Calm Sea, Prosperous Voyage (With Apologies to Mendelssohn)

Belated Christmas greetings, all! I have been reading but not posting. It's been busy, and now things have quieted down just a bit, so there's finally time to do a semi-coherent post. I haven't been stitching tons either, but I did make a little progress on Peaceful Paradise. I have been sticking to it like grim death; I so want this sucker OFF my q-snaps so I can move onto other things. And yes, I started the Shark Sampler (which is what I will call it from now on, although it's officially Mary Johnson 1806 by Queenstown Sampler Designs) on Christmas day, but I don't have much in the way of progress to show, so I'll wait a bit to debut her.

Here's another potential finish for 2014: "Whale Hunting" by Elizabeth Talledo/Dames of the Needle. I'm stitching it on 32 count Americana (I think) using one or two threads over two (as charted) using WDW and GAST.

Since we're speaking of ships, this may be the year for ship themes for me. I'd like to stitch the new "Three Ships" by Shepherd's Bush, and this one too, a recent ebay win for me by Kathy Barrick.

I did my usual pre-Christmas walkabout of Fredericksburg's quaint main street, Caroline Street. There are wonderful antique and gift stores and they decorate their windows for Christmas. Seen in the window of an antique shop is this spool cabinet. Not sure how authentic. The price tag is $268, if I recall correctly.

These feathered hanging lamps were in the window of Commonwealth Lighting. I love them, however impractical they might be.

There is a wonderful toy store in town called the Rocking Horse Gallery. They feature dolls and stuffed toys, as well as artist bears and other handmade items. I'm not sure if they do so now, but in the past, they offered bear-making classes. Tempting when you see these!

I'm off to the Cape on the 1st for a long weekend with my dad, since we didn't get to go at Christmas. I've got my fingers crossed that I don't encounter snow, since I'll be driving. When the traffic's not too bad, I actually like the peacefulness of the passing landscape, the radio playing, and the time with my thoughts. Happy New Year to all of you, from me, the bunnies, and the cats. Pink and Peaches, passing a long winter evening with a little kiss.

Old Friends

Hi, all! Time has been speeding up, I think, since Thanksgiving. We went to the Cape for the holiday, joining a zillion other people on the highway: 11 hours up; 13 hours back as we hit bumper-to-bumper traffic all the way from central NJ to Baltimore. It was fun while we were there, though. Here's a photo of one of our meals (I'd rather have this than turkey any day): oysters on the half shell from Martha's Vineyard and Buzzards Bay.

Working in Tysons Corner has its charms sometimes, but the traffic isn't one of them. This is how it looked from my window on Friday evening.

I've been working on Ann Dale by Shakespeare's Peddler. I pull her out every Christmas.

And I'm coming close to a finish on Peaceful Paradise:

This is an older photo of Pink, entertaining himself with my yarn project. He had already chewed on the bamboo needles. Pink: "They were tasty. This, however, is a little stringy."

Amended to add in reponse to Margaret's question: The header piece is a very old project that I started maybe 25 years ago. It's a Clara Waever design from the Eva Rosenstand catalogue. That's how I used to purchase needlework: from a color catalog (advertised in the back of stitching magazines) before I routinely visited needlework shops and of course, long before the internet. It's called "Stockholm," and it's still available. The design measures 18 x 47 on 26 count linen. I am not a fan of the linen that came in the kit--it's rough, and I prefer 40 count anyway, these days. All the same, I think I'll finish it as is. For one thing, the kit came packaged with either Anchor or DMC that is not numbered, so it would be impossible to scrap it and reuse the thread that's left if I wanted to stitch it on smaller count fabric, since it would be difficult to match the thread if I ran out. It's huge and colorful, though, so it's a shame not to finish it. Happy week!