Easter Greetings!

I spent some time this week on a WIP--and I also started something new: "Dorothy Walpole" by the Scarlet Letter. I'm stitching it using AVAS (it's also charted for DMC) on 40 count Picture This Plus in Legacy. I love the PTP fabrics because they're substantial and the dying results in a particularly nice mottled appearance (which you can't tell from this close-up). The alphabets are mostly done in eyelet stitch. Interestingly, the alphabets make the sampler look Scottish, but it is Irish.


Here's Dorothy's chart.


This is Catharine McNeal 1843 by Samplers Revisted. I made some good progress this week, although the over-one section has slowed me down just a bit. This is being stitched on 36 count Picture This Plus also in Legacy, I think.


I have a concern though. Normally it's my policy not to frog unless it really bugs me or causes havoc with future stitching on the design. The windows should be done in rice stitch (the two-tone is correct on the left window, but I mistakenly stitched it in regular cross). Would you frog it and restitch in the rice stitch, which I correctly did on the right-hand window? There are several more windows, all of which should be done in rice stitch. Hmmmm. It does bug me a bit....


Here we have the Easter Bunny, investigating his treat basket. "Wait. Where are my treats?"

"No treats here! I'm throwing this thing around! And maybe moving out!"

"The Easter Bunny is very unhappy today and is going to make you pay!" Don't feel sorry for the bunny: the basket itself is the treat--it's made from Timothy Hay. And later on there will be fresh dandelions for dinner for all the rabbits.


Happy week ahead from the Grumpy Bunny and all his friends!

Bats in the Belfry

Happy Sunday, all! I crossed from spring into winter somewhere during Friday's grueling 11-hour drive here. Meet my mom, who will be 80 this year. We should all be in her physical condition at that age--I watched her literally run across a parking lot. May those be my dominant genes...


I was recruited to help with a spiff-up of my parents' church. Note the pipe organ on the right (the real kind with air--not digital). There were white streaks on the pipes. What is that, I asked innocently--some sort of oxidation? The cleaning crew leader laughed and explained that the church apparently has some resident bats, and they poo as they fly.


I loaded about six stitching projects into my car and have worked on two of them. Here's the Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat (Carriage House):


And Liz Easdon (The Essamplaire):


I'm homesick and am missing my routine, my stuff, and my peeps including these guys (and Peaches too, of course). BF reports that the bunnies are having quite the party without me.


Happy week ahead!

Malasadas

Greetings, all! I've spent the day toiling in the yard and doing garden prep, so this will be short since I need a nap now! Why is it that working in the yard/garden always sounds like so much fun from the safety of one's desk, but in real life it's tedious and exhausting--and downright dangerous what with the brown recluse bite I got a few years ago.

Stitching is both safer and more satisfying. On Stitch Night last Wednesday at In Stitches I started this new design: "Roses de Mai" by Reflets de Soie.


It is charted for either Gloriana or AVAS; I'm stitching it using AVAS on 40 count Lakeside in vintage magnolia, one of my favorite Lakeside colors. And to those who wonder how many WIPs I have--well, I'm not really sure, since they're scattered around the house in various bags.


I indulged a little sweet tooth today, with a small batch of chunky peanut butter cookies (the recipe made seven cookies) from "Small-Batch Baking" by Debby Nakos. I highly recommend the book. All of the recipes make small desserts--layer cakes no bigger than an easy-bake oven cake, chocolate cream pies that fit a tart shell, a batch of brownies that yields just three treats. My cookies called for, among other things, just a bit more than 1/3 of a cup of flour, 1/3 of a cup of peanut butter, 4 tablespoons of sugar, 2 tablespoons of butter and roughly half an egg. Damage containment! What I have a craving for is a malasada (sort of a Portuguese donut) from the Portuguese Bakery in Provincetown, MA, which I intend to satisfy at the end of the week with a trip to the Cape. I'd also like a stuffed quahog and a cup of quahog chowder from the Green Harbor Fish Market. Mmmmm. I'll be heading out of here on Friday and posting pictures of all the fun stuff I eat.


Speaking of which, these are my parents, swiping some "wild" beach plums from a neighbor's back yard. My father appears to be the lookout. Bad enough to steal the neighbors' beach plums, but we drove to an upscale neighborhood and parked along a beach plum hedge when we went to visit a lighthouse a couple years back. My mother got that gleam in her eye; she loves free stuff. Mother, I said sternly, we are NOT helping ourselves to their beach plums! But they aren't using them, she protested, and we could make jelly! Typical Cape back yard--sand, scrub and the occasional dead fish deposited in the marsh. Some years ago I did a photgraphic study of the various decomposing fish in the marsh and posted them on my work bulletin board.


Pink: "I don't suppose you'll be taking the bunnies." *Sigh*.


Happy week ahead.

A Woolly Story

Hi, All! I stitched away on several samplers this week, but mostly it was nuts and bolts dull stuff--borders and more borders, filling in, stitching lots of leaves and vines--not much worth looking at really. But, I did start a little something new this week:

"A Woolly Story" by Homespun Elegance. It's a sweet piece with lots of writing, but I loved the sheep and the simplicity of it.

As always, I had to fiddle with the colors and did a conversion from the recommended GAST, WDW and DMC fibers to Silk n Colors. I'm stitching it on a mystery color of 40count Lakeside from my stash.


We have a big, noisy thunderstorm moving through, so off I go to disconnect. Happy week ahead, and hopefully you can spend time with a friend.