The Goode Huswife - Tulip Garden

Dear friends,

     We are having the most beautiful weather here in SE Michigan!  Finally.  Friday was breezy and cool enough that we could open the windows, air out the house and sleep without air conditioning.  Yesterday, almost the same but temps were going up so we did turn on the air to sleep.  It (the AC) is still on today but it is a lovely day outside and such a nice break from the oppressive heat.  I hope you're surviving the heat, wherever you are.

     I finished The Goode Huswife, Tulip Garden earlier in the week and just couldn't be happier with how it turned out.  This is one of my favorite GH charts.  It is stitched on 30 count, WDW Straw, over one with the called for DMC threads.  When I get the companion chart stitched, I'll get them framed to hang together.

I also got a bit of a start on Susan Rambo but have already frogged a bit, as well.  I didn't like the dark green that was charted (it looked way darker than the pic on the cover), so I swapped it for another green and I'm still not sure about that either.  Normally, I stitch with one thread when working on 36 count.  But, part of what appealed to me about this chart was the bulkiness of the look of the threads 

(can you see that in the magazine picture?).  

So, I'm stitching it with two threads.  

We'll see - I hope it doesn't end up looking TOO bulky.

Not much else going on around here.  I have managed to stay on my feet and haven't had any falls of late, so that's good, although it doesn't make for a very interesting blog post!  I am continuing to run - jog is really more like it, and managed to get in a 4 mile run yesterday with no incidents.  

Oh, I did have a great mid-week break this past week.  On Wednesday, my best pals Sheila, Lisa, Linda and I all took off work and went to the opening day of the Ann Arbor Art Fair.  It is one of the oldest and largest art fairs around and has something for everybody, in all price ranges!  I picked up a couple of things but before I show you that, let me show you some pics of some of the things I found fascinating.

3D painting and sculpture.

 Reminds me of scenes from silent films.

Bronze sculpture

Mosaic tile work - LOVeD this: 

Kinetic sculpture - around $10,000.  Yep, 10 thousand dollars.

This one was about 10 feet tall (maybe more) and was, I think, $18,000.00

 So pretty - every piece just spun in the wind - hand blown glass and steel

Beautiful!

 Everything from trendy and modern to folky, found object art:

 Loved the raven.

More simplistic ravens that were still a bit pricey - $200, I think.

Pottery:

Found object art - loved these!

  

This was, perhaps, the most interesting thing I saw.  It was taken from a letter, in a Christmas card that was written by a prostitute to her former boyfriend or "john" and was embroidered.  When we saw this, on the first day, it had already sold.  I hope you'll be able to click on it to read it.

To give you an idea:

"Charlie, I'm pregnant.  Living on Ninth Street above the Dirty Bookstore on Euclid Avenue.  Stopped taking dope.  Quit drinking whiskey.   My old man plays trombone, works down at the track.  Says that he loves me and though it's not his baby, says that he'll raise him up just like his own son.  Gave me a ring worn by his mother.  He takes me out dancing every Saturday night.  Hey, Charlie, I think about you every time I pass the filling station on account of all the grease you used to use in your hair.  I still have that record, Little Anthony and the Imperials but someone stole my record player.  Now how do you like that?  Charlie, I almost went crazy when Mario got busted, I went back to Omaha to visit my folks.  Everyone I used to know is either dead or in prison.  I came back to Minneapolis, this time I think I'm gonna stay.  Hey, Charlie I think I'm happy for the first time.  I wish I had all the money we used to spend on dope I'd buy a used car lot....

What did I buy?

This dragon fly necklace made from silver-plate demitasse spoons.

Lynda told us about one of the artists that she always likes to see and when she was describing her work, I said it sounded like an artist I had "pinned" on Pinterest.  

Sure enough, it was!

Here's a not so good picture of me and the darling artist and her husband .  You may recognize the bird necklace hanging in the background - I know I've pinned that one, too.

She is from England and was just a doll - called everyone "love" and was just too cute for words - personality plus!

Visit her website here~.  If you sign up for her email notifications, you'll get notices of sales and free shipping at Christmas.  She said she only sends one email a month so you won't get inundated.  I wanted to buy so many pieces and had such a hard time deciding.  next purchase may be a big flower ring!

The other thing I bought was a birdhouse for my husband's sister in law, for her birthday.  She loves purple, is extremely hard to buy for, and loves her garden so I hope she'll like it.  The artist said you could leave it out all year long.

The top is a little crooked - just hung it up quickly for a picture.

That's it for this Sunday, my friends.  I hope you have a good week ahead!

Thanks so much for stopping by and for all your sweet comments.  I especially appreciated all the wonderful comments about the chair my mom covered for me.  She was tickled that you all liked it and I thank you for helping to make her feel so good (as you always do me)!

Hugs my friends,

Be well,

Peace,

Terri

Oh, I wish I were....

Dear friends,                                                                   

My parents are gone but the fun memories linger.  We took them to the Henry Ford Museum and here’s a cute shot of them, with Rob, in front of the Oscar Meyer Wiener mobile.  Remember that?  Everybody sing:
 “Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Meyer wiener!  That is what I’d truly like to be-e-ee!” 
You’ll be singing that all day, won’t you?

You’re welcome.

I told you that whenever they come to visit, I give my mom a project or two to do for me.  

Truth is though; I’m really doing HER a favor. 
I am only trying to keep her skills from going rusty.
After all, if she doesn’t do for me, she might not do at all.

Am I a good daughter, or what?!

First she made the cute cart bag, which I just used again this weekend:

But her big project was a slipcover for my stitching chair. 
I found the perfect (almost perfect, the color wasn’t right but I knew Momma could fix that)  little chair at an estate sale. 
It wasn’t too tall for my low basement walls, it had low arms and I could sit cross legged in it, if I wanted to.   The last day of the estate sale is when I wandered in. 
I walked through the house and said to the cashier/workers:
“You know that gold chair in the living room that nobody wants?” 
They laughed, said they did and immediately asked if I wanted to buy it.  “Hmmm, I don’t know” I said in my best non-committal voice. “I was thinking you guys could pay me to carry it out for you!”  They laughed again and then said how about $50.  This was only a $10 reduction from their current ½ off price of $60 so I said “How about $40?” and they said “Deal!”  I don’t know… they seemed pretty excited about it.  They probably thought, “Sucker!”  we’d have given her $5 to take it outta here.  Oh well, I was pleased.  It was a well made chair, pretty comfortable and just the size I needed for my room. 

 I knew my momma could fix it.  And, she did.  Here’s the before and after:

Before:

After:

Didn’t she do a great job?  I wanted a feminine slipcover and she did an amazing job!  It looks so pretty in my craft room and now I don’t cringe when I go in there.  Thanks so much, Mom.  You are the best!  Of course now, I see that my floor and door needs repainting.        
                                                                                                     
Where’d I put the painters tape and paint???

Rob's gonna need 'em.
Tee Hee Hee!

I’m going to start my next project as soon as I finish the little one I chose to work on after the A&E sampler.  This is a Goode Huswife chart called Tulip Garden (I think... I'm too lazy to go downstairs and look to be certain). 

 I am stitching it over one, with the called for DMC threads, on WDW Straw, 30 count.  There’s a companion piece with a colonial woman looking over the opposite shoulder so I think they’ll look great framed individually, but facing each other.  I’ll do her eventually but for now, after the 1/1 on the A&E piece, and this one, I need a break.

This is my next project from Sampler and Antique Needlework Quarterly.  I’m sure you’ll all recognize it: Susan Rambo.  When this issue first came out, I loved the colors and that hasn’t changed.  I think the greens are so pretty!   I’ll be stitching her on 35 count Lakeside, Vintage something or other with DMC threads (I think).  I’ve pulled the DMC colors, as you can see, but may change some of them as I go.  Who knows! 
I plan to start her as soon as I finish the Tulip Garden Piece.

Finally, here are a few of the goodies I found this weekend and last (to include the old scissors in the Tulip Garden pic):

Loved this old Pimento cheese box - if she'd had more, I'd have bought them.  I think this was maybe $2.

How about this pretty heart shaped mold (the big one).  

I'll use it as a valentine's display.

The two smaller tins, I already had.

I think this was $3.

And finally, my favorite find of the weekend:

More ornaments for my vintage collection.  I LOVE these vintage, glass ornaments and have a ton of them but can't pass them up when I see them for a good price.  

These are from Poland and they were only $10 for the box!  

Of course, originally, I think the whole box sold for 39 cents.  

Those days are long gone!

No matter, I was tickled.

Shall I add them to this tree?

Or to the feather tree with pink ornaments?

Maybe a few on both!

 Merry Christmas in July!

   

I hope you found some treasures this weekend and that you have a cozy chair to stitch to your heart's content.

Be well,

Peace,

Terri

I'm Late, I'm Late....

Dear friends,

     I am so sorry for being late for my SAL update post.  My folks came into town on Sunday evening and well, after finishing the sampler first thing in the morning, I had to dash around like a mad woman cleaning the house.  I like them to think it always looks the way it does when they come visit!  I know they don't really think that but at least the house gets prettied up for a short time, anyway.

     Here's my grand finish!  I loved stitching this along with Marilyn and Faye.  The over one was the most difficult part of course but even that wasn't too bad.  I will post my color conversion after the glory shots.

Name: Adam and Eve Reproduction Sampler

Source:  Cross Stitch and Needlework Magazine, May 2009 issue

Fabric:  Lakeside Linen, Magnolia, 36 count
One thread over two

This was kind of a weird sampler.  The Adam and Eve had blue hair (think they were supposed to be REALLY old???) so I ended up changing their hair to brown.  Some of the faces (Caleb and Joshua) were charted for green, I think.  I had to change that, too.  I didn't want them to look like I felt last week.  The parrot's eyes were the light green which wasn't showing up with one stitch so I did them in black.  I added my initials to the piece since there was no name associated with this sampler and in the lower left corner, in the light green, I added "worked 2012".

No idea what to work on next but I'll decide that after my parents return home.

Okay, so here's my conversion.  The original was stitched in Olde Willow Silks and since I couldn't find a chart of those, I had to go off what I saw in the magazine.  I'm going to give you the symbols and the colors I used (with the exceptions noted above).

C = DMC 3354

E = Crescent Colors - Cherry Tomato

F = GAST Lambswool where called for and for the faces where the green was called for.

H = Gast Shutter Green

K = GAST Cinnamon

P = GAST Mountain Mist

S = GAST Green Apple

T = Crescent Colors Green Onion (except for the over one, there I used GAST Harvest Basket so it would show up.

You will need at least two of the greens and the dark pink if working on 36 count 

(I used one thread).

Thank you all so much for the sweet notes regarding my fall and dehydration.  It was not fun but I am all recovered.  Truth be told, I'm still quite bruised (thanks, blood thinners!) but I feel fine.  I did open my scraped knee up again right after the initial fall which was really pretty gross and looked like a horror movie (I'll spare you the picture) but that too has finally healed.  Thank you all so much for your kind thoughts!

Are you on Pinterest?  If not, check it out.  I saw a light chandelier someone had made out of Christmas lights and a hula hoop.  I can't remember where they hung it but I thought it would make a great light for under our patio umbrella.

Here's my version of the chandelier with my Dad sitting at the table:

I put the lights on with electrical tape every few inches and then wrapped the entire thing in black tape to cover the hula hoop and the cords.  Next, I took some wire and hung a loop of wire from each of the spokes of the umbrella.  Cut the black chain in six equal lengths and opened the loop up just a bit and attached it to the wire loop.  I also put wire loops on the hula hoop and attached the chain to the hoop using the same process.  Ran the cord down the umbrella pole and plugged it in.  It looks so pretty at night and really cast a nice amount of light on the table.  The only thing I'd do differently is use a strand of lights in a dark green cord so it didn't show quite so much but even with the white string of lights, it looks really pretty at night.  A fun and easy project - just took some time.  Putting the chains onto a loop of wire will allow me to take the lights down if I need to lower the umbrella. 

What do you think?  

Finally, I have one last thing to show you.  My mom is an amazingly talented sewer and I usually have a project or two or three for her when she comes to visit 'cause I can barely sew a straight line.  

This is her first project:

How cute is that?  

I'll be taking it to the antique markets and flea markets and anywhere else I can take it.  She added a water bottle pocket (that's the orange cap sticking out) and another pocket for my camera or other small object.  

Check it out:

A sweet little pocket from an old pair of jeans.  Is this not the cutest cart!?

I love it and can't wait to use it this weekend.

Thanks, Mom!!!

Wait'll you see what I have lined up for her next project....

That's it for now.  Again, thank you so much for your sweet notes and your concern and appreciation for my embarrassing moment!  

Have a great week and thank you so very much for stopping by!

Be well,

Peace!

Terri