Stitching Snowmen In This Horrid Heat

Hello, hello! I've been away much too long and I've missed all of you! July is one of our two busiest family months (May being the other) and in between traveling to New York to visit my mom and preparing for our annual week at the beach, I've had little stitching time. But, to be honest with you, I think this heat is just zapping any energy that I normally have for stitching. The humidity has been horrid and it seems to take me so much longer to do even the simplest things around the house when it's like this. We do have air-conditioning, thank goodness, but this heat and humidity still just make me want to sit and read rather than stitch. 

I've been keeping up with my monthly snowman challenge and have two cuties to share with you today. My July ornament is from Grandma Kringles and is called "Winter's Frost." I used 40 ct. Country Mocha Newcastle linen for this one along with a mixture of overdyed threads. I think the white shows up quite well on this particular fabric which is one reason I chose it.

"Winter's Frost"

To finish him off, I added a rusty bell on his collar and used some fabric from the Woolies Flannel Charm Pack which I added to my stash a couple months ago. I just love it--reminds me of a cozy man's shirt or cuddly blanket material. The gold cording is made using DMC 420. I didn't have enough of the flannel for the backing, but, luckily, I had a heavy cotton napkin in the perfect shade to use. I stock up on cloth napkins for backing material whenever they are on sale at Kohl's.

July snowman ornament all finished up!

And for my June ornament, I finally finished this quartet of smiling snowmen from Country Cottage Needleworks (the design is called "Snowmen"). This was a large design so to make it ornament sized I had to stitch it over one on a 32 ct. mystery dusty blue evenweave. I also left off the bottom border that was charted (the same pine boughs that are in the top border).  This gave me a tiny 2" x 4" ornament--perfect!

Country Cottage Needleworks "Snowmen"

Now, seriously, who can resist their little grins? Rather than cross stitching the mouths, I just used straight stitches since I was working on such a tiny scale. And here is the finished ornament--a little pillow with ruched ribbon trim, a gauzy hanger, and three miniature jingle bells. What do you think?

June snowman ornament finish

I'm currently working on a gift for a friend so I can't show you that, but I hope to begin a larger piece soon. I just need a nice design with simple DMC threads--no thoughts about converting fibers and such. Time to go stash-diving and see what I come up with!

Sonnenberg Gardens... When my husband and I visited my mom in mid-July, we took advantage of an almost perfect weather day (mid-70s, low humidity) to visit historic Sonnenberg Gardens & Mansion in Canandaigua, New York. The home is over 125 years old and sits on 50 acres of land.  This was the summer home (Sonnenberg means "Sunny Hill" in German) for the Thompson family. Frederick Ferris Thompson was the founder of what is now Citibank and Mary, his wife, was from Canandaigua, so they chose that location to escape the city heat each summer. The acreage includes gardens in many different styles including a Japanese garden, rock garden, Italian garden, pansy garden, and moonlight garden. I took a lot of photos that day! Here are some of my favorites...

Sonnenberg Mansion: 40 rooms of Queen Anne style beauty

The library, my favorite room in the mansion (of course!!)

Another view of the library

The sewing room was off a main bedroom

A cozy bedroom featuring a crazy quilt

Close-up of the lovely embroidery on the crazy quilt

Loved the title of this vintage book resting on a nightstand!

I couldn't help but notice how teeny-tiny all of the dresses were! I'm quite petite, but there is no way I could fit into any of the dresses that were on display throughout the house...

A view of the Italian Garden from the second floor porch. Unfortunately, due to lack of rain in the area, all of the grassy areas were very brown and burned out.

The rose garden in July; past its prime, but still lovely!

This Buddha was featured in the Japanese Garden.

Stairs in the rock garden that led up to a rocky perch to relax, enjoy nature, and simply watch the world go by.

Of course, the Blue and White Garden was my favorite!

Lovely statues were scattered throughout the grounds.

Such a wonderful glimpse into a bygone era!

Instagram--Well, I took the plunge and joined Instagram! I honestly did it just to be able to see my son's travel photos from China, Croatia, Hungary and Slovenia (where he is now--he'll fly home on Friday). But, once I got there, I discovered so, so many old blogging friends were now using Instagram sharing their beautiful stitching that I couldn't resist following them, too! It was like a reunion--I was so happy to reconnect with them and see what they've been up to... I've even posted a couple of my own photos so if you would like to follow me, my user name is caroling55. And if you are on Instagram--let me know and I'll look for you, too! I can see why folks enjoy it as it is so much easier and quicker than pulling a blog post together. But, I do like the blogging format, too, so I don't plan on giving my blog up any time soon. 

Birthday boys... My husband and youngest son have July birthdays within 5 days of each other so when my son decided to pay us a surprise visit on his birthday, I quickly whipped up this small carrot cake. I made a tiny banner from one I printed off the internet, added a couple of signs denoting their ages, and a few candles. It was so, so tasty!

A birthday cake for two very special guys...

And on the 23rd, my husband and I celebrated our 39th wedding anniversary! Well, I use the term "celebrated" very loosely because he was on a charity bike ride for multiple sclerosis for the entire weekend. But, he promised me that our 40th anniversary next July will be marked by a special trip... Hmm... where should we go? Where would you go for an anniversary milestone? Our two older sons and their girlfriends gave us this wonderful summery bouquet to commemorate our special day...

Anniversary flowers for 39 years of marriage

So, that about wraps up my busy month--oh, except for the new babies that have arrived at our house! No, not human babies--little bitty robins! If you are long time readers of Stitching Dreams, you may recall that robins built a nest on our front door wreath before (you can read about it in this post). They try each and every year to build there, so we usually bring the wreath inside during the spring and early summer to foil their attempts. Well, this year, they outwitted us and built their nest in the mid-summer July heat! The eggs were already there so we couldn't remove the wreath this time. I'm happy to announce that the birds have all hatched since these photos were taken... To avoid upsetting them, the front door is off limits and we just enter our house through the garage. 

Four new baby robins have arrived!

I am way, way behind on blog reading after this busy month, but plan on catching up today and tomorrow, so if I haven't been around to visit you in a while, I'll be popping in soon! I want to thank you all, as usual, for your very kind comments and your friendships. The stitching community is honestly one of the most supportive groups out there--aren't we the lucky ones?  Bye for now...