Hello!

Yep, it's me, alive and well!

Not dead, and no major injuries. Puggies are well, fat and happy :-)
Thanks to those of you that have emailed asking if all is well, or to say they missed my posts! You're nice!
I have been stitching, just having several issues of frustration with my blogging experience that have not worked themselves out yet. Mainly because I don't know just how to work them out!

*First of all, Blogger is such a booger for me these days, even to post these pics now took me FORever.

**Then there's my cruddy camera and horrible pictures. Ugh.
***Not liking the looks of the blog, but too lazy or tired or just too inept to change it!

****Tennis elbow! Painful and limits computer time (typing hurts!) Just been to the doctor for it (finally!) and got a cortisone shot and list of exercises to do, so hopefully that's much better soon.
Oh geesh! Sounds like whining, which I'm not, just explaining my absence ;)
Meanwhile, back at the ranch....

Picked up my Mary Beale sampler from the framer today, so I thought I'd share that and then come back later with what I've been stitching.

So here she is, Her Sampler, which is now MY sampler :)

The frame moulding just jumped out at me, as we were mulling over many different ones, I looked over my left shoulder, and spotted this one, and it ended up being the ONE!

So very happy with my framing gals. If you live anywhere in the area, you should check them out! Framing MemorEze in Plano Texas.
They are pretty much the only ones I can trust to do my things right. In fact, I had to take them something to redo, that had been done at another place :( Later on, you will see the before and after pics (some of you have already seen the before....hideous!)

This sampler was framed under museum glass, can you tell? Usually don't put glass on my pieces, but wanted to try out that stuff, and I do like it :)

Stitched on 40 count Park City Blend by R&R
over 2 with one strand DMC thread
Design by Mary Beale, Her Sampler was included in the 1998 Pocketbook Needlework, which is still available for purchase in Mary Beale's online shop.

Well that's all for now my friends. Thanks for visiting and for your friendships, I am very blessed by each one of you! Sorry I have not been commenting on your blogs very much, will try to do better as my elbow/arm pain gets better!

PS. Who's ready for Autumn?
Just wonderin' ;-)

Mary Beale, Her Sampler

She's done!



And what a joy it was to stitch this sampler!



One of those you enjoy working on so much, you almost hate to be done with it!



I had to change the wording along the bottom....my whole name didn't work with the way it was charted, (her sampler, finished in ****), so what you see is my version ;-)

I will miss working on it, but it's headed to the framers soon, so we can enjoy looking at it on the wall :)



Mary Beale, her very ownself, recommended not filling in around the verse, so that's how I left it :)



"Mary Beale, Her Sampler"
Designed by Mary Beale
from the Pocketbook Needlework series, 1998 editionavailable from Mary's online shop (click on link to go there)
Stitched on 40 count Park City Blend by R&R
over 2 with one strand DMC thread

Thank you all for visiting my blog and always saying such nice things. The stitching and blogging community is so wonderful...I'm very grateful to be a part of it.
Have a wonderful week ahead and stitch much!
xox

samplers & pugs & rain, oh my!

Hello my dear and faithful readers! I've thought about you often and wanted to write. Really, I did! But I couldn't think of anything to say and since I'm just working on one project right now, wanted to be further along before posting pictures of it. But time sure is flying, and here we are, in September already, so here's where I am on the Mary Beale sampler (that I still don't know the name of!)



It's kind of big and hard to get a good picture of, so the photo above isn't the best.
But look at this little butterfly, I love it...



and the verse, that I also love. It's just outlined by the green border right now, the chart says to fill in the whole verse area with the same color...but I'm thinking I won't. What do you think?



As there is so much solid stitching around the rest of the sampler...



more grass will fill this area below this blank space (which will have a little couple sitting at a table under some grapevines...



anyway, that's as far as I've gotten on it so far. Almost there!



Some of you that are my Facebook friends will already know about my pug problem, but for those that aren't, here's the problem....Muttley...Munny Pie...Mutt Lee...



It all started when his eyes started looking funny. Cloudy, etc. One eye worse than the other. We took him in to our vet, she did a dye test, which showed a corneal scratch on one eye, and corneal swelling on the other, both due to "injuries" of some sort. All we could figure is, because he's so WILD, he ran into something and scratched it. He loves to bury his face in the carpet or in blankets. So anyway, she prescribes drops, antibiotics and said to come back in a week. TWO DAYS later, the one eye with the scratch turns into the ulcer you see above. How lucky for us it was the holiday weekend, so no going back to the vet until Tuesday, and trust me when I say, it got uglier before Tues. Let me tell you, I pretty much went off the deep end, picturing this little (well, not so little, but you know what I mean), two year old pug, going blind! We've had a bunny rabbit lose an eye, even with excellent specialized medical care, so I knew what it looked like.

But, we made it to Tuesday, took him back in first thing in the morning and now we have this...




The vet made a "patch" over the ulcer, using his extra eye-lid flap, or whatever it's called. It should help speed the healing. It looks seriously gross. He's soooo happy {snort}. It has to stay this way for two weeks, and considering he's WILD, the Cone of Shame must be worn for that amount of time as well, until the stitches come out.
You may notice, the cone is already dented...



He's since figured out that this "Cone of Shame" can be used to his advantage...

*Mom holds his bone for him, so he can get his daily chew on (he chews a LOT on a regular basis, it's his therapy).
*He can terrorize Astro relentlessly (because Astro is terrified of the cone coming at him)
*He can lick food, water and whatever else might get into the cone at his leisure.
*Everyone feels sorry for him when he moans for one solid minute while laying on the couch, so he gets extra treats, rubbin' and kisses.
*If he plants his face straight down on the floor, the cone spreads out and he can pick up miscellaneous crap off said floor.
*He can clear a path really quickly because the humans and other living creatures in the house have figured out that the cone HURTS like h*ll when rammed into their legs, so they get out of the way, and fast!

I'm sure there are other advantages to the cone, but he's only on the first 24 hours, so give him time. Meanwhile, his parents continue to pray really hard that the #1 advantage to all this will be that his eye heals up and when it's opened back up, that ulcer will be much better.

And rain? Yes, lots of it, which normally I love. Except when there's a MONSOON and you're trying to walk doggies with cones on their heads and they are freaking out cause they've never heard all that NOISE before, all around their heads, while they need to peepee reaaaaaaally badly. They hate even getting their feet wet anyway, geesh! (You doggie owners out there know exactly what I'm talking about....don't ya?) I've never been so completely drenched in all of my life, but at least he went potty finally :-)

:::::sigh:::::
Life is good, even when it's nuts! I'm so happy it's the beginning of fall. So happy in fact, that I'm going to have a Fall giveaway very soon, so stay tuned for that. It will be for my loyal blog followers and regular commenting friends only :)

Stay safe! Stay dry! Be happy!

PS. For those that haven't seen the movie UP (such a great movie)...here's a clip about the Cone of Shame:

lots of things...

This post will be all over the place, so consider yourself warned! I guess it's the unbearable heat...maybe other things going on in my life...not sure, but it's very hard for me to focus on anything lately. I've been in a funk, stitching and otherwise....so first, some stitching, which is probably what you came for, right?


In July, still in the patriotic mood, I started on this Blackbird Designs piece, called Summer Souvenir (which is NOT in the book by the same name, so dontcha go looking for it, like I did, or you'll end up scratching your head in wonder...it's in the Tokens of Friendship book).



Then, the heat started getting to me and I started thinking about fall, which led to this finish:




Jingles & Jack from Becky's Boos...stitched on 10 count hand dyed something or other with WDW #5 perle cotton thread. A fast and fun stitch. Be warned...if you stitch it, you will need at least three skeins of the Onyx (the chart only calls for one. I didn't even cross my stitches as I went along, like one normally does with overdyed floss....and I still came pretty close to the end on some of the skeins....

after that, I picked up an old WIP, Be Kind, Be True, another Blackbird Designs:



That was about the third time I've tried working on it, and just can't get into it. Not sure if it's the fabric (35 ct. Marva's Breakfast Blend)...but it always ends up frustrating me so it gets but away. Siobhan gave me the chart a long time ago, because I'd fallen in love with it when seeing her finish, I really do love the design so much....sigh....

My next attempt was the Adam & Eve sampler by The Goode Huswife....meh....



love the fabric, design, etc. but it just caused my shoulder and hand some grief, as it's 40 ct. and sometimes I struggle with that now (which is sad, cause it's always been my favorite)....heavy sigh....

So finally, the past couple of weeks, I've been able to focus on this Mary Beale sampler...just the top left corner flower was done on it when I'd tossed it aside a few years ago, and this is how far along I am on it now (almost halfway)....



I'm a little reluctant to post this when it's finished, as it came from one of her newsletters way back when, only subscribers could get it I think...what were those called? Pocketbook Needlework, something like that? There were several designs in each issue and this one came in installments, over four newsletters? Not sure. A friend gave me the charts when she was done stitching hers. I'm not sure which edition it was in, so maybe I won't post it when it's done since I know so little about it. I get emails all the time about things I've posted here, that are out of print, and I just don't know enough about it to be of any help to anyone. Maybe someone else knows and can fill me in.




Anyway, I love it, and am happy that I've been able to stick with it for so long. So far. LOL. Every time I say "so far" at the end of a sentence like that, I think of a line out of my all time favorite movie "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World"...where Buddy Hackett and Mickey Rooney are trying to fly and land a plane they get stuck in after the pilot (played by Jim Backus) gets knocked out ("what could happen to an Old Fashion" lol)...they are talking to an air traffic control guy and they're pretty much freaking out and the control officer is trying to calm them down...he's on the radio with them and says "I want to congratulate you men on doing such a great job. So far." Cracks me up every time...because, you know. They're in the air after all and still need to land the plane ;) My hubby and I quote so many lines out of that movie (along with Planes, Trains and Automobiles; The Great Race; The Money Pit...) Pretty silly, huh? :-)

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**edited personal details out 08/11/10...thank you SO much to everyone who reached out to me, either in the comments or through emails. You all helped me so much, more than you can know, and I'm forever grateful for your friendships! I have also closed and hidden comments for this post. They are still there, but only I can read them, and I cherish each one. Again, thank you so much!**