Back to Normal

Phew!  Back to normal.  The kids went back to school this week - and only 1 day later than planned.  Due to the visit from Hurricane Irene, a few schools were without power on the originally scheduled first day so it was postponed.  Most people in town have had their power restored.  We have been much luckier than so many other people affected by Irene.   My prayers are with the folks who have lost so much from this hurricane.

I've been stitching away and kitting up even more stitching projects.  The Halloween Collection book from Just CrossStitch has been out for a week or so now.  It has some great designs from well-known designers.

My favorites so far include Knock Knock designed by Marie Driskell from Blackberry Lane Designs.  It is the piece near the bottom of the cover picture stitched on the orange hand-dyed linen.  You can't really see it in this picture, but there is a black cat inside the Jack O Lantern.

Another favorite is A Spirited Mandala designed by Tracy Horner from Ink Circles. This is a section of the design - I love the pumpkins, ghosts and spooky trees incorporated into the mandala.

And a must-stitch for me is the Penelope Pumpkin Witch design from Brooke Nolan of Brooke's Books.

I love the little broom made with Kreinik ribbon.

These will be fun to stitch.

Happy Stitching.

Poppies Poppies Poppies

Hurricane preparations are complete.  We have tons of tuna and chef boyardee, all the gas cans are filled, and we've got batteries.  There was no bottled water to be had.  We'll be brushing our teeth with seltzer if need be.  The gas station ran out of gas - and the storm isn't supposed to be here for another 30-36 hours.

We pulled in all of the potted plants.  I am thinking that we may have too many.  But they had to come in because we don't want airborn tomatoes.  I hope the lack of tomato plants will make the chipmunks pack up and go elsewhere.

We picked about 50 nearly ripe pears and nearly 50 nearly ripe apples.  I'm not sure how they would have fared if we left them out in the storm but I couldn't bear to lose all of them.  I think the pears were close enough to ripe that they'll soften up somewhat and if they aren't sweet enough, we'll poach them.  The apples aren't as sweet as we would like but they should be good for pectin.

I needed a break from stitching on paper.  I didn't realize that I missed stitching on linen so I started this little project.  I'll go back to Moonlit Kitties in a bit.

This is my start on Poppy Biscornu from Faby Reilly.  These designs are beautiful.  We'll be adding more to the Needlearts Gallery website next week.  I have not been able to find the little poppy button in the center of the biscornu model, but I would bet that I can make it with FIMO clay.  I'll have to look for a good color match and give that a try.  Here is what it should look like when it is complete.

Happy Stitching.  Stay safe.