Sampler Wall

I thought I would share my sampler wall today. I have been busy framing some of my samplers. I hated stuffing them in the drawer after I finished them. I wasn't really sure what I was going to do with them, so I grouped these together. I have a few others hanging through out the house.

I don't expect Better Homes and Gardens to be calling me anytime soon for a photo shoot. In fact, I am sure HGTV would be having nightmares on my decorating style. But it is my house and I love it. Now, I am not sure where I am going to hang Dutch Beauty, Mary Allen, Frances Eden or And They Sinned, etc. First I have to finish them.

I hope you enjoy looking at them. The three on the top row are from the 1990's. I used to visit a LNS in Crawfordsville. It is now closed and has been for a long time, but that is where I discovered my love for samplers. After it closed, the closes LNS was at the north side of Indianapolis, to far to drive with two small girls. A few years ago, I rediscovered cross stitch on the Internet and my passion for stitching returned with a vengeance.

I have a few other pictures to share. I live on a dangerous ninety degree curve, although it is marked people still miss the corner. I have had cars run into the trees & cars in the pond. One car caught on fire. No one has seriously been injured yet. We have asked the county to put up a guard rail. They came and put up four reflector post, that hasn't helped. The other night one of the neighborhood girl missed the corner and came close to being in the pond. The accidents usually happen in threes, so I will be expecting two more pretty soon. The second picture is from my neighbor's yard. Their pond is in the foreground and ours is in the background. She has a better view of my pond than I do.

Two girls

Today was a special day for my daughter. My DH & I are so proud of her. She will be graduating from college in a few short weeks at the top of her class. I wish I would have taken a tape recorder to all her awards programs. All of her professors have bragged to me about her accomplishments. What a well rounded outstanding student she is. It is alway wonderful to hear you have a great kid, makes me think I did something right in my parenting skills.
Dr. DeGaris is head of the sport management program at the college and presented one of her awards to her today. He related Megan's accomplishments as her being the No.#1 draft pick of 2009. My dh being a sports fanatic thought this was great. Here she with all her hardware. One award was for top GPA in the business department and the other one was outstanding leadership in the undergraduate business program. Congratulations, Megan!


I did manage to stitch on CHS Mary Margaret. I wanted to share with you my progress. It isn't much but I have been playing catch up at work. Payroll had to be processed, claim checks had to be mailed not mention other daily task that have to be done yada, yada, yada. Anyhoo, I am using 32ct. Autumn Gold with NPI, this picture does not show the true color of the fabric. I do have Adam's head done on the A &E. I will post a picture of it later.

Thanks for stopping by and leaving comments.

Spring Break

Mackenzie and I headed south for Spring Break. My other daughter got a better offer and went to Florida. We decided to go back to the Pigeon Forge area and the Biltmore. I heart the Biltmore. Actually, I think I lived there in another life probably as a housemaid, but hey I still lived there.
The Biltmore wasn't too busy this time of year. If you have never been to the Biltmore you need to go if you enjoy history. They will be opening more of the Biltmore to the public in April. It just amazes me they had electricity and running water back in the late 1800's. The priceless heirlooms dating from the 1500's. Their grounds are so beautiful. It is so nice to see color starting to bloom. Indiana is pretty drab right now. Daffodils & dogwoods are blooming. I really don't like driving through the mountain interstate with the semis. Last time I came to this area it was raining, some people have no fear of driving the mountain passes at 65 mph with rain but I do. It was a fun time.

We also hit the outlet strip mall. I found a cool monogram picture at Kirlands. They didn't have a P but they did have a T for Tanya so I am not sure how my DH will feel about that when I hang it. He probably won't even notice. (I hope) Naturalizer store was having some great deals. Who can pass up $12 shoes that were $60? I also went to Dixie Darlin cross stitch store. She is open late on Thursday nights. I wish I would have taken a picture of the inside of her shop. She is very friendly and helpful. If you are ever in this area you won't be sorry you stopped. I had to do my part for the economy and picked a few things. I saw World's Above design on Sharon Stitches blog and had to get it. Then I picked up Hillside Samplings Virtue Sampler and a Notforgotten My Sampler House pattern. She had a model of the Virtue Sampler and I passed over it when looking at patterns but when I was looking at the models it caught my eye. We are heading home today after hitting a few antique shops.

Edit-Sorry when I posted this entry at the hotel room, it showed the picture of my newly acquired stash but when I hit the post button it dropped the picture. And I wish I would have asked the antique shop owner if I could have taken a picture of his folk art life-size wood carved anatomically correct mermaid. I thought it was cool and would look really neat out by the pond. Unfortunately, it was $1200 so my pocketbook said no.

Making memories

I thought I would share with you a picture of a t-shirt quilt my daughter just made. We saw one of these at a graduation party and thought it was a cool way to use up t-shirts.
Seems like every time you turn around in high school or college either you have to buy a t-shirt for a sporting or club event. Any way, it makes a nice memory quilt instead of the t-shirts crammed in the drawers. I am very proud that my daughter likes to sew. In today's fast paced world it almost seems like a lost art. I just helped with the binding and she did everything else. Please excuse the wrinkles and shadows.

Spring Forward

Today I lost an hour of stitching due to the springing forward in time. I am participating in a SAL on CHS Shores, Adam & Eve and Mary Margaret. I only have a box done on Shores so I won't bother with posting a black box. I was able to make a little more progress on A & E, a couple of apples, a squirrel and the start of Adam's head. Since I am on Spring Break this week, I hope to get a lot more stitching done.

The other picture is the location of my second temporary job. It is at an old school house probably build around the late 1800's or early 1900's. The west entrance is marked girls and the east entrance boys. I find the architecture quite interesting. What made them separate the boys from the girls? What were the rules? I report to this job in the evening. The first week I was working there, 3 people informed me of their thoughts of creepy building after dark. I really hadn't given much thought to the building being creepy just old. It does a lot of banging, knocking and drafty. I don't think they will be calling in Ghost Hunters anytime soon since I am usually the only there until 10 or later. I will admit there has been a time or two a cold chill has ran up my back but nothing to make me run screaming from the building. And I have learned to use my Ipod to drown any background noise.

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner

Have you ever heard a phrase and you can't get it out of your head? That is what has happened to me. I watched "21" Friday night and have been repeating Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner over and over again, like a song. I really enjoyed the movie but geez! I also watched "Changeling" and "Body of Lies". "Changeling" is not an uplifting movie. So be warned.

I am also posting two WIP's although some might consider them UFO's. I started working on the Loose Feather BBD and was making great progress, then a I had an unexpected turn. Without going into details - I was offered a temporary second job to straighten out an accounting nightmare. So I am working two jobs and going to night school. I am not busy at all. I am so close to being finished with the BBD. The accounting job just needs to be posted.

The ATS, I can't remember why I put it away. I was pass the cloud heading for the second page so I don't know what happened. Anyway, I pulled it out over the weekend and started working on it again. So here are the pictures.