sorry I'm late...

Hi folks. I know I said I was going to draw the winners for the giveaway yesterday, but lately it's been too much to do, too few hours in the day--so much for the lazy days of summer : ) At least we're over the hump, the summer solstice has passed and we're counting down to fall (finally)!
Anyway, with the help of Mr. Random Number Generator, the winners are:

Catherine

Cindy

Valerie

I will be e-mailing you ladies shortly for your mailing info. Please don't expect blazing speed in getting your packages to you, but I should have everything in your hands, or at least in the mail, before I leave for vacation in August. Thanks to everyone for entering, and for your comments and support! I still have a stack of charts I will never get around to stitching that defies belief--it's a bit depressing actually--so I may have a de-stashing giveaway later this summer. Hope everyone has a great week!

just wow

Once again, I have no stitching of my own to post about, but I wanted to show off this stunning flatfold I received from Raffaella for the Holiday (4th of July) Exhange. This is Brooke Nolan's Spirit of America Angel which was in the Just Cross Stitch magazine last year, stitched on 28 count navy cashel. The stitchng is beautiful and the finishing absolutely flawless--my crappy photography does not do it justice. Thank you so much Raffaella! The funny thing is, as my long-time followers may recall, I partially stitched this last year on perforated paper, but due to overzealous trimming, I did not leave enough room to stitch the angel's hand, and threw this project in the bottom of a drawer in disgust...I guess I don't have to figure out how to salvage that piece now : )

The only other cause for excitement (in my mind anyway--aside from the fact that the kids are starting summer school on Monday) is the fact that I will now have at least one Casper pumpkin for fall, and have been seeing more and more of these goodies starting to ripen : ) : )

A last reminder, too, my giveaway is on Tuesday, so please check out my June 3 post and leave a comment to enter...that's about it so have a great weekend!

another week and not a lot to show

Hi everyone,

I think the title of this post says it all. This was kiddies' last week of school and with the end-of-the year parties, procuring the traditional teacher gifts and everything else, I have had hardly a minute to sit my butt in a chair and stitch. I had a "where have the years gone" moment when I dropped off Daughter for her last day of 7th grade. I always get sad at the end of the school year (my kids have the opposite reaction). This year was particularly bad. In a year's time she will be off to high school--what the...? What happened to the two-year-old who used to walk around with a baggie full of plastic dinosaurs? Eighth grade graduation is going to be tough (for me anyway), even more so as she will be leavng the much-loved school she's attended since her preschool days. Crap. Maybe I can sneak some white wine in a Sparklets bottle into wherever they have the graduation ceremony.

On a happier note (kinda) I have been working on The Goode Huswife's Quaker Four Corners sampler but the frogs have been jumping, leaping, cavorting all over this little piece so progress has been painfully slow. I am currently picking out the entire motif on the lower left corner... and just the "W" in the alphabet had to be frogged three times! Arrgh.

The rest of my own stitching has been on exchange pieces so I have no more of my own work to show. I did receive two exchanges this week. This one is from Michelle for the Seasonal Exchange--it is a JBW design stitched with Dragon Floss thread and beautifully finished. Thank you Michelle! I don't have a lot of summer-themed goodies for decorating (definitely NOT my favorite season--I feel a lengthy rant coming on about all the things that are wrong with summer--maybe the next post : )) so this will be displayed prominently! The other piece was from Julie for the Summer Ornament exchange for the ILCS Yahoo group. Julie did not mention who the designer was, but it is cute and I love her finishing--I will definitely have to try making a no-sew cube sometime.

Since I have nothing else to show, I took some snaps of my pups, who hardly ever make it on to the blog, with good reason--I had to wait at least 10 minutes for them to hold still so I could take a picture. Can you tell they've been chasing each other all over the yard?

And the garden...tiny corn plants are tiny no more, and hopefully soon I will be enjoying my home-grown tomatoes...

That's all for this week. Don't forget to enter my giveaway (previous post). Happy Stitching!

Mehitable Wright and the Peacocks of Doom and a blogger-versary

Well guess what, it's my one year blogger-versary already. To tell you the truth I have been going back and forth trying to decide if I should post about a giveaway, or announce that I was taking a blogging vacation--some stuff going on here and health concerns (nothing life-threatening, just stuff that I would rather not deal with) have made it difficult to blog in a sufficiently upbeat manner. After several days of wallowing in self-pity I realized that there are lots of other folks worse off than I am, so....a blogaversary it is! If I am occassionally bitchy and blog without lots of lols and : ) : ) I am sure you all can cope ; )

I recently was fortunate enough to find a lovely and rather large grab bag of linen and evenweave pieces, and have been stitching smalls like crazy, Mehitable Wright's Redwork Sampler (featuring the Peacocks of Doom which are of Doom b/c I ran out of the red CC floss I was using...I thought they looked good in black anyway) by Pineberry Lane being one of these. For the giveaway there will be three names drawn, with each receiving one of my recently -stitched smalls (Mehitable will be among them) finished in some manner...a stitchy box top, or pin pillow, or pinkeep...I will take the preferences of the winners into consideration..;and an assortment of charts and other goodies, again tailored to the likes of the winners to the extent possible. Not sure what will go into each package but hopefully you will dig it. The giveaway is for my followers this time (you are of course welcome to become a follower if you are not already); just leave a comment on this post. I will draw on June 22 which is also my ??? wedding anniversary (I could do some math and give you an exact number but I am too lazy...my eldest is going to be 13 this fall so let's say it's at least 14 years, k? though I have a feeling that it's more..seems like 100 some days...)

For those of you who are still awake, I have some exchanges to show as well. This lovely is from the BBD exchange from Lisa V in Australia, and is of course Bluebird (I love this design, which I stitched for Elisabeth, and was thrilled to receive one of my own) done on a lovely pink linen and finished as a pinkeep.

The second is from the Please Pass the Biscornu exchange from Mayte--done with Dragon Floss on willow green linen with bugle beads and crystals and just beautifully finished. Thank you Mayte!

That's all for now folks. Thank you, by the way, for all the lovely comments on my finishes in the previous post! You all are very kind. Until next time...