Stitching Inspiration and Running Around with a Camera

I just had a blast playing around on Flickr while watching American Idol. I put together a mosaic of some of my favorite photos from Flickr. These were stitched by many different people, and the credit goes to them. To see their work up close, just click on the link below the mosaic.






1. Little House Needleworks "Sea to Shining Sea", 2. Flea Market Souvenir - FINISHED, 3. Home Of A Needleworker (Too!), 4. Moira Blackburn Birthday Sampler, 5. Village of Hawk Run Hollow (Carriage House Samplings), 6. Rites of Spring (Blackbird Designs), 7. where my heart blooms, 8. evening shades the garden, 9. friends are the flowers, 10. Right side, 11. Shores of Hawk Run Hollow (Carriage House Samplings), 12. Night & Day by LHN

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My husband has really gotten interested in photography, and he recently got a new camera. Last night he and I both ran around the yard taking photographs of what we saw. I love the time of day when daylight turns to evening, so it was truly a lot of fun.

Here's a peek into our back picture window. I love the way the lamps' light bounces off the glass:




I was happy to take this photo of the magnolia tree that we planted several years ago. It's really grown!


I stopped and noticed that a plant that had recently looked half dead was now blooming:



Out front I was glad to see our garden window looking better. My husband has been refurbishing the trim along the bottom of it. It turned out to be quite a job. A two hour project turned into a two day one!



The plants on the porch are potted in some funky pots, that's for sure. I'm not big on everything matching, although I do admire how that looks. Some of the pots were painted and decorated by our daughter, so they are precious to me. We planted the marigolds before Easter:



The front planters are blooming a bit. These planters used to be full of huge, overgrown junipers. We're so happy we redid them several years ago. Our next big outside job is to have the house repainted, as these photos will show:



I took the next one as I love seeing lit windows at twilight




A bit later we took one more photo. The clouds here rarely look this interesting, so we couldn't resist:



Thanks so much for coming by today!

Easter

Easter is over, and so is my spring break. Tomorrow it's back to the routine of work.

We hosted Easter today, and we all had a great time. I want to share my mom's lemon bar recipe that she made for today, but I'll have to do that on a future post.

Here are some photos from today:


My Great-Niece Hannah during the Egg Hunt


More Egg Hunting


Hannah on Easter

Ethan was here too, and it's the first time he's been at our house. He now weighs over 10 pounds and is doing very well. He was born 10 weeks early and spent the first few months of his life in the hospital. Unfortunately we didn't get a good photo of him today.

Here is a photo of him that we took a few weeks ago, along with his big sister Hannah:

 

Thanks for stopping by today.

Happy Easter & Sampler Update

I want to wish everyone who celebrates Easter a happy one! There will be 14 or so of us for brunch here tomorrow, so we've been busy getting ready for that.

Above are some roses from our yard that I've put in vases for tomorrow. I'm so grateful that we have roses now. We planted most of them four years ago, I believe, and they're really doing well now. The red one is called Chrysler Imperial, and I love its brilliance of color. The red and white pedals at the base are from a rose called Scentimental, and the yellow/pink/white variegated one is Cabana. Also in the mix of roses is Tournament of Roses, Oregon Gold, and Perfume Delight.
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I finished the grass area under the lower right hand corner's house. Here it is:

 

I then added an alphabet from a sampler book I purchased on clearance at a general bookstore. After a bit of thought, I decided upon a deep reddish color for the alphabet. I improvised on the flowers near the alphabet, and I like how they turned out, I think.



I placed some people near the center home, along with the same improvised flowers:


Here's a peek at the whole thing now:


I need to finish the border, and add a few more touches here and there. Then it's off to be framed at some point.

Thanks for stopping by today, and Happy Easter to you. Thanks for all your kind comments and encouragement regarding this sampler! Your words mean so much to me.

Winding Down... and A Cat's Story

It's already Thursday. Where has the week gone? Time off goes so quickly, it's amazing.

As far as stitching goes,I've added a few more details to my sampler, including a few people and a soon-to-be completed alphabet. Update photos to follow!

You are forewarned. The rest of this post is about our cat, Inga.







Our son found Inga in some bushes near his friend's house about 11 years ago. He was staying overnight at this boy's house, and tiny Inga stood on her hind legs and peeked through the boy's close-to-the-ground bedroom window and watched the boys as they played. Naturally, our son came home the next day and asked if we could keep her. We decided we could, although at the time we had two other cats, and our dog Katie. Inga was tiny then and about eight weeks old, and we had to feed her special food for a few months as she had major digestive issues. She's always had the habit of sucking her toe when she sleeps or relaxes. I guess she's quite resourceful, isn't she?



 

She's extremely reclusive and basically spends all her time in the back rooms of our house. In fact, she has two rooms to herself as well as our bedroom. She rarely ventures out into the living room or family room, and she never goes outside. Our other cats are in and out all day long. I guess that's what happens when your life starts out in a shrub, and your mom is nowhere to be found.

Our other cats and Inga never bonded too much, but that's how it goes with cats. She's been known to bravely charge our 80 pound greyhound when he comes in our bedroom and she's lying on the bed. He always retreats in complete fear!

She also likes to visit people who use the front bathroom and don't completely latch the door. Odd, isn't she?






She's a beautiful cat, and we love having her.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Sampler Progress

Here's a bit of progress on the sampler:


I added some details under this house:



Then a few flowers were added under another house:



I added a few golden flowers under a different house,and am in the process of adding grass, too:



A few more views of it:





Now I need to figure out what else to add to this piece. I have charted out some words, but not sure if I like how they look or not. We'll have to wait and see.

Thanks for stopping by today.

So Glad

I'm so glad it's spring break and I have a week off of work.

We worked in the yard for an hour and a half this morning, and I am in terrible shape. It's time to commit to regular exercise, isn't it?

I've added some more features to my sampler, and will post an update photo soon.

I hope you enjoy your weekend,and thanks for stopping by today.


Scentimental Rose from our yard