Berlinwork

I thought I would show you some of my stitched pieces of Berlinwork designs.  I love these beautiful designs from the Victorian age so much and hope you will enjoy looking at a few of them.

This is one of my very favorites, it comes from one of Raffaella Serena's wonderful books called Animal Embroideries and Patterns.  She has three books on this subject and I'm lucky enough to have all three of them.

A detail.  Can you imagine using such a fancy bowl outside to feed the pigeons?

Some of the roses.  I stitched this on 32 count Lugana with one strand of DMC over two threads of the fabric.  This is my preference for stitching detailed designs like this one, I think it has a nicer, neater look to it than it would have if stitching it over only one thread.   Here are some more designs from Raffaella's books.

A rosy cheeked girl holding a cat and a dog.

A beautiful swan with her little cygnet swimming beside her.  I love this one so much that I stitched it twice, I hardly ever do that!

A contented sheep among the flowers.

I love Victorian cat pictures.  I put this one on a large stitching bag and on the other side of the bag I put this kitty.

I'm currently stitching this kitty again, probably to put on another purse.

I'm pretty sure this one, called Floral Symphony can be found on Ellen Maurer-Stroh's website.  

This came from Victorian Cross Stitch a great source of Berlinwork patterns.  And speaking of Victorian cats, I want to show you my newest tattoo.

 Just a bad bathroom mirror arm selfie, sorry!  This was done by Erik who is always kind enough to tattoo whatever pictures I bring in to him.  He made this look precisely like the Victorian image that I had found online.  Now, I will end with a few pictures of some real kitties.

Cricket, posing on the stairs.

Sarah, helping me fold the sheets.

And Harley, as usual, up to no good!  Click on the picture if you want to see the toilet paper hanging from his guilty little kitty lips.  Isn't that expression the epitome of naughtiness caught in the act?  It's a good thing we love him so much!  

Thank you for visiting, I appreciate it so much!

The Grubs Ate Our Back Yard and Other Pictures

Last summer most of our lawn was eaten by grubs.  If you haven't experienced these little devils, they are fat worm-like creatures that burrow under the ground and eat the roots of whatever grass you may have.  Then the grass dies and you are left with bare dirt.  At first, we were a little upset, but then the area began to fill in with a variety of plants.  Of course, nature abhors a vacuum!

Some came from nearby flower beds, some probably just appeared when seeds blew in from elsewhere.  Mostly weeds, like the yellow flowers here.  I know they're weeds but I don't care, I think they are rather nice looking!

One of the things that we now have are these adorable miniature violas or Johnny-Jump-Ups.  The larger viola that is in the middle is a normal sized one so you can see how tiny the other ones are.   One of the advantages of our new wildflower garden is it doesn't have to be mowed, my husband likes that!

Close up of the yellow weed flowers.

This picture was taken in the woods by our neighbor's house.  She was out walking and found this darling little fawn.  Its mother was probably away finding something to eat and when Mom tells her fawn to stay put they will not budge.  We took pictures while being careful not to disturb the little one and then we crept quietly away.  At one point I saw the fawn's eye flutter open to look at me, but he/she did not move other than that!

Just a picture of some ground fog that appeared one evening, I like the way it looks kind of ethereal.

I call this Forget-Me-Not Lane.  It's part of one of the walking areas in our town, this probably goes for about a quarter of a mile with loads of the little blue flowers on each side of the path.  I love waking through there!

My latest tattoo! I have always loved the look of bird's nests with eggs and when I saw this picture on The Graphics Fairy, a wonderful website full of vintage images, I knew it would make a great tattoo.  If you haven't been there, be sure and check it out at The Graphics Fairy
This tattoo was done by Erik at Lakeview Tattoo, the same artist who did all of my other ones, I think he did a beautiful job on it!
Thanks for visiting again, I appreciate it!

Just a Bunch of Pictures

I was in a picture taking mood today!

Inside plants.

Sedum in bloom.

Flowerpots in barn.

Burr plant.

Maggie

Mother barn swallow feeding babies.  She's hovering over the one on the far left.

 

 My new tattoo!

The new baby in the family, we finally decided on a permanent name for her--Pepper!

I hope you're having a wonderful summer!  Thanks for visiting!

Embroidery, Stash and New Cat Tattoo

Hello, everyone!  I don't have any cross stitch to show you, I'm still working on my Jenny Bean's Creation Sampler, but I have done a few pieces of embroidery.

These designs are all from the Vintage Garden book that I told you about on my last post.  These things go a lot faster than cross stitch and I really enjoy doing them.  I also made a new stitching bag using an Aunt Martha's transfer of morning glories.

Please excuse the less than pristine condition of the bag since I have been using it the last couple of weeks. 

I've also had a chance to add to my stash; during spring break my hubby offered to take me to a nearby town where they have a wonderful Ben Franklin Crafts and a Hobby Lobby.  At Ben Franklin's I found this wonderful selection of co-ordinating fabrics. 

And from my favorite stash source, Anita, I was sent these two JBW Designs charts that I can't wait to start!

And here are some pearl cottons for emroidery and some of the newest DMC Color Variations threads.  The flowered fabric peaking out from under the doily is another pretty one from our trip to Ben Franklin's, I love the colors on it!
And now, my newest tattoo, I think it's my favorite one yet!

It was done by Erik, who did my other tattoos and I think he outdid himself with this one, I absolutely love it!  I found the image of the kitty which is an old Victorian picture and asked if he could put some pink roses under it.  The kitty was pictured with a sort of tasselly bow around her neck, which looked ok, but I really wanted some roses instead.  I think that the pink in the roses looks nice with the blue of the kitty's eyes.  I now have a cat on each arm!  Now I'm going to end this post with another kitty picture.  If you have a cat, have you noticed how they are always sitting or laying on whatever little object that you happen to throw down?  I had left my stitching hoop on the couch and then later on I looked and there was Trixie all curled up within the circle, I thought it was such a typically cat like thing to do!

Thank you for visiting this blog again, and for leaving such thoughtful comments on the last one, I appreciate it so much!

New Bag with Vintage Embroidery

I've made a new purse to add to my collection, maybe I should start calling this blog the Bag Blog!  But I love having lots of purses and bags to use.  The pattern for this pot of flowers design is from a new book I got recently and I love, love, love this book!

It's by Nori Koenig and you can find it at Amazon.  It's full of beautiful old floral designs with a pattern for each one of them.  The book shows a photograph of each original antique piece so you can see the colors that were used to embroider them.  Then in the back of the book there are black line patterns for you to trace and transfer to your fabric.  I counted 53 of them!  If you have any interest in doing vintage embroidery I believe you would love this book, too.  I'm sorry if I sound like a commercial, but when I find something that I really love, I just have to tell you about it!  Here's a closer picture of the one I chose for my bag.

I used all DMC floss, plain black and DMC variegated colors for the rest of it.  I wanted to use thread colors that would have been available at the time these were first embroidered.  It was such fun to stitch!  Here's the back of the bag:

This is a double pocket panel with patches of rose fabric for decoration.  There are also small side panel pockets of the same rose fabric for cell phone, etc.  I got this fabric and the wooden rose buttons on the front from Anita.  I've got another order coming from her soon with new stuff from Nashville and I can hardly wait!  I've also been working on some cross stitch, a Shakespeare's Peddler design called Jenny Bean's Creation Sampler.

It's charted for Gentle Art threads but I was in the mood for silk so I changed it over to Belle Soie and Gloriana silk floss.   It's only about halfway done, I'm anxious to get down towards the bottom where there is a nice Adam and Eve scene.  I just love Theresa's designs, don't you?  And now I have a question for all of you nice blogging people;  have you been having any difficulty with leaving comments on other people's blogs lately?  On just a few blogs, when I try to leave a comment, the comment box will come up, but for just a second and then it disappears.  No matter how many times I click on it to bring it back, it just goes away again before I have time to add a comment.  Sometimes the blog itself will only show up briefly and then it goes blank and stays that way.  It's very frustrating, and I've been wondering if it's happening to anyone else?  So, if I had been in the habit of commenting on your blog, but haven't recently, please know that this is why and not that I don't find your posts just as lovely and interesting as always!  Thanks so much for visiting my blog again and thank you for each wonderful and thoughtful comment that you left for my last post!  I'm going to leave you with a picture of my latest tattoo, just a small one this time.

 This bee represents my husband, Tom.  I wanted to get it because we have always been in the habit of calling each other "Bee", you know, like in "honeybee."  So now I think of him whenever I see the bee on my arm. 
Thanks again for visiting!

A Harvest of Blessings

 

Hello everyone, I'm glad I finally have something done to show you!  This is a Brightneedle design from the 2002 Keepsake Cross Stitch Calendar.  I used my own selection of Gentle Art Sampler threads and finished it up like a giant pinkeep for hanging on the wall.  Here it is in our kitchen.  I changed the  little dog figure at the top to a cat, not that I don't like dogs, but it just seems more appropriate in a house full of cats.

Brown ric-rack finishes off the edges.

I also did an embroidery for another wall hanging, this one will go in my sewing room.  It was a free design that was shown done all in variegated pink but I decided I wanted to do it in different colors.  You can find this lovely free design at the wonderful blog We Love French Knots.  Click on free patterns, then scroll until you get to the August 29, 2011 post where there is a feature on the artist Verna Mosquera of The Vintage Spool.  At the bottom of that post there is a link for downloading the pattern.

Do you remember in my last post where I had shown a picture of a morning glory growing in our house and mentioned that I was thinking of getting a morning glory tattoo?  Well, about a week and a half ago I went to Lakeview Tattoo and here is the result.

It's not the best picture, I had to take it in the bathroom mirror, which isn't very easy to do, it was hard to hold the camera still with one hand, but you can get an idea of how it looks.  It was done by Erik, the artist who also did my cat tattoo last summer.  I love morning glories and I think he did a great job on it.  Thank you for all the very kind comments on my last post, it's always so nice to hear from you and I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!