A Start, A Finish and OH MY!!

Thank you everyone for the nice comments on my stitching.  I think I finally figured out the email notification/reply thing it only took me what 1-1/2 years?

We are now having slightly below average temperatures.  I had frost on my windshield this morning!  Now, I know those of you that live north of the optimal climatic zone as was once written of New Hampshire in a turn of the 20th century travel guide will not necessarily find that unusual, BUT it's very strange here. I don't mind changing seasons but I really would like it to decide which season it wants to be and stick with it.

Stitching wise, here's what I worked on this week:

You saw the kit for this one, here is the roof minus beads:

It's stitched on 14-count violet Aida.  There will be silvery beads in the spaces in the middle of the "X".  I wasn't able to start the house itself as I have to stitch this in hand and my hands can only deal with that for short periods of time.

Yes, you read correctly, I also had a finish!!

Marsh Marigolds on Logan's Creek is now hanging on the "wall of finishes" in the den.  I can not get the fabric color to photograph correctly it is actually a very pale green - almost the color of young celery. 

Last and certainly not least, I got this in the mail today:

Isn't it beautiful?  Jo at Serendipitous Stitching stitched this for me.  The flower is backstitched and then she colored in the background.  I have loved all the others I saw on her blog, but not as much as this one! Daisies and pansies are my favorite flower and it got here just in time for my birthday. which I wasn't going to say anything about but since I just had to show off the card, the secret is out.  My birthday is Sunday - I'll be slightly younger than the dinosaurs.

Debbie Mumm's Summerhill House has gone onto the scroll rods.  I took next week off from work I declared a birthday week and what better way to celebrate? so I am really hoping to make some progress on it.  I do have a few things around the house that I'd like to get done, but pretty much it's a do whatever I want to do week. And part of what I want is to start Chatelaine's Deep Blue Sea but I will wait until Friday to do that.

Little Houses

Thank you everyone for your kind comments on my stitching.  As mentioned in my last post, the cherry blossoms are now gone; however, the walk around the Tidal Basin is still beautiful and you can take in three different memorials - Jefferson, Franklin Roosevelt and Martin Luther King, Jr.  Now is the perfect time, not too hot and humid and much smaller crowds. Listen to me sounding like a tourist guide! 

The pines have joined the pollen parade as evidenced by my yellow-green colored car and my itchy, watery, puffy eyes I am hoping that all the plants have their grand spring celebration all at once and the allergy season is short.

I worked on Chatelaine's Hawaiian Garden this week and almost finished one hibiscus corner.  Here's a view of the entire section:

And here's a semi-close up:

Hawaiian Garden Mandala by Chatelaine
Stitched on 28-count Summer Sky Jobelan with recommended fibers and beads

I know nothing I have written so far has anything to do with little houses, but this does:

This all comes in that little package in the upper right corner.  It's the kit for Parma Violets from The Nutmeg Company's The Christmas House Collection, Gingerbread Houses and when it is finished it will be 6cms or a little more than 2-1/4".  It's a very complete kit including pre-cut fabric and frame pieces the finished stitching is sewn to them to give them body so they will stand when stitched together.

Marsh Marigolds on Logan's Creek will go on the stand for this weekend.  This one is close enough to being done, that I may have a happy dance before the weekend is out. Of course now that I have voiced that possibility, something will come up to prevent it from happening. 

Uggghhhh, what a week!!

As if going back to work after two weeks off, the last 48 hours have been some of the worst I have had in years.  I won't go into details but I have become intimately familiar with the porcelain fixture in the bathroom.  Top that off with a 102 fever and I have been one unhappy camper.  I crawled out of bed this afternoon, showered and feel almost human, so hopefully I'm over it.

On top of wanting to curl up and die not feeling well I have been trying to clean up my Kindle's library one of the things I didn't get to while on vacation and it is possibly the most frustrating thing ever.  I am not removing from the Kindle itself, but permanently deleting from my library, you have to go to your library in Amazon, which isn't the real issue except that it takes forever to load the entire library and then you can only delete one item at a time! If you know how to do more than one at a time, please don't tell me right now, just wait a little bit and let me know. Wait for library to load, find book, delete and repeat and repeat and repeat!  I had 100+ so even with my wonderfully fast new internet connection, it has taken me most of the week.  At this point I think I'm done but it was a good lesson, if I know I will never read a book again, delete it right away.

I did get some stitching in before the crud attacked.  This is Marsh Marigolds on Logan's Creek by Brigitte Kozma.  It came from a 1989 issue of Cross Stitch and Country Crafts and is done on a light green not blue 14-count Aida with DMC. The three little stitches you see at the bottom is the bottom of the design so I am hoping that with another rotation I will have a finish.  I am not thrilled with the thread coverage 3 strands over 1 is really heavy but it's how it was started.  I do have a companion piece that will probably go into the rotation once this is finished.  As much as I don't like the thread usage and fabric, to make them truly a pair, I will have to continue with them.

Tomorrow is a rotation change day so Debbie Mumm's Summerhill House will see the light of day after a bit more than a year.