Country Skies

We recently returned from a trip to my husband's home state. While we were there, I did just a tiny bit of stitching. Here's the latest photo of my wee bit of progress:



And a close-up of the canoe:


I moved the canoe from a different part of the original chart since my husband did a lot of canoeing in that part of Minnesota when he was a teenager. I am enjoying working on this relatively simple project after some of the other ones I've stitched.

Tomorrow I'm starting three weeks of classes. I'm looking forward to getting this coursework completed! I hope to find time to stitch in the evening, but we'll have to wait and see.

I wanted to share some photos of our recent trip. It was a beautiful, relaxing time.

We took these photos after we left the city airport and headed towards our rural destination:




When you live in an urban area as I do, you simply can't believe the beauty you see in the midwest's open skies. The folks who live there seem rather amused at our ever present camera, but we truly marvel at the beauty we see there and we try to capture it on film.

A few more from our trip:






Finally, a photo my husband took of an old abandoned farmhouse. Our son-in-law also took some of this one, and he got treated to three ticks jumping on him and snuggling up to him after walking through the thigh-high grass. Good times!

It's interesting to look at an old house like this, and wonder how it once must have looked in its glory days of so long ago.



Thanks for stopping by today!

A New WIP to Keep Me Busy

I truly have been in a bit of a stitching slump since finishing my sampler in early May. I decided to work first on Summer Queen, but I only put in a handful of hours on that project. I haven't even bothered with a progress photo as so little has changed since the last photo was taken. Life has just been too busy to stitch, but maybe I need a big switch to something less demanding.

So with that in mind, I'm switching it up completely and working on Oberlin's Minnesota Sampler. Here is how it looks now:




I will take a progress picture after I've worked on it for awhile. I'm still winding down from work, and I'm glad it's summer!

Thanks for reading my blog, everyone. It's great to see people checking this little place out,and it's so interesting to see how you arrive here from all over the globe. Thanks for loving and appreciating needlework the way I do. It's great to find kindred spirits, isn't it?

I'm so behind on my blog reading, and I've missed reading all of them. I will have to get caught up a bit, a little at a time.

I'll say goodbye for now with an oldie but goodie. This is a pocket I stitched on a pair of shorts. I did this when I was a teenager, so let's just say it's very, very old. I don't think I could handle all that work on denim at this point!

Take care and thanks for visiting here today.

Time to Relax...

Exactly one year ago today, it was the last day of school. So today it was again the last day of the school year. Wow, what a year it's been. I'm glad to wave goodbye to this school year. It started shrouded in sadness with the passing of my father right before it began. He was very sick all summer, in fact. Truly it was hard to start the year with such a sad event in my life happening, but that's how life is, isn't it? We can't control much, really, can we?

This group of little children has moved on, and it's always bittersweet. I'm happy to have seen my students learn so much, but it's a bit sad to say goodbye and pass them on to the next teacher.

So just below you'll find a repeat of last year's photo from the end of the year. Last year on the final day of school we went out with our kids, and we toasted the end of the year. Tonight the two of us are staying home. I'm drained, and wiped out. My classroom is moving so this year we had the added burden of packing up everything into boxes before leaving for the summer break. When we don't move classrooms, we can shove it into a cupboard or place it on a shelf. Then we cover up the shelves with paper. I think in the end there were close to fifty boxes packed in that tiny room. I am aching all over, really!

I hope for a relaxing summer, if it's meant to be. I do hope to get some stitching in from time to time, but I am taking three graduate courses so we'll see if that happens.



Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you all find some relaxation this summer.

Lemon Bars

 

Aren't there some desserts that just remind you of a certain season? It's summertime now, and I think of lemon bars. My parents' home has always had a lemon tree in the backyard, so my mom always loved to make various desserts that used this great fruit. One recipe she made often in the summer was this lemon bar recipe:

Lemon Bars

1/2 cup margerine
1 cup flour
1/4 cup powdered sugar

Mix the above ingredients together and place in the bottom of an 8 X 8 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. (You should lightly grease the pan with shortening)

Mix together 2 Tbsp lemon juice, including the rind, 2 beaten eggs, 1 cup sugar, and 1/2 tsp baking powder. Pour on top of the warm crust, and bake again at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

Frosting: Make a frosting using lemon juice and powdered sugar. Frost after the bars have cooled just a bit.

Note: You can increase this recipe to 1 1/2 in amounts and place in a 13 X 9 inch pan.

I think I'll have to make a batch sometime this week! Thanks for stopping by today.

Hydrangeas

Hello!

I've noticed that more people are 'following' this blog. Thanks so much for adding your name on the list! Truly I haven't had much to say lately, so I appreciate your patience.

I still haven't taken my finished House and Garden Sampler to the framers. This year has been busier than any I can remember in a long time, but soon I will have a summer break. During the summer I'll be attending classes so that will cut into fun time. That being said though I truly know there will be more time to stitch, relax, and come here than during the school year when I'm teaching. It's been a tough but rewarding year.

Since early May I've stitched a tiny bit on Summer Queen, but not enough to warrant an update picture. I'm just trying to finish the bottom of the dress thus I'm doing little blobs of color over time.

Today I'll share some photos my husband took of our hydrangea bush. Hydrangeas are one of my favorite flowers. Looking at them truly makes me happy. I love the full, colorful blooms. Here's a peek at our Endless Summer hydrangea. We planted it about four years ago, and it's really flourishing.

We used to add the chemical to make the blooms bluer, although it's been several years since we've done so. I like these colors just the same!













And one more angle of the shrub...



I just looked back at my photos and found one taken of the shrub almost exactly two years ago! Here is how it looked then:



I think it's progressed in two years, hasn't it? That's exciting to me. :)

Thanks for stopping by today!

New WIP----A Royal Lady for Reacquaintance

Hi everyone!

Thanks for the wonderful comments regarding my recently finished House and Garden Sampler. I still haven't had the chance to take it to our not-so-local LNS for framing. Maybe someday soon? Each weekend thus far has been filled with fun activities with family and friends, so for that reason alone the framing will have to wait!

This upcoming weekend a lifelong friend is flying into our area for a visit, so again the sampler framing project will be on hold. She's a great friend, but she doesn't share my love of crafts and needlework, nor has she ever done either thing. We did both have home economics in eighth grade though, and I remember sewing up some cute smock tops in flame stitch patterns. (It WAS the 70's!)

It's funny, very few people I know in my daily life have seen my needlework unless they've been to my home. Even then I don't point it out on my walls, and actually few seem to take note of it.

It's one of those things that few people seem to 'get'. I'm grateful for all of you who take the time to read this blog. Thanks for sharing my love for needlework and all things crafty! You've touched my life with your kind words and spirit.

I am again working on Mirabilia's Summer Queen. The funny thing is, I thought I was just about completely done with her in the summer of 2007. I then realized I had a bottom section that was completely neglected! I've worked on her for about two hours in the last few weeks, so I don't have any new progress pictures yet, but I promise you that I will soon. Here she is though when we photographed her way back when. If you've seen these photos before, I apologize. I don't think I've talked about her here for a few years, so perhaps I'm safe in digging this stuff up again.

A full view: (I only have the bottom to finish!)



Some close-ups of her:




Perhaps because the piece was sitting so long, I noticed that a few of the beads are coming out of her head area. Sigh. I need to redo them sometime soon. My stitching shouldn't be that weak, should it?

Thanks for stopping by here today, and thanks for appreciating the needlework I do.

Finis...Finished...I'm Finally Done!

I started my House and Garden Sampler around October 7, 2007. I'm finally done! I just added a few more flowers and birds tonight. This week I will take it to be framed at my not-so-local needlework store.

What a fun project this has been. I will now go back to working on Summer Queen. I don't have much left to do on her, so that will be a finish in the near future.

Thanks for your encouragement in completing this project. It's been really exciting watching it come together. I am not quite happy with it, but then again I am a complete perfectionist when it comes to this sort of thing so that's not surprising.

Here are the last flowers I added tonight:


Here's a photo of my 'plan', as it looked today:

Yes, that's about six 8 X 11 graph paper sheets haphazardly taped together, and not very well, either.

Finally, the finished sampler:



I'm going to miss this project. I feel that way after completing all large projects, and large projects are what I mostly do.

Thanks for stopping by today, and thanks for all your comments and encouragement.

May

I'm so glad it's May. That means June is not far off, and soon it will be summer.

I am almost done with the House and Garden Sampler. Here are the latest progress pictures. (I haven't done any stitching in two weeks, but hope to finish it this weekend.)







I'm going to add a few more flowers, a few more flying birds, and then I will be done!

Thanks for stopping by today.

Stitching Inspiration and Running Around with a Camera

I just had a blast playing around on Flickr while watching American Idol. I put together a mosaic of some of my favorite photos from Flickr. These were stitched by many different people, and the credit goes to them. To see their work up close, just click on the link below the mosaic.






1. Little House Needleworks "Sea to Shining Sea", 2. Flea Market Souvenir - FINISHED, 3. Home Of A Needleworker (Too!), 4. Moira Blackburn Birthday Sampler, 5. Village of Hawk Run Hollow (Carriage House Samplings), 6. Rites of Spring (Blackbird Designs), 7. where my heart blooms, 8. evening shades the garden, 9. friends are the flowers, 10. Right side, 11. Shores of Hawk Run Hollow (Carriage House Samplings), 12. Night & Day by LHN

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

My husband has really gotten interested in photography, and he recently got a new camera. Last night he and I both ran around the yard taking photographs of what we saw. I love the time of day when daylight turns to evening, so it was truly a lot of fun.

Here's a peek into our back picture window. I love the way the lamps' light bounces off the glass:




I was happy to take this photo of the magnolia tree that we planted several years ago. It's really grown!


I stopped and noticed that a plant that had recently looked half dead was now blooming:



Out front I was glad to see our garden window looking better. My husband has been refurbishing the trim along the bottom of it. It turned out to be quite a job. A two hour project turned into a two day one!



The plants on the porch are potted in some funky pots, that's for sure. I'm not big on everything matching, although I do admire how that looks. Some of the pots were painted and decorated by our daughter, so they are precious to me. We planted the marigolds before Easter:



The front planters are blooming a bit. These planters used to be full of huge, overgrown junipers. We're so happy we redid them several years ago. Our next big outside job is to have the house repainted, as these photos will show:



I took the next one as I love seeing lit windows at twilight




A bit later we took one more photo. The clouds here rarely look this interesting, so we couldn't resist:



Thanks so much for coming by today!

Easter

Easter is over, and so is my spring break. Tomorrow it's back to the routine of work.

We hosted Easter today, and we all had a great time. I want to share my mom's lemon bar recipe that she made for today, but I'll have to do that on a future post.

Here are some photos from today:


My Great-Niece Hannah during the Egg Hunt


More Egg Hunting


Hannah on Easter

Ethan was here too, and it's the first time he's been at our house. He now weighs over 10 pounds and is doing very well. He was born 10 weeks early and spent the first few months of his life in the hospital. Unfortunately we didn't get a good photo of him today.

Here is a photo of him that we took a few weeks ago, along with his big sister Hannah:

 

Thanks for stopping by today.