Stitching update

Sorry about the red bar behind each picture. If I delete it, then the pictures from past posts start showing up in random places in the center and the otherwise "dead" right-had column. I have been stitching. I have been trying to post also, but apparently my blog is too out of date to cooperate nicely with blogger. Not quite sure how to go up about fixing it. Today is a nasty rainy day. The girls and Jerry and I are sick. I have eaten nothing but tomato soup for a week. I thought I deserved a new start today. :) I have been wanting to stitch this Mary Beale Christmas design for a long time. Yesterday I actually picked up 'Lo a Rose,' and put a couple of words and motifs in. I love the design, but hate the fabric I chose. I think I am on a 15-year plan with it. I have always wanted to have an Old Testament tree for Advent. We do readings with the girls based on the idea of the 'Jesse Tree,' but it focuses on Jesus' bloodline, and so leaves out many Old Testament stories. I stitched 'Elijah' and 'Joshua' from Mary Beale's Christmas ornament. I am adding names. I also stitched 'Jonah and the Whale' from another Mary Beale ornament series. I like those slightly bigger ones better, but there are not as many of them. I actually spent some time this afternoon cutting out pieces of foam board for the ornament-making. Well, that's one step closer to a sampler tree! I also separated this post into paragraphs, but it did not work...

Have you seen this?

Another ornament done. Well, not quite. I suppose I need to do a bit more before I can hang it!

Speaking of ornaments, have you seen Linda Wallace's trees? Here are two links to a tour of her trees. They each show different things.

http://tennesseesamplers.blogspot.com/2010/12/decorating-with-samplers-for-christmas.html

http://www.marybeale.com/images/lwallace/

One day, one day.....

Tiptoe Through the Tulips

Yesterday was Buttercup's last day of dance camp. The moms were invited in to watch the last 30 minutes of class. Nutmeg took dance camp also, but they did not have a parent day because "they are big girls now and need to work." I was a little sad about that...

The little girls were definitely working hard! I doubt that I could do the "passe and hold."

She just looked so peaky, and no wonder. She has a 100 degree temp this morning. Nutmeg has been sick since Wednesday.

I cannot start a cross stitch project and work straight through with no new starts. That would be like starting a book and finishing it all at once or like taking everything out of the pantry and then immediately putting it all back. What madness that would be!

So I made a new start yesterday on Birds of a Feather's "Bloom Where You Are Planted." I am using the DMC colors becasue they are very pretty. I could not get a good picture, but trust me! The stitch count is 65x66, so I should finish this in no time, right? Hmmmm...we'll see. Little girls are calling me, and I did take all the books off of two of the homeschool shelves this morning....

"Your Well-Trimmed Light"

My husband is fairly brilliant in matters theological. He knows the Bible backwards and forwards, he knows the Church Fathers and their letters; he quotes the decrees of the Councils of the undivided Church at breakfast -you get the picture. It is not often that I can score a good one! This year he was complaining about the Christmas cards I purchased because they read "Happy Holidays." "Well," I said, "You and I know that 'holiday' comes from 'holy day.' And they were on sale!" He hurumphed into his coffee and that was that. Imagine my delight when the sermon on Sunday containd a reference to that very thing! Our priest opened his sermon with some observations on the "Happy Holidays Phenomenon." For us, the Christmas Season is chock full of Holy Days! Tomorrow night, we will celebrate The Vigil of the Nativity; 25 December we celebrate The Birth of Jesus (not His Incarnation -we celebrated that 25 March - 9 months ago); 26 December we honor Saint Stephen, the First Christian Martyr (I have a brother named Stephen; I grew up singing about St. Wen. doing something on "the Feast of Stephen." I had no idea, but I had some creepy ideas!); 27 December we celebrate John the Evangelist, The Beloved Disciple; 28 December we celebrate The Feast of the Holy Innocents, the children Herod killed, and we remember the children today, born and unborn who are in peril; 29 December is Thomas Becket, 1 January, eight days after The Nativity, is the Circumcision of Christ - the first time Jesus' Blood was shed in accordance with The Law; The 12 Days of Christmas come to an end on 5 January with the Twelfth Night Festivities; 6 January is The Epiphany. That is a Season of Holy Days indeed!

I am as guilty as anyone of letting the stress of the season get to me - my house is a wreck with glitter and glue and globs of cookie dough that some how leapt onto the cabinets and under the table; unfinished Christmas stitching is overflowing the basket; the presents I have bought are not all wrapped, my sister's little girl has the flu and family plans are up in the air - BUT I keep reminding myself that the only thing I really have to do is prepare myself and prepare my children to fully celebrate Jesus' Birth. That is all. If we did nothing but attend Christ's Mass, snuggle while reading some favorite Christmas books, rise on Christmas morning and sing the beautiful carols - it would be enough! The presents and decorations and travel are gravy (or icing, if you look at it that way!) What a shame it would be if the simple and real things were overlooked in the bother and bustle of "the holidays;" if we like the foolish virgins (think of all the ones we have cross stitched!) were found unprepared to celebrate this Great Feast.

"Wake, awake, for night is flying: The watchmen on the heights are crying, Awake, Jerusalem, arise! Midnight's solemn hour is tolling, His chariot wheels are nearer rolling, He comes; prepare, ye virgins wise. Rise up, with willing feet Go forth, the Bridegroom meet: Alleluia! Bear through the night Your well-trimmed light, Speed forth to join the marriage rite."

Persuasion and Random Thoughts

Well, it is summer. School is still in session, but we are taking a break from running all over N. Georgia to ballet and music. The girls have been swimming in mountain lakes, eating "hunky" bars with my grandmother, and taking walks under the pine trees with my grandfather.

Nutmeg is still recovering from a caterpillar sting we got while riding through the trees, I mean, riding along the paths on the golf cart.

Buttercup and I have been doing a FIAR Peter Rabbit Study this week. We are using the FREE lapbook resources from Home School Share.com. Today my littlest bunny and I took a stroll down the lane and gathered blackberries. Nutmeg stayed in nursing her now infected caterpillar bite.
Nutmeg and I are trying to finish some selected chapters from SOTW 3 before we begin our cycle again with SOTW 1. I thought SOTW 1 was a better place to pick up Buttercup. If she started with SOTW, she might never want to do history again! This week we are studying Russia, Catherine the Great and vaccines.
I am almost staying on my cross stitch rotation. I finished up my three days on "Grateful heart," but I needed a quick project to inspire me. Since watching "Lost in Austen," I having been craving all things Jane. (I have not decided how much I liked "Lost in Austen" yet.) I picked up Tanya's Persuasion design from JCS. It fulfills the Jane craving and has a summery-beach theme as well. I may start Tanya's "Return to the Sea" next. I cannot be a slave to my rotation schedule! I also did a quick biscornu fob using Brighneedle's "Bunny Hop" design.

Well, now I need to get the girls lunch, find the library books, pack for swimming....and on and on it goes!

Stitches and Wings

I finshed several WIP this weekend. The first is an old freebie from Sheepish Designs.

This is Plum Pudding by JBW. I changed the plate from white to red and omitted the words "Plum Pudding."

Windy Hill by Brightneedle

This morning, we noticed our butterfly was ready for release. I had collected at large caterpillar from a parsley plant. He turned out quite beautiful, didn't he? I have not decided if he is a boy of a girl. Buttercup tells me that caterpillars are boys and all butterflies are girls. Hmmm....

The Week in Stitches

I am blogging to take my mind off the watery abyss that is my basement. It's not quite a flood, but it is wet. I expect the plumber any moment, but I won't be holding my breath!

I have wanted to stitch the Cross-Eyed Cricket design above for years. I finally started and finished it this week. My husband does not approve. When we were dating and he discovered I was an avid cross stitcher, he was not pleased. It was not that he was worried I would be stitching and never clean the house (that IS what he should have worried about), he was apparently scarred in the 80's by visions of cross stitched geese with blue ribbons around their necks advertising mottos such as "Backdoor guests are best." I had to solemnly promise to love, cherish and never cross stitch geese. Well, lucky for him my tastes are not 1980s. They are more like 1680s, 1780s and 1880s! He divides designs into two categories: "nice" and "goofy crap." The above design he deems "goofy crap." Too bad for him! I like it!

I also started the above Brighneedle design. I think it is called Windy Hill. We live on Windy Hill! I call our hill Wuthering Heights. Our house faces the mountains, and the wind roars down the mountains at break-neck speed for our house! I cannot have windchimes on my front porch, I soon discovered.

I also started this week ;) "Fishes and Bait by Plum Street Samplers. I love Paulette's designs and her sense of humour. There is a pair of mer-people in the traditional "Adam and Eve" sampler pose. The verse reads, "Fishes and Bait, Fishes and Bait, When a Woman marries then trouble's her fate."

Elizabethan Garden Sampler - Finished!

This is a Brightneedle design. It was pretty quick to stitch once I located all the Anchor threads. I really enjoy Brightneedle designs, but I have no desire to stitch them over one! This was stitched over two on 36 ct linen with the recommended threads.