Happy Birthday to Little John

Yesterday was his party and we all had a ball.  It was held at the Veteran's Memorial Park in Orange City here in Florida and it's beautiful.

It's hard to imagine that he is 1 year old already but time does move on.  Here are some pictures of the party.

Before he got his cupcake to dig in to.

After the cupcake which he really liked

The park has a splash pad for the little
kids and he just loves this

Splash pad

Proud Mom and Dad

Opening his many, many presents

It was a fun time and we all enjoyed being with him on this special day.

Have a Blessed Day,

Barbara

I must share this.....

Peyton and Little John came to visit today and his Halloween costume needed some alterations.  Well we made the changes and this is our little sunshine dressed up for Halloween as a "nerd".

You can't tell very well but it actually has a pocket protector and we couldn't forget the high water pants.  Peyton added the white tape to the middle of the glasses.  I might be partial but I think he's just darn adorable.

Blessings, Barbara

Hello my fine Ladies on this glorious Tuesday morning.  I've had some  good luck and bad luck in my stitching this past weekend that proves to me that somethings just don't work out for a reason.

I started the 2 projects last week and both of them have hit the dust.  I just couldn't get into them so I figured why waste my time, threads and fabric.  This has happened a lot to me over the years as I'm sure it has you also.  What I have started working on again is The Weaver's Sampler and I'm enjoying it immensely.

This is the one I'll be dedicating to my Aunt Margaret who was the quilter and so I'm trying to come up with a way of demonstrating this in the finishing.  Any ideas?

Then there's Vallie.  This is how I get stared at when she knows it's getting close to bed time at night.  She's relentless....

Then there's my little buddy....Little John.  Peyton sent this to me this morning of how he climbed into the laundry basket and just decided to lay back and take a rest.  Notice the one sock on and the one sock off.  He hates socks!

That's about all for now.  We have Little John's birthday party on Sunday so I'll have lots of pictures come Monday.  Until then...

Blessings, Barbara

Two New Starts

Good Monday morning ladies.  Hope your week has started out nicely....mine has been so so.

I decided to start two new projects.  The first one is a Little House Needleworks called Home Sweet Home.  Ms. Williams recommended this being stitched on an off white linen but I decided to take someone's advice.  Marly of Samplers and Santas mentioned on her blog about a color of linen called "Tin Roof".  I had never heard of this so I looked at my LNS and she had some.  I LOVE THIS COLOR!!!  It is such a great color to make something look primitive.  This design isn't what I would call primitive but on this linen it takes that look.

I'm stitching this with silks and it's coming along great.  The next design is from Creative Needle Arts and it came in a kit with white aida and Finca cotton floss.  I had never used this floss before but it's great to work with.  It glides thru the fabric really well and doesn't fray.  I'm not using the aida so I decided to do it on a purple hand dyed linen and I like how the colors are showing up.

White is so blah.......don't ya think?

We got to spend a nice quiet weekend at home and I got a lot of stitching in. 

I can't believe that Little John will be a year old in two weeks.  Time sure goes faster the older you get and I hate it.  Here's our big boy sitting on his favorite place to watch tv..

Blessings, Barbara

It's finished!

I worked very hard today to finish my Never Fading Sampler by Threadwork Primitives and I'm thrilled with how it turned out.  Remember me saying that I wasn't sure how big it was going to turn out so I was glad I used a larger piece of fabric.  Would you believe that I ended up with about 4 inches all the way around.  Sometimes you get lucky!  Here it is in all it's glory....

I'm not sure why Nan named it "Never Fading" but I have my adaptation of it.  The items you see in the pictures come from three generations of my family.  The glasses were my Great Grandmother's, the picture is of her daughter, my Grandmother, and the baby shoes were her son's, my father.  To me Love is Never Fading and all 3 of these items are precious to me.    I left space in the center lower border for the year because the memory isn't as great and I have trouble remembering when I stitched something.  I'm also one of those who does not put her initials on her projects.  Do you?

I'm glad this is finished and now onto something new.  What?  I have no idea.....

Blessings, Barbara

P.S  the pattern is in my store with a piece of WDW Wool with it.

Update

Hello my fellow stitchers.  I hope everyone who was in Matthew's path has recovered and got away with not too much damage.  

One good thing did come out of this storm and that was I got a lot of stitching done on my Never Fading sampler.  I can't figure out why the designer named it that.  Any ideas?  I only have the X and the inside border at the bottom and then I get to add the wool, charms and buttons.

I'm going to be adding this pattern to my store when I'm finished and I'm going to include a piece of the WDW wool that I used.  I've also added a box I made several years ago for my scissor collection but since I sold that off, I no longer need the box.

Remember the lace yarn I showed you called Grandmother's Kitchen?  Well I tried working with it and I was having alot of trouble with it....so that's been set aside for another day.  What I did start was a knitted cowl out of this beautiful Trendsetter yarn called Firefly.  It's a camel color with just a bit of red sparkle to it.  I thought it would go nice with a red silk blouse I have to wear for Christmas.  

The pattern is on Ravelry and is called LTYC Open Hooded Cowl.  It doesn't have a picture of the completed design so you'll have to wait and see with me what it looks like.  LOL  I like surprises....don't ask me why.

Well that's all the updates I have right now.  I haven't decided what my next xs project will be but I know it's going to be small.  I need a break.

Blessings, Barbara

Whew.....

Well Matthew is on his way to bother someone else and hopefully will die out soon.  We had a tree limb fall off a tree and Peyton and John showed up today to help us with that problem.  We didn't even lose power....although it flickered a couple of times.  

To anyone who has yet to be bothered by this storm, I hope all is well afterwards.  

God is Good

Blessings, Barbara

Matthew....

Well it looks like we are going to get hit with a hurricane named Matthew and here I always liked that name.  Here in the Orlando area we have so many tourists and I know the state government has to issue warnings and all but I really think they get ahead of themselves sometimes.  We've lived here for over 30 years and can remember only one year where we received damage from a hurricane and that was in 2004.  Three hurricanes in 6 weeks was just a little over the top.  So we've prepared as we always have....brought in garbage cans, plants, wind chimes and any thing that can go flying and that's about it.  We will probably lose power and so flashlights and lanterns are ready and we have an extra tank of gas for the grill to cook on. 

Now for you ladies that are also in this storms path I pray that nothing bad happens to any of your family or friends and if you could offer up a prayer for us, I'd be eternally grateful.

Blessings During This Time,

Barbara

Finally Found One

Good morning my sweet friends....hope your Monday is off to a great start.  Mine has been so so.  I think I'm getting my end of summer cold that I get every year.  I usually get 2 colds a year...one in the spring and one in the fall.  This time I headed this one off at the pass and started taking meds immediately instead of waiting.  Maybe it will help and maybe not....who knows.

Well yesterday afternoon, Peyton, John, Little John, Valerie (John's sister) and I decided we were going shopping for my dress for the wedding.  I really didn't want to.  I told Peyton I was planning on waiting till after the holidays to start looking.  Well apparently this gave Peyton a near heart attack because she thought I should have it now and ready.  So off we went to the Altamonte Mall.  Looked at all the major stores and finally came to Dillards.  I don't know why we didn't start there first because I've always had good luck there.  So here's my dress for the wedding.....

I know the picture is terrible but it's the best one I took.  The color is navy blue and it has a nice over cape and sleeves of chiffon with some sparkly lace and jewels around the cuffs.  I think I still need and nice necklace and ear rings and shoes and I'm all set.   The only problem is that it's a floor length gown and when I have it one, there's about 10 inches of fabric laying on the floor.  I swear they make these long enough for a giraffe to wear so I'm not sure if I want to tackle this job myself or take it to a professional.  Thank goodness that's over.

I've been working on the Threadwork Primitives sampler and this is what I've done so far.  I think I miscalculated the size because it's turning out bigger than I thought it would.  Thank goodness I used a larger than needed piece of fabric.

Well I hope all of you have a wonderful week and are able to get some serious stitching time in.

Blessings for the week,

Barbara