Last color of summer...

This is a picture of a flower that was in a bouquet of flowers that Andrew brought home from the grocery store the other day. I believe it is some kind of corn flower, they were dark red/purple and there were also some yellow ones. The morning sun was coming in on the dining room table and I couldn't resist taking this picture. I love the way morning sun illuminates everything. I snapped this right before the clouds came and delivered us with almost an inch and a half of much needed rain!

A simple wrought iron fence...

The girls and I were at Shoeple Gardens about two weeks ago and I took this picture while they were playing in the children's garden. This is the wrought iron fence that surrounds the play area. I used the Macro function on my camera and set my aperture to about 3.2 I changed it to black and white in Photo Shop. I like the way you can't tell what year it was taken. It could just as easily have been taken a hundred years ago. This garden is one of the best places to take all kinds of pictures.

Back to School, Colds, and more Pears...

Well now that school has started both Fiona and Alexa have nasty colds. I have also gotten a cold so I have not been very productive this past week. I decided to post some pictures of some previous cross stitch projects that I have done. Fittingly enough, I completed this Pear Sampler in the Spring of 2007. I believe the pattern is by JBW Designs and it came from the Spring 2007 issue of Just Cross Stitch magazine. It hangs in our living room now. I thought it was appropriate to post being that we have picked a ton of pears this year. I have started a cross stitch for my sister for our birthday in November and I have finished the matching redwork piece to the Live Simply one I finished last week. I will have pictures of both soon. This week however, the number one project is Halloween costumes! Fiona wants to be a cheerleader and Alexa wants to be a monkey. Have a great week.

A Pumpkin Sampler...

Pumkin Sampler
Originally uploaded by cshella

I completed this sampler a couple of years ago. The pattern was free and came from Thea Duseck at www.victoriasampler.com The website is a wealth of information on crosstitch and needlework. There are lots of free patterns, tips, techniques, and cyber classes. They also have an online store that is fantastic. This mini sampler was stitched on 32 count linen and measures about four inches square. There are several different stitches in the sampler besides cross stitch. This happens to be one of my favorite pieces that I have stitched. It just screams fall, Thanksgiving, a little Halloween, all rolled in to one. Hope you enjoy looking at it.

A little bit of the fall season...

I finished this little pumpkin sampler in the fall of 2006. This was my first attempt at things like lazy daisy stitches and petite cross stitches. This was also my first time stitching with silk thread. It was hard to get used to as it was much slicker than cotton thread! I also paid to have this professionally framed-first time for that too. I was so pleased with the way that it turned out that I decided the $40.00 it cost me to have it framed was worth it. I would love to learn how to frame things well some day. Framers really do have a skill that takes a lot of patience and practice.

An Embroidered Halloween...

I have FINALLY finished my embroidered Halloween picture. I actually finished the embroidery about a week ago but it has taken me this long to finish the frame. I am still not finished with the frame; my goal is to needle felt a couple of candy corns and put them on the frame. Hopefully that will get done before next Halloween! The fabric I used to mount the embroidery on is actually a very rich purple but I think it is looking a little more blue in the picture. I used Mill Hill 4mm glass seed beads on the tree and Krienek Braid number 4 for the sparkle in the moon. This was a lot of fun to stitch, it took me a little longer than I would have liked but I am pleased with the result. On a bittersweet note we lost our barn on our property last night. We had high wind here in Ohio yesterday (remnants of Hurricane Ike if you can believe it) with wind gusts at the property of up to 70 mph. Now the good news is that all that was up was the skeleton of the barn, but it is no more... I'm grateful that it was our half built barn and not someone's house. Hope everyone has a good week!

Halloween pumpkins
Originally uploaded by cshella

Pumpkins are pumpkins, there is nothing all that difficult in the stitching, just a basic stem stitch. HOWEVER, I can tell you that I re-did Mr. Jack-O-Lantern's face several times. I had a really hard time getting it to look like a face and not just like a group of black blobs. The other two pumkins were originally going to have faces too, but after the first one I decided that if I wanted to get it done by this Halloween, they were going to have to just be plain pumpkins.