies (Brite Birds and Five Birds) in a final mass emailing. I won’t be sending them out again, so please don’t ask. The upcoming days and weeks will be spent with the kids rather than behind the computer. Thanks for understanding!

news updates

Phew. Thanks so much for your well wishes for my mom – they must’ve worked, as she’s been discharged from the hospital. She’s still not healthy, but her meds are working and she’s on the road to recovery. (Fingers crossed.)

I’ve tried to take the advice of not worrying about missing deadlines on stitching projects, but I just get too stressful about that stuff. Instead of painting today, as planned, I’ll be stitching to try to ensure that I don’t fall more than a day or two behind schedule. I hate letting people down. So  the hallway up the stairs will have to wait for its coat of fresh white paint. Life goes on, right?

No doubt that you’re already well aware of the fantastic drawing going on at Violarium, but if you’re one of the few that hasn’t heard about it, you can sign up for a chance to win this fabulous book with 800+ alphabets! We all need another fabulous cross stitch book, right? I know I do. I actually have four other books waiting for me at my mom’s …. Shame on me, right? But hasten over to sign up, as the deadline is 19 July.

Kathy Barrick-Dieter has graciously agreed to me distributing her Five Birds freebie. To save me from having to do umpty million seperate mails, I will do one mailing to everyone who’s asked for a copy by 8 am (my time) Friday morning. Sorry for the cutoff, but I was going a little nuts with all the emails for the Brite Birds freebie. If you already asked for a copy in the original post, you don’t need to ask a second time in this post.

The kids are nearly out of school for the summer. After hearing about Max’s reading difficulties from his teacher (after she’d assured me just a few months before that his reading was just fine), I’ve decided to focus on reading & writing for this summer’s pseudo home schooling program. We’ll do letter recognition (for Nick and Rowen), various reading drills (for Max) and will celebrate the passing of each week by putting together a family newspaper of our activities.

Wishing everyone the best. Thanks so much for stopping by to spend some time with me here. Next time – stitching photos!

another arrival

Have you ever made a selfish gift? I mean, something you know the recipient will like but also something that deep-down, you’d gladly receive, too? That’s what I was busy with last month, LOL. The Plum Street Designs freebie I stitched for Cathi is something I fully intend to stitch for myself. And the Five Birds (an old freebie from Kathy Barrick-Dieter) pincushion I stitched for Anna falls into the same category. I matched some HDF silks to the called-for DMC and stitched it on a piece of 35 ct HDF linen. It’s stuffed with wool rovings to keep her needles sharp & clean.

I stitched this some time ago for an exchange, as well, but that time I just used whatever colors struck my fancy. I finished it as a mattress-style pincushion that time – a finish that I really like, but find awfully fiddly. (The photo’s not the greatest quality, sorry.)

My limited stitching time has been seriously curtailed by the very sticky weather we’ve had. Today was 34 (that’s a bit over 93 F!) and I think I might be melting. But when Annemarie arrived today, we did manage to fit in a little bit of stitching as well as a great lot of chatting. I subjected her to some of my homemade ravioli and foccaccia bread, which she survived. It was great to see her and I hope to make the trek over to her neck of the woods in the near future.

Here’s hoping that whatever the weather where you are, that you’re sitting pretty!

tiny treasures

Yesterday afternoon we were able to take the kids and dogs for a walk in the nearby community “forest” (okay, I’m from Maine and I just cannot call this a forest without cracking a grin). When we left the house, it was overcast and that helped a lot with the humidity, but while we were there the sun came out and it was sort of like a huge sauna. Hot stuff, baby. Anyway, in an ongoing attempt to figure out how to use my new camera better, I decided to take pictures only of special tiny things that came along during our walk. A sampling of tiny treasures.

On the stitching front, HOHRH has been put away for a couple of weeks so I can concentrate on some deadline stitching. Today I worked on our Quaker RR. Fingers crossed I won’t have the miscounting problems that I did with the last round! Dear friend Cathi let me know that her Independence Day gift has arrived – when I saw this freebie, I immediately thought of Cathi. I’m so glad she likes it. I’ve used HDF silks (the Be-series) on 35 ct HDF Bunny Brown linen. It’s backed with Moda fabrics and stuffed with wool rovings to make a humble pincushion. I just love how it came out and fully intend to stitch it again for myself … next year!

I hope your day is full of beauty, big or small!

what i did with my night alone

I did not stitch at all yesterday, nor did I so much as turn on my computer. Shocking, isn’t it? Yesterday, the kids (and Niek) had the end-of-year Scouting festivities (an overnighting at the Scouting headquarters!) which culminated this morning in the swearing-in of the newest Scouts. At home, I lazed about re-reading some of my absolute favorite kids’ books by Madeleine L’Engle and not cooking. LOL! There are no HOHRH photo updates, but here’s one of Holland’s newest Scouts being sworn in (and being hugely admired by her baby brother).

I did put a few strands of silk into my ES Spot Sampler the other day (perhaps explaining some of my very slow HOHRH progress), so here’s that.

Brite Birds freebie

Kathy Barrick-Dieter has given her blessing regarding distribution of her Brite Birds freebie (shown in my last post, as stitched by Conny for my birthday). If you are interested in a copy, please leave a comment here and I’ll email you one tomorrow. I need to scan my copy first.

It’s incredibly humid here, making stitching a bit uncomfortable (I always think my hands are dirty) so I’ll probably keep myself busy in other ways. Wishing everyone a good weekend full of the special joys that make life wonderful.

there’s stash, and then there’s stash

We went to Amsterdam today to visit the US Consulate so Arden can have his American status and passport, and to renew Nicky’s passport. I was expecting the worst, in terms of rudeness and ‘bother’, because it’s never been a picnic to go there and the additional security measures seemed certain to make it even worse. This was also my first time going with all four kids and Niek. So you can imagine my surprise when after clearing the initial security checks (yes, there are several) we encountered friendly people who were helpful. I was amazed. Grateful, too. To the folks who were working at the US Consulate in Amsterdam today, this family would like to say thank you!

After doing our mandatory business, we set about having some fun. After all, if you’re going to drive all that way, you’ve got to enjoy yourself a bit. The weather was – again – glorious. We hung out in the park that’s beside the Rijksmuseum and the kids had the playground all for themselves. No pics, sorry, because electronic devices aren’t allowed at the Consulate. Then we leisurely made our way toward the Leidseplein (a famous spot for tourists and people who drink too much, LOL) including a visit to Vondelpark. (Were we just not getting it? Did we go in at the wrong entrance? Vondelpark looked to us like a green street rather than a park.) Then we backtracked to The Hard Rock Cafe, where I enjoyed a dinner with Rachael, Ash, and Carol about … um, two years ago. Wow, time flies. The kids loved it, as I knew they would. Nicky and Rowen were dancing in their chairs and on the way to and from the restrooms. It was fabulous to go to a restaurant where the customer service is top-notch.

I stopped in at a deli (Voskuilen, for anyone interested) that an Irish friend of mine used to swear by. She’s snuck back home to the UK since, but I finally had a chance to pop my head in, and of course I didn’t come out empty handed. For the Americans out there, if you can believe it, this little spree cost me 20 euro, which is $27 (okay, there were 3 boxes of Cracker Jacks and 3 envelopes of Kool-Aid powder, but I couldn’t get the camera out fast enough – LOL!). The Pop Tarts, sadly, were 7 euro a box and the Toll House chocolate chips were 7 euro a bag. Niek pointed out that the shop owner has to make a living, too!

When we got home, I found some other stash awaiting me. There were a lot of charts from The Needlework Show that I liked, and I will eventually catch up with Kathy Barrick-Dieter’s offerings, but the one design that I felt like I absolutely  had to have was this one by Annie Beez. It appeals to me tremendously! So I begged Mary Kathryn after the show ended, and wonder of wonders, she had one to send me. Thank you, Mary Kathryn! And recently Traditional Stitches had a special offer for newsletter subscribers that I could also apply to items already on sale (!) so I finally bought some fabrics I’ve been curious about: 32/33 ct Flax  linen, 32/33 ct Cream Strathaven linen, and 32 ct Blue Grass Lakeside Linen. I also ordered The Ackworth Friendship Book for a RR I’ll be in this spring and some OWS I missed from my collection. Janice also included some ornament-size pieces of some Zweigart fabrics that are new to their line as a little gift. Thank you, Janice!!  :)

And while my better half went grocery shopping and prepared dinner – am I lucky, or what? – I finished 1821 Sewing Pocket by Stacy Nash! And within five minutes, I’d already begun Emma’s Framed Sampler. Woot! I’m not sure if it’s still the case, but these were offered as freebies from The Pattern Marta couple of months ago. I’d been saving them for a rainy day – well, the sun is shining, but these aren’t waiting any longer to be stitched up! Thanks to Tanya for organizing a SAL and for setting up the Stacy Nash group!

Your time to sign up for the giveaway is nearly over. I will draw a winner tomorrow!!

jam-packed!

Jam-packed applies to my weekend as well as to this post. I hope your weekend was first-rate as well!

First off, I’ve done the drawing for the October design by Shepherd’s Bush and I’m happy to announce that Kathy A. has won. Congratulations, Kathy! Now that you’re home from your vacation in Ontario, you can get busy with Halloween stitching! This was the biggest drawing yet, with 29 names. Thank you everyone for leaving a comment. I hope all those new readers will be back for another visit. At least for the weekend give-aways….

On Saturday, Rowen and I hopped on my bike (which has a proper child’s seat on the back – LOL!) and spent a girls’ afternoon out. We’ve never done this before! Rowen is the only one of my kids who cannot control herself in a store – if she sees it, she wants it; and if she doesn’t get it, she brings the roof down. Not a pretty scene. But the weather was lovely and I was desperate to get out of the house, so we gave it a whirl – and I found out that my little girl has been growing up in ways other than simply outgrowing her clothes. We stopped at a store that had a sale going on to see if there might be anything suitable for the new school year (I swear, everyone has grown at least a full size!) and once she pinned me down (very politely, I have to add) on a pink and white mini skirt, she was as sweet as any child I’ve ever taken shopping. Ahhhh, delight. We had a wonderful time together.

When I got home, my latest attempts in food-dyeing linen were dry and ready for ironing. These have been boiled with carrots, then left to sit in the “juice” overnight, and then distressed with a strong tea solution applied directly with the tea bag. Not what I’d hoped for (I wanted orange!) but pretty cool in their own right.

And seeing my fun food-dyeing attempts all together got me in the mood for trying out a new floss I picked up while I was downtown with Rowen. Here’s a very small tree of life (my own design, inspired by the much larger one from The Stitch Witch) done in DMC 4126 on beet-dyed linen.

And here it is again, this time done in Grandma Moses from the Painter’s Threads series put out by Tentakulum on Claret linen from the Kiwi Illusions line. This is a terrible picture that does no justice to the rich, jewel-tone colors … but I took it last night and it just really needs natural light.

I’m planning to make these, and some other small designs, into tiny pouches for my etsy shop. For anyone who’d like to make their own little tree (it would look pretty good for Halloween), here’s my very first freebie to share.

But I think that perhaps the biggest news of the weekend is the unexpected packet that arrived from Deb of Lavender Rose Ramblingslate Saturday afternoon. Deb had mentioned that she was going to send me a novel she’d recently finished, but I had no idea that all this was on its way! Deb, I’m still speechless! And I feel kind of awful because I didn’t send you anything …. But thank you very, very much. You’ll notice that the Hoffman novel is open in the picture and that is because I started reading it immediately. LOL!

I need to say thank you to Mylene for her generous award. I am, as usual, declining to award it to seven other blogs simply because I’m uncomfortable picking only seven from the 160+ that I subscribe to. I love all your blogs!

And I’m delighted that birthday gifts (very belated ones, at that) have reached Vonna and Jennifer. You guys are so wonderful and so generous and have been such very good friends. I stitched Vonna’s gift very early (you may remember my posts on this one way back in the early spring) but I somehow got side tracked when it came time to finish it. For Jennifer, I just couldn’t figure out what to stitch … till suddenly it came to me! I forgot to photograph them both in the rush to finally get them in the mail, so you’ll have to go see them at Vonna’s and Jennifer’s blogs.

Thanks so much for stopping by! I love spending this time together.