One big pink house and a couple of bees

Happy May, everyone! I hope your weather has warmed up like mine has--finally... It feels so wonderful to walk outside without a coat and simply feel the sun's warmth on my face. It truly was a long, hard winter and not the best to be adjusting to retirement. I hope that I'm breaking out of my cocoon bit by bit now that the weather is nicer and more activities seem to be filling my calendar.  Baby steps...

I've decided that I'm a very slow stitcher! I know it's not a race and the older I get, the more I am stitching just for the pure relaxation of feeling the needle go in and out of the fabric in that special rhythm that it has. And that's one reason why I could never do Stitch Maynia and start a new project each day--it would drive me batty! Why stress myself out?  How about you? Are you participating in Stitch Maynia this year? 

Well, I was bitten by the bee bug recently (or stung, should I say!) as bee themed stitching seems to be calling my name more and more these days. This first finish is a delightful older 2002 sampler from Ewe & Eye & Friends called "Old Rose and Chamomile" which is stitched on 40 ct. antique white Newcastle linen.  Oh, the colors--could they be more spring-like?  I used Gentle Arts "Antique Rose" to create the brick-like appearance of the house, using both the light and dark portions of the thread to form little bricks, and I love how it turned out. My sampler should actually be called "Old Rose and Dandelion Stem" as I substituted GAST "Dandelion Stem" for the called for "Chamomile." It doesn't have nearly the same ring though, does it?! The other change I made to the colors was substituting WDW "Collards" for DMC 3051.

"Old Rose and Chamomile"

The specialty stitches in these Ewe & Eye & Friends designs add such a lovely dimensional look to the finish, don't they? Here are a couple of close-ups so you can see them better. If you haven't tried specialty stitches, please give them a try--they are not hard to do and are actually quite fun! In other changes, I stitched the pretty eyelet stitches on the right vine in the same color as the house and added a tiny doorknob to the front door.

Some of the beautiful specialty stitches

And just look at that giant bee--I love him! The black portion of his body is done in satin stitch along with portions of the grass, urn, and door (which you can see in the photo above).

Rhodes stitches on the flower centers

Stitching this chart now has me on a hunt for more of the Ewe & Eye & Friends house charts. I'd like to stitch and frame them and hang them all together on the wall of one of my bedrooms. They can be hard to find, though, so I'll be haunting eBay and Etsy for a while!

I also had another small, but very cute bee finish that I made into a tiny pillow. Another Ewe & Eye & Friends chart, this one is called "Bee Hive Scissor Companion." It was meant to be turned into a scissor fob, but I went in a different direction. It began with a fairly simple and straightforward finish (although all that satin stitching did cause a bit of a headache for me on the 32 ct. lambswool jobelan).

A tiny Ewe & Eye & Friends beehive

This was one where the finishing actually took longer than the stitching, but I think it looks so darling. Do you think a bowl full of bee pillows might be in my future? Hmmm...

First finish for a new bee bowl???

And look! Everyone's favorite crow couple, Ida Mae and Ira Ray are now framed--and I did it myself! Yay! I used the tutorial on this blog post from With Thy Needle and Thread and am so proud of myself. I purchased the frames online from Franken Frames so I spent less than $25 for each frame. My husband cut out the foam core board for me which was a huge help so I know more self-framing will be in my future. If you are new to my blog and want to read more about the crow couple finishes, just click here. 

The crows are framed--now I need to figure out the perfect place to hang them!

Do you purchase a lot of stash? I've been watching a few Floss Tube videos lately and have to admit that I'm shocked at how much fabric and how many threads and charts many of these stitchers purchase--each week! I guess I am frugal, but I seem to purchase very little. Or maybe I'm just being realistic; at age 63 I know I already have way more charts than I will ever be able to stitch.  That being said, I did purchase a few goodies last week--all of them at a great price on either eBay or online cross stitch shop sales. I was especially excited to get the "Home for the Holidays" book (Blackbird Designs) as it included some of my very favorite designs. Would you like a closer look?

A few new goodies for me!

Here are just four of the designs I am looking forward to stitching from the BBD booklet! I know many of you have already stitched one or more of these and thoroughly enjoyed them.

Which one should I stitch first?

Giveaway... And I have one last stitchy thing--a chart giveaway. In honor of spring and all the singing birds that awaken me each morning (way too early!), I am offering this beautiful Teresa Wentzler chart which I removed from the August 1998 issue of Just Cross Stitch Magazine. You could stitch all five birds as a bellpull or stitch each one individually--either would be lovely. If you would like a better look at the chart, click here. If you are interested in giving this chart a new home, please let me know in your comments. And please remember--this is NOT the whole magazine, just five pages of it that will be folded and mailed in a legal sized envelope to save money. PLEASE make sure to include your email address or I won't be able to contact you... I'll announce the winner the next time I post (probably toward the end of May). 

If you are interested in giving this chart a new home--let me know in your comment!

I'll leave you with a couple of photos of the glorious spring trees and flowering shrubs in bloom in my yard--I so wish this time of year would last longer!

Our beautiful white crabapple blooms by our patio each May

♥♥♥ Home ♥♥♥

Thank you all so much for stopping by. Whether you are a long-time reader or a new follower, I'm so glad you visited me today. Thank you for each and every comment--I love reading them and I do appreciate the time it takes to write them. If you have any questions for me, please make sure to include your email in your comments so I can get back to you, okay? Enjoy your week, my friends! Bye for now...

Buzzing in with a late summer finish!

Well, hello there! And how are my stitching friends on this fine morning? Well, it's not exactly fine here in western Pennsylvania--it is grey, drizzly, and extremely humid. And the outlook for the weekend doesn't look much different. Not a very satisfactory August in terms of weather, but other than that, all is good. Busy, but good! I only have one stitching finish for you today, but it is a fairly large one (for me, that is!).

I am, for the most part, a one project at a time stitcher... Oh, I have a couple of unfinished projects patiently waiting in the background, but I know myself. If I leave a project, I have a hard time going back to it which is why I tend to stick through my current project until completion. Today's finish is from a very old Prairie Schooler Chart called "Garden Verses"  (Book No. 49). Unfortunately, it is not one that has been reprinted yet so it is not easy to find. I'm sure I paid way too much for mine on eBay a few years back...

Prairie Schooler Garden Verses (Book No. 49)

For this lovely piece, I used DMC threads on 40 ct. burch Newcastle and I am so pleased with how well the white shows up. When I posted this on Instagram yesterday, several people commented that the colors look a bit different than those on the chart. Well, I did make some color changes! The main thing I did was to use more pink in this piece. I substituted DMC 356 for the suggested 632 and DMC 3779 for 407 in the flowers. For the highlighted words ("busy bee," "honey," "flower") I used DMC 420 instead of the suggested 632. Other than that, the colors are as charted.

One busy big bee

The hive seemed to take forever but I decided to just buckle down and "get it done!" And all those little bees--whew! I tried to add some little black stripes to their tiny bodies to look more like bumblebees, but they ended up looking like prisoners or something evil, so I left them as charted with just the white and gold.

And lots of tiny little bees

It's funny, but bee charts have been calling my name lately... This is just one example of how a stitcher's tastes can change over the years. I was never particularly interested in them before. Has that ever happened to you--a sudden interest in stitching a subject that had never appealed to you before? There are two other lovely garden themed charts in this booklet and I can picture myself stitching them in the future, too!

I "pinked" up the flowers a bit!

We've seen a lot of these fuzzy little guys on our zinnias this summer. If you click on the photo for a better look, you can even see the yellow pollen on him! Yay--spreading the love!

This fellow just flew from flower to flower

I wondered about the sentiment on this Prairie Schooler sampler and discovered that it was the first stanza of a short poem penned by English theologian,  Isaac Watts back in 1715 titled "Against Idleness and Mischief."  Basically, it was used to encourage children to stay busy and not be idle or they'll get into trouble! Hmmm... I think there may just be some truth to that.

When we were in Washington, DC a couple weeks ago to visit my son, we stopped in at the International Spy Museum because it was a rainy day and what else do you do on a rainy day in DC, but go to a museum?   Now remember, I am surrounded by all men in my family so this is the norm for us--we do not visit stitching shops or tea parlors or any of the fun things that I read about on your blogs. But, it was interesting and, guess what?! I found a giant piece of cross stitch!! I'm not sure if this is a vintage piece, but my guess is that someone stitched it in honor of Rose O'Neal Greenhow who was a Confederate spy during the Civil War, but just look at it! The full quote is actually: "God gave me both a brain and a body, and I shall use them both." The whole thing was huge--probably four feet long by a 18 inches tall, I'm guessing. Love the giant bees that flank her name...

A piece of stitching found at the Spy Museum!

Long-time readers of Stitching Dreams know what problems we have with the deer in our yard. Yes, they are adorable and fun to watch,  but they do take the joy out of gardening. We've pretty much thrown up our hands in surrender over the past two years and, unless we can plant within the fenced in portion of our yard, things don't get planted.  Anyway, my husband was able to capture this adorable video of a mama deer and her triplet fawns frolicking in our back yard. I love how mama simply stands and eats our trees while her babies cavort in the background! He took it on his iPhone through our kitchen window so it's not the clearest, but it was just too sweet not to share. If you click on the "full-size" symbol in the lower right corner, you can get a much bigger picture of it... Enjoy!

I have a busy weekend ahead with family visiting and dinner guests on Saturday so I'm off to clean the house and do some last minute grocery shopping. It seems like every weekend has been scheduled with something or other since early May and I am longing for a weekend of simply sitting and stiching. At this rate that won't happen until after our son's wedding, our Hawaii trip, Thanksgiving, and Christmas are all over--in other words, until next year! Oh well, at least we're making plenty of wonderful memories this year! Enjoy your weekend, my friends, and thanks for visiting and saying "hello"--you are the best!  Bye for now...