A Bag, a Bird and Kitties

Hi everyone, I'm glad you stopped in to visit!  It's a beautiful October day here and I wanted to show you what I've been up to.  The lovely design on this bag is from the most recent Blackbird Designs book, "A Schoolgirl's Work."  It's "Polly's Sewing Box", but I decided to put it on a bag instead.

I used mostly the recommended floss colors but chose Antique Rose to replace Woodrose, I knew I would like it better with a more pink look.  I also did the door on the house in pink instead of the off white and stitched the little beehive with satin stitches.  Here's the back view with a lace trimmed pocket:

I also did some embroidery and made it into an ornament.

This is from a wonderful book called, "Simple Pleasures in Redwork".  It's full of gorgeous embroidery designs, most of which have a bird theme.  I used Carrie's Creation Silk floss in the color Lumiere de Cheryl and trimmed it with a tiny purple pom-pom trim around the edge.  This was a super fun project to stitch!  Here's a closer look at the stitches:

I've also been taking some kitty pictures:

Sweetpea, our little old lady kitty trying to beg a drink of water from the kitchen sink.

Harley, who's never too shy to have his picture taken.

Trixie, enjoying a little bit of sunshine.

Nap time for Maggie, Cricket, Trixie and Harley.

The last picture is of a morning glory that I found as a seedling in the yard and dug it up so it wouldn't get mowed down.  I potted it and put it in an upstairs window where it's been blooming very nicely.

These are one of my most favorite flowers, isn't it a beautiful blue?  I think I just might get a tattoo of one some day!  Thanks for  visiting, it's very much appreciated!

Summer Breeze

 

Hello, everyone, it's been a few weeks since I have posted but I have gotten some stitching done!  This is an old chart from Sheepish Designs that I finally decided to do.  I didn't use the suggested DMC colors, instead, I stitched it with Belle Soie silk floss except for the peachy color, that's Branch Coral from Gloriana.  I've put some of my vintage doilies to use for hiding the raw edges around the sides.  I don't make doilies, but I love to collect them and use them around the house.

Oh, by the way, Summer Breeze is the name of the design which explains the title of the post.  And of course, I also made another purse:

I stitched this design so long ago I'm not even sure where it came from, possibly an old Just Cross Stitch magazine.  It's done with good old DMC threads, back then I wasn't yet into the wonderful world of overdyed threads, things have sure changed in recent years, haven't they?

I was given some bits and pieces of some fabric with nice sampler designs recently, so one of the pieces was perfect for a pocket on the back.

And another bit of the fabric worked nicely for an inside pocket, too.

That's just about it for now, I've been back to work this week, school starts up again next week, so my nice, long wonderful summer vacation is just about over.  I'm not complaining, though, I've had more time off than anyone that I know and the weather for us has been fantastic this year.  I'm sorry for anyone of you that has had to deal with terrible weather from the hurricane.  Thank you to everyone who left comments on recent posts and thanks so much for your kind thoughts for our son-in-law Joe, he is doing much better now.  He has been able to get into a motorized wheelchair and go for rides outside which helps his morale quite a bit.  Thanks for visiting again, I will leave you with a kitty picture, Tigger and Harley having a naptime together.

I hope you will have a super nice Labor Day weekend!

Hodgepodge Purse

Why? Because I started putting things all over it and I just couldn't stop!  There's a little bit of everything, but the main part is a sampler by Dany called Marquoir Dany.  I stitched it with my favorite DMC red--666.  I love that color but I always feel vaguely guilty when I use it, you know, it's the number of the beast!  I made one change to Dany's design by adding a cat just under the alphabet.

Here's the back side with a large pocket featuring an embroidery that I did.  It was really fun putting this one together!  On another subject, I would like to thank every single person who left comments with well wishes for our son-in-law Joe after his accident.  Your kind thoughts and prayers mean more than I could possibly say.  He's doing a bit better now, he's been moved into a nursing home until he heals enough for physical therapy. The extreme pain he had been in seems to be less intense now.  Our daughter Jessie is of course under a lot of stress but she's coping well because she is a very strong person.  Thanks again, we appreciate your thoughtfulness so much!  Now, a couple of silly kitty pictures:

Cricket who forgot to put his tongue back in his mouth before he posed.

Harley--Ok, I'm ready for my close-up now!

Thank you, friends, I'm so glad you dropped in for a visit!

Brigg's Cottage Embroidery and My Tattoo

I've been working on this embroidery the last few weeks and am glad to have it done.  There is a lot of thread piled onto this piece of fabric, it's so thick on the area of the cottage that it almost won't fold over!  I used a lot of different brands of threads, including a lot of over-dyeds and thoroughly enjoyed the stitching of it!

Ok, in my last post I showed a picture of me with some  family members and you could see a little bit of my tattoo.  I promised to post a better picture of it, so was able to get hubby to take a good picture.  But first, I want you to see the old one that's underneath the new one, because I think the tattoo artist did such a good job of hiding it.  I never really liked the old tattoo and you can probably agree that it wasn't all that nice.

It was supposed to be a cat but people were always asking me what it was.  A badger?  A fox?  A goblin?

Here's my new one and I really love it!  It was done by Erik at Lakeview Tattoo here in Petoskey.  I think you can agree that this one looks like a CAT!  I love the roses, too, and my favorite part of the kitty is his eyes, don't they look real?

On a less happy note, my son-in-law Joe was badly injured on his motorcycle last week and is in the hospital.  He was going 60 mph when a car pulled out of a driveway in front of him.  He has many shattered bones and will be a long time healing so any good thoughts or prayers you could send his way would be appreciated! 

Thanks so much for visiting again, I'm always so happy to have you drop in!