Treasured Needlework and Hydrangeas

I haven't had the chance to stitch in quite awhile. Life is just too busy lately, but I know there will be more relaxing days coming soon.

I love hardanger needlework, but I've never tried it myself. Here's a photo of a gorgeous hardanger piece that I have in our living room. It's sitting on top of an antique armoire that happens to be filled with a lot of my needlework projects, thread, and patterns. My mother-in-law bought the hardanger piece for me back in the early nineties. A friend of a friend had stitched it, and sold it to her. I sure was lucky to receive it as a treasured gift! Once I nearly ruined it with a deep red candle wax stain, but a clever dry cleaner was able to get it perfect again.


I also want to share a photo of an antique embroidered doily that used to belong to my mother-in-law. I love how it looks with these old cups and saucers. I wonder who embroidered this piece? I have no idea, but I sure do appreciate her work.



Another view:



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I also want to share some fall photos of our backyard's hydrangea blooms.




I loved the gradation of color on this bloom:



Thanks for stopping by today, and have a great day!

A Bit of Heritage

Work has been busy, and my classroom is just about ready! Phew. I brought a huge stack of stuff to work on at home, but for now I wanted to come here and share some photos with you.

I've slowly been trying to collect little pieces that reflect my Norwegian ancestry. My husband is also half Norwegian. I wanted to share some photos of pieces that were given to us or purchased by me the past few years.

While reading various blogs, I was thrilled to come upon some photos of rosemaling in Ele's beautiful blog:http://abitofpinkheaven.blogspot.com/ Rosemaling is a type of tole painting that originated in Norway.

Here's a napkin holder that's rosemaled. I bought it last year at an antique store in West Central Minnesota.





Here are two plates that I bought last summer. The red one was purchased brand new in a Norwegian store in Minnesota, and I bought the tan one at an antique store.





The needlework that originated in Norway is Hardanger embroidery. It's done on 22 count fabric, and I personally haven't ever tried it. I guess that's on my 'to do' list! Here's a Hardanger cross that a dear friend gave me. She's in her eighties, and she just learned how to do Hardanger a few years ago.




Another Norwegian type of item that I like are little dishes with Hardanger designs pressed onto them. In this craft, the person who makes them presses finished Hardanger pieces into clay and forms a Hardanger type design. A relative of mine collects them and uses them in her bedroom and guest rooms as little catch-alls for jewelry and other small items. Here's a dish my aunt gave me last summer:




Here's a view of several of our Norway pieces together. They're all sitting on top of a beautiful Hardanger piece that my late mother had someone stitch for me. My mother-in-law always appreciated my love of needlework! The photo also shows some pretty salt and pepper shakers that have blue rosemaling designs handpainted on them. You can also see a rosemaled plate that I bought over twenty years ago, as well as another small ceramic dish with Hardanger pressed onto it.






Finally, here's a view of all the Norway items arranged in our family room corner. It looks like I need to put a plant there, too, to warm it up a bit. I also wanted to crosstitch a Norwegian bellpull, but that's also in my 'to do' list.



Do you collect any items that reflect your heritage? I'm not much of a collector at all, but finding these Norwegian items has been fun.