Happy Autumn Everyone

So this time it's been longer than two months. Way longer. I do have an excuse, and a pretty good one at that. My hard drive crashed, had to get a new hard drive, and the woman who 'fixed' my computer did install a new, much larger hard drive but messed up the computer pretty bad. I'm still trying to install fixes, patches and programs, so much doesn't work that should, and I've just been trying in my own inept way to get things fixed up--so many times I've prayed for a family member that was a computer geek.


While I've been working on the computer, (it was down about two weeks) I've also been stitching and framing, and reading. Well, no reading for the last week because I was way too busy. This post is heavy with pictures, so if you think you might need to warm up your coffee, go ahead. We'll wait.


First up is what I call my 'Dad Project'. Yes, Jean, I did get it finished, finally. I started this project a few years ago, so I guess I have a finished UFO. It seemed to take me forever. But, now that it's finished, I really like how it turned out. This past week has been a frenzy of framing so that I could give this 'project' to my father at his 75th birthday celebration. Here it is. Do you think he'll like it?

These next two are Halloween finishes. One you've already seen, the Lizzie Kate October piece. (I still have to finish the over one piece into a fob, boo, hiss.) The other was a kit, 'Come in for a bite' by Hillside Samplings. I just love how it turned out. I would have made an over one except the wording is already over one. I made these both for my son Chad, who loves Halloween all year round and decorates that way.

The next three finishes are all Little House Needleworks pieces. Simple Joys, Tall Pines and Singing the Blues. I changed the wording on Tall Pines to reflect the vacation the family took, all together, to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. One of the best times of my life. Simple Joys was done as a SAL with a friend Linda. It was amazing how fast we both got finished working together. Singing the blues, well, that was finished long ago, right around my birthday in July, but just now finally got framed. This is such a sweet piece. Of all these pieces, I think I love Simple Joys the best though. Just love how the colors look.

I spent the entire summer reading and I'm totally shocked with how much I've read. I read all of Kathy Reichs' books, all the books by Tess Gerritson (Rizzolli and Isles) and a ton more, including the trilogy of 'The girl with the dragon tatoo". I've worked on my Shepherd's Bush piece, 'into the night' and worked on my LHN Neighborhood. I think you can say, I've kept busy.

I have, on the other hand, kept up with all of you. Going to retreats, stitching, stashing, antiquing, vacations, redoing craft rooms, and been entertained by all that all of you have done. Living vicariously through all of you.

Right now, I'm stitching on 'Be Merry, Belle Pepper' by LHN. Have only gotten the house done so far, and I've done some changing on the colors. I love this piece but it was kind of drab, in my opinion, so I'm taking out one of the browns, adding a very pale blue for the stars and doing all of the lettering with the dark green. And have you seen Diane's new sampler? The row by row piece? Oh, wow, it's so totally gorgeous, with lovely deep reds.

So when did blogger change the way one places pictures? They are still uploaded to the top of the post, but I can't seem to move them the way we used to--drop and drag? If anyone can give me some advice on this--let me put it this way, it took me 3 hours to move all these pictures around so that they were where they were supposed to be. And can you believe we only have two months until Christmas? Where did the time go?

I am definitely going to try to make more posts and I apologize for taking so long with this one. Stitch on, dear friends, and have a great weekend.