Jenny Bean Sampler Finished!

I finally got it done!  I used a combination of Belle Soie and Gloriana silk threads except for the brown and gray around the edge and the large lettering, that was Mandarin Floss by Rainbow Gallery.  It's made out of bamboo but it has a silk like feel to it.  Here's some more pictures of it:

There was a small over 1 section, I hadn't done that in a while, but it wasn't too difficult.

Instead of stitching in the name of Jenny Bean, I decided to put in Sarah Bean.  If you read my last post, you may remember this is the name we gave our new mother cat.  My husband had come up with the name Sarah, and I must have had the Bean name in my mind because of working on this sampler.  I thought it would be neat to have her name there, so whenever I see the sampler I will remember how when I was stitching it she came into our lives.  I will probably also recall that I stitched most of the blue waves while waiting at the hospital when my husband was there for a couple of days.  He had a G.I. bleed for which he was taken in an ambulance to the hospital.  It was very scary, but he's ok now.  Do you ever remember certain momentous events that you associate with whatever you were stitching at the time?  I have a feeling I'm not the only one!

I enjoyed stitching this sampler, but I won't be doing it again, so if anyone would like to have my copy of the chart--and I warn you, it's quite battered, although still readable--I would be happy to send it to you.  If more than one person wants it, I will do a random drawing to decide who gets it.  Just leave a comment on this post and I will put your name down for it.  And now here's Sarah's little one, she's grown a little bit and she can now walk around without her legs being quite as wobbly as they were and she's becoming quite playful!

She posed so nicely in this miniature chair, I don't think she has any idea how adorable she is!  Thank you for stopping in again, and I appreciate any comments you care to leave!
 







Edited on 5/29:  just wanted to say I appreciate all comments left, but if you would like me to enter your name in the drawing for the Jenny Bean sampler chart be sure and let me know in your comment.  I will draw a name on Wednesday, June 6.  Thank you!

New Kitties!

About three weeks ago, I was in the back yard when I heard some little meows coming from our shed.  I went to investigate and found in the far corner in an old goat and calf feeder a bundle of six newborn kittens.  Later that evening their mother showed up, that's her in the above picture.  I think she may have been running back and forth to a barn up the road to get some food.  We didn't want her to have to travel for her food so we started giving her a dish and some water every day.  All went well for a few days, we figured the kittens would grow up and we could probably find homes for them.  This wasn't the first time a neighborhood cat had had kittens in our shed, that's how we came to have our Maggie.  We adopted out her babies and she came in the house to live with us.  But unfortunately, I went in one morning and was horrified to discover that something, probably a weasel, had dug under the wall next to the little family and killed five of the six little ones.  I at first thought it had gotten all of them, but later that day I went out and heard a little cry and discovered that one had somehow escaped the critter.  Here she {or he} is:

An adorable little tabby.  We brought Mom and Baby into the house to keep them safe, they are staying by themselves in an upstairs room.  We are going to try and keep the mom if we can get our other cats to accept her in time.  She's an absolute sweetheart and very affectionate.  She's quite small and we have decided to call her Sarah Bean.  Theoretically, the baby will be adopted by someone, but we shall see.  I'm thinking maybe a good name for her or him would be Jelly Bean.  Here's some more pictures.

Don't worry, I only put them in the chair for picture taking, the little one is usually in a basket under the chair.  Thanks for looking, I hope you enjoyed the pictures!

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!