My Godmother's Danish Cross-Stitch and American Quilts Collections (and TUSAL Update....)

So, I haven't been real productive with my stitching lately.  The trip to Sweden was full of adventures until late in the nights and I managed to catch a cold towards the end.  I am still trying to recover and had to stay home sick from work today - too tired to stitch!
Anyway, I will probably post a couple of additional "Sweden Trip" posts, but I have too many photos to share, so it is pretty much necessary to divide the different days and activities up a bit.

Anyway, since I know that many of you are as much into stitching as I am, I just have to share some photos that I took while we visited my mother's cousin, my godmother, and her family for lunch last Saturday.  We had a lovely time and it was a lot of fun to see her and her husband and their two sons, the daughter-in-law, and the brand new grandson.  We were treated to sea food followed by tiramisu and coffee.  Well to be honest, my godmother, mom and I almost missed dessert since we were busy looking around in all my godmothers stash collection rooms.  It was a real familiar feel; the packed rooms, the clever "hiding places", the sorting systems that are completely undecipherable to anyone but the mastermind behind it...  all of this was pretty much like looking at my own stash through someone else's eyes.  And a real treat!
My godmother has been stitching for about 30 years now.  She mentioned that she started to practice embroidery when she was very young, I forget exactly how young, but I seem to recall that she was 5.  She explained that her mother needed to find something to occupy her with so that she would sit still for a few minutes, since she was a really high energy child.  My godmother started to stitch Danish designs, Clara Waever/Eva Rosenstand and Fremme (both fantastic companies of which I am a huge fan) thanks to my late grandmother, who ordered a lot of their kits through the woman's journals back in the 70:s.
We talked a lot about stitching and it was pretty funny to hear my father tell me that he was so impressed that I knew which company had designed what design.   I guess that maybe my family has never quite realized the depth of my obsession with stitching...  ;-)

Well, we had a great time.  We looked at my godmother's kit and pattern collection, admired a lot of her finished work, and even looked through some old Clara Waever catalogs to compare notes on what we like and what we are not real excited about.  I took a bunch of photos for you, so that you can have a look!  Here you can see both Fremme and Waever design finished as wall pictures and as table cloths.  Some have yet to be finished, which I believe is something that is often a bit of a challenge to many of us stitchers.  What to do with the finished design?  A table cloth, a wall picture, a pillow case, a gift to someone, or what?

 

 

 

 

My godmother is also a quilter and teaches classes in quilting.  She has taken trips to the US concentrating specifically on quilting and stash enhancement!  The US flag quilt below was stitched form fabric picked up in the US at a couple of different occasions.

 

 

 And finally, an adorable table-cloth from a Swedish design company made using traditional embroidery.  Too cute!  I just love geraniums, so this design really speaks to me!

What do you think about that!?  Pretty fabulous, right!?

Before I stop, I just have to share something sweet with you.  My mother proudly displays the things I stitch for her around the house in the most unexpected ways.  The pocket I stitched for her is now hanging around a floor lamp in the living room, which is also the permanent home of a couple of Christmas ornaments and a book-mark that I stitched for her years ago.  This is how you know that your gifts are appreciated!  :-)

 

Well, time to hop to bed.  I should get an early start on the sleep, so that I can get myself and my cold into work tomorrow.  I am already feeling better tonight than I did most of today, so I'd better ride this wave...

Real quick, before I go - this is the April TUSAL update.  A terrible photo, I know, but it is fun to see how the orts are beginning to fill the jar:

Good Night and Happy Dreams about Stitching,

Another One Bites the Dust

A quick happy post before I get started on finishing up the next project in line.  Here it is; the Quaker Sampler Pocket from Goode Huswife in all it's brown and tan glory.  Check!  :-)

Note my matching nail-polish...  It is that new (?) "gel" stuff that is dried through UV light curing and it's the first time I try it.  It is supposed to last for 2-3 weeks and so far I am impressed.  Today was the big weekly bird-cage wash and living room clean-up.  If it can stand that test, it can get through anything.
Since I am on my "go bold and don't be scared of color" kick, I picked this deep brown-red color, something that I have never been brave enough to try before.  I was contemplating the choice for a long time; I have a vendor meeting on Tuesday with a Japanese group and I wasn't sure if this is real appropriate in an engineering meeting.  Now it kinda' has to be...
Of course DH told me that he wasn't crazy about this color pick.  Oh well, he'll have to deal with it for a few more weeks.

Tomorrow evening, June-bug and I are going to get pampered in the massage parlor.  It is the second time I go to get a massage.  The first time I got a professional massage was when DH and I went on our very belated "Honey moon" (after being married for 6 years...) to Cancun in Mexico.  Let me tell you, if you want a great time in Cancun, no masses of people to fight over food, drinks, and space with, go over Thanksgiving - it was great!  Anyway, we were getting this romantic massage out on a deck right by the ocean.  We were lying next to each other and you could hear the ocean waves, smell the saltiness of the air, and feel the warmth from the sun and the cool of the sea breeze.  After about half an hour we were commanded to flip over from lying on our stomachs to lying on our backs.  Well, the lady that took care of me didn't pay attention to the fact that the sea breeze had picked up and so my towel blew off me.  I was totally flashing the rest of the beach!  I told DH afterward, whereon he responds: "Oh, that's why all those persons were standing on the balconies looking down at us".  That man truly knows how to make a girl feel...  um.. well... special... 
By the way, it always cracks me up when they ask if you want a "deep-tissue" or a "Swedish" massage.  The latter one sounds a bit kinky and I say that being a Swede... 

Well, off to the next project!
Happy Stitching and talk with you in a bit!

Stitching Along

Wow!  The weather was amazing here today!  All the trees are in bloom and it is just gorgeous out.  DH had today off to make up for his very short weekend, so we had time to see each other.  We went for a walk in the neighborhood - he wore short and I sandals - can you believe that it snowed here just 2 weeks ago!?  I love this time of the year!
After we checked out the neighborhood, we took a stroll around our garden.  Well, I had no real plans for the weekend before we took a peak at the mess surrounding our house; now I know what to do - weeding, pruning, digging, cleaning - this weekend will fly by!  DH is already whining about mowing the yard...  (the part I don't like about this time of the year!).

Yesterday my stitching-buddy Pink came by to say hi and to get some stitching time in.  We wandered down to Starbucks and sat there for a couple of hours.  She was working on our SAL, the Bent Creek Snapperville.  She is on the next to last square, which means that I'll have to get down to business so that I can keep up with her.
I did get a couple (almost) more half medallions stitched up on the Quaker pocket.  I really do enjoy stitching  this design and the last couple of medallions, or wreaths, are very pretty so they will be really fun to work on.  After that, I just have to sew up the back (the back panel is left open to give space to stitch on the front) and it is done!  I am enjoying it so much that I'm not even too worried about stitching it one more time.

I have finally figured out what letters to use instead of the charted ones.  I am going to stitch my mothers "maiden initials" on one the right side and mine on the left side.  That will give it a special meaning, I hope.
Especially with my mom's mother passing away just a few weeks ago - I thought that something to tie her and me to our past may be nice.

Other news on the stitch front; I joined a new board this week.  See, I am slowly coming out of my shell and joining other groups.  Fun!  The board in question is the Carriage House Samplings, Goode Huswife & Barrick Samplers gallery.  I have enjoyed looking at all the beautiful projects that other stitchers have submitted in the past, so I thought that it was probably my turn to contribute.  I have two more projects to share there, but my photos were terrible so I'll have to take some new shots before posting anything.
I really miss all three companies, but I was lucky enough to have moved to the US before they retired, so I did get a chance to buy some of their designs before prices rocketed.
Since I love blog pictures, I'll throw one of the ones that I posted in here.  This is Hester van Dorn by Goode Huswife.  I changed the initials and the linen & silk colors (for more background info, have a look at the board-with-the-name-too-long-to-spell-out):

Other stuff; I was absolutely thrilled earlier today when I discovered a new-to-me on-line needlework shop that carries some very hard-to-find French designers.  I have  been trying to find this one designer in particular, Zaza Picque, here in the US and finally got lucky today.  You can have a peak at the wonderful designs, materials, and photos on the Zaza Picque blog or go to the US retailer, The Thread Basket.  (I am not recommending this store yet - I'll let you know how it pans out.)  I am excited!!!  This is the chart that I have been searching for high and low on the Internet; En Catimini:

How cute is that!?  (Birds, what else...?  Note the cages - yep, let me tall you, cages do come in quite handy!).  I did get an assortment of extra stuff that I am looking forward to drool over in person.  One of the other charts I got is the Tea Travel Bag:

Cute, practical, probably a quick stitch - great to give to friends!  I have at least two recipients in mind (other then myself)...

Hmm, what else?  Well, I have been thinking about posting about one of my favorite sites on the net for a long time now.  This is not stitching related in any way, but I find it hilarious enough to write about!  It is called Awkward Family Photos and I just love it.  Some days, when work is just too depressing and I need to reset my brain, this is the site I go to.  I look through the newest photos for 5-10 minutes, get happier pretty much instantly, and get back to work in a much more positive state.  There are a lot of jazz-hands, "artistic" photo manipulation, big hair, "funny" family situations, and veeeery strange costumes.  Love it!
One of the best memories from my last Sweden trip was when Herr Slusk and I were lying in bed looking at awkward family photos together.  We were laughing until we were crying (at least I was, maybe she doesn't have the same weird sense of humor that I do?).

Well, I think that I have talked your ears of for now.  It still feels like something is missing.  Oh, now I remember!
I did get a really nice response back from Maureen Appleton in regards to the Sampler Bits Sewing Clamp comments I sent her.

• First off, she e-mailed me back not many hours after I contacted her, which I really like - great customer service!  
• The "missing" border chart should be found on page 12 (my bad - I have yet to look it up too - way to be on the ball, Jenny...).  
• This is the part that really impressed; Maureen offered to send me a whole new piece of linen and the floss to go with it, since I commented that the tent stitch would have probably have been the better way to go. I did decline her kind offer, since I do believe that I have enough linen to stitch the top part one more time - I should be all set.  Still, it is really good to get such a nice and generous response back.
• She did also thank me for the feedback, which I appreciated very much.  I think that sometimes business owners don't really get that if a customer takes the time to give feedback, many times it is because the customer is satisfied and just wants to help make the product/service even better.  If I am not happy with the product, I seldom say anything, but I sure don't come back again. 
• What do you guys think?

And finally, DH came back home less than a minute after he drove off to work today.  When I asked him what he was doing back so early, he told me that he forgot his wallet (he is rooting through the pockets of a pair of jeans while sharing this info with me).  Well he finds it, we kiss each other good bye (again), and as he leaves through the door I hear him mumble to himself "let's see, I've got my pants on...".  That man cracks me up!

Well, off to bed with me!  Have to get into work tomorrow so that I can make money for bird-seed and cross-stitch (not necessarily in that order...)
Good Night and Sweet Stitching Dreams to All!

First Monday Morning of Spring!

Hi everyone!  I hope that you had a great weekend.  I did!  I had a crazy week with late nights at work and I also managed to squeeze in some social events even later in the evenings..  I know - what is going on!?  One of the "after work activities" was simply stitching with my friend Pink at my house on Thursday evening.  She didn't leave until 11PM!!!  Who said that stitchers can't go wild and crazy...?  It was a lot of fun as always and we did get a bunch of stuff done.
The other event was a more unusual type of meeting - a friend from Sweden, who now lives in Switzerland, sent me a message that she was in KY for a couple of days and wondered if we could meet for dinner.  We did and had a really nice time!  We have actually never met in Sweden, but she was here as a guest researcher over a summer while I was working on my PhD, so we hung out for a few weeks over that summer.  That was 10 years ago!  After that summer, she went back to Sweden, graduated with her MSc and proceeded to Switzerland for her PhD in Engineering.  She "got stuck" doing a post doc there and was hired on by the company she did the research for after the post-doc work was completed.  Anyway, it seriously felt like no time had passed - I know that it sounds like a cliche, but it was absolutely great!  She looked exactly like herself and we reconnected instantly.  We talked about work cultures in different countries, women in engineering, dating in a foreign country, language (both of us had a bit of a hard time to switch over to Swedish), and home, missing family and friends and other pretty serious topics.  We did have a lot of fun!  It sounds like she will come back more frequently (on business) for a while, so I am hoping that we will see each other soon again!

Other than that, and after a seemingly short weekend, I feel well-rested, calm, and pretty satisfied with life.  Before showing you the calming projects I got to spend time with over the past few days, I wanted to share a couple of photos depicting a couple of sleeping beauties: DH and Scrappy. 
Scrappy is our tiny little snuggle bug.  He craves warmth and he will do just about anything to get some.  If I sit on the couch with a blanket over my shoulders, he flaps over in an instant and looks at me with his enormous eyes.  I usually lift up the blanket a tiny bit and he runs right in under it.  He generally does not come back out on his own, but he can sit there for hours without a problem.
The other day when I came home, he was looking pitiful. I had chores to be done, so no sitting on the couch under a blanket for me.  However, DH was sleeping in bed and I took scrappy over to the bedroom to see if that would suit him.  Yup, he ran straight in and nestled himself up right under DH's chin.  He is just too cute!  I took the photos with flash on, so that is why he is giving me these less-than-happy looks.

Here is what I can report on the stitching front.  Since I can't seem to help myself when it comes to starting new projects, I have to show what I picked out of my stitching room on Friday evening.  This is the Sampler Bits Sewing Clamp kit from The Heart's Content.  As you may already know, Maureen Appleton designs pretty much exclusively over-one designs.  This itty-bitty pin-cushion clamp was just too cute to pass up.  I do believe that she has one or two additional designs in her sewing clamp series, Floral Monogram and Bird of Colour.  Here is the progress as of Friday evening:

And here is the finished top section early Sunday morning (yep, I was a bad, bad girl and stayed up until 3.30 in the morning, just to get that final stitch in....).  I have placed the finished piece on top of the cover photo so that you can see how the finished clamp will look.

I do have a few comments and thoughts about this kit, if anyone is thinking about stitching it in the future.

1)  The instructions refer to a border design that is supposed to be included in the kit (for the side of the cushion), but I can't seem to find it.  It looks like it is a pretty simple design, but maybe the chart would be helpful in indicating the length of the border.  (I am already thinking of potential options, to "spruce up" the border design!)
2)  First AFTER I completely finished the top piece, I realized that the model on the cover is stitched in tent-stitch and not cross-stitch!!!  However, I am pretty certain that the instructions call out cross and not tent stitch...   Now I realize that
a) I seem to be running low on floss, especially if I am to stitch an entire border piece  - even though Maureen uses DMS, so it shouldn't be a problem to get more.
b)  I feel that some of the details "disappeared" in my piece...  One example is the reindeer's and parrot's eyes that do not show well in my piece compared to the model (the photo above is clickable, if you would like to have a closer look).  The details in the fruit in the basket did also disappear somewhat.
3)  I was really missing a linen lay-out diagram that many designers include with kits when 1 linen piece is to be used for several separate stitching sections...  I am not patient enough to read through a booklet to try to figure out the smartest way to lay out the sections.  I am generally very anxious to jump in and start with the fun stuff - the stitching - right away....
4)  So, if I ever decide to stitch this design again, I would use tent-stitch and also switch the DMC for a gorgeous dark color over-dyed silk.  Yum!  Maureen sells the clamps separately and they were not too pricey - below $20, I believe .
5)  The linen is absolutely great - a 40-count hand-dyed in color "Muffin".  This linen actually allows the stitcher to stitch the over-one cross-stitches the same way as over-two; complete an entire row of half-crosses and then cross them on the way back, instead of completing each x before moving to the next.

I did e-mail Maureen most of these comments earlier tonight, so it will be interesting to see what she has to say.

I did also stitch on one of the projects that I really should be stitching on - the Goode Huswife pocket for my mom.  I really like how this one is turning out!  I must say that I am less than impressed with myself though - I have done countless errors and I have not been ripping this much in a very long time (I seem to write this type of statement about once a month though....).  I would say that I am over 1/3 towards completion now. 
I was lying in bed the other evening thinking about this design and suddenly it hit me.  I realized, I do find it ironic, that I absolutely love samplers, but I very much dislike stitching the alphabet.  Blah!  I have no idea why, but again - Blah!  I love to stitch repeats and borders and filling in large areas and pretty much anything that many stitchers find incredibly boring, but I can't seem to handle alphabets.  Yep, there is one such included in this design.  Not looking forward to it... 

Finally, before jumping into bed, here is a greeting from my very happy Hoya.  She is doing really well, I must say.  

One of my colleagues gave me a stickling from one of his house plant last week, so I am very excited about taking care of this new cutie.  If I recall correctly, it is a Jade plant (a succulent) that will turn into a hanging version once it grows bigger.  My mom has a beautiful Jade plant back home.  It is not a hanging one but it pretty much looks like a small tree.  I have always wanted my own Jade and now I have one!

 

Well, bed-time for me.  It is already Monday and I have morning meetings at work in just a few hours...

Good night,

Belly-flop!

Brrrr - it turned freezing as soon as I came back from Sweden.  From being in the 80s, I hear, we went down to below 32 in just a few days.
Spring did a belly-flop this weekend.  The ground was covered with a thin layer of snow on Sunday morning and the outdoor birds were complaining loudly and repeatedly about the lack of seed in the bird-feeders.  My hyacinths looked accusingly up at me - almost double-bent in the chilly air.  Even the daffodils looked less than amused.  The snow melted away pretty quickly though and the spring bubs stretched back out again.

Note the seriously impatient clematis and peony plants in the last garden pic below...  Boy, I thought that I had issues with patience..  ;-)

This last pic show "the big birds" haning out in my kitchen.  See the blue stuff on the right in the door-way?  That is a drape, hung there specifically to keep the little monsters out... they like to hang in the kitchen, isnce the sliding glass door makes this room so bright and since there is a hot air vent right below them.  They are so cute that it is hard to get really mad.  And they know it!  Oh, and yes, my ironing and sewing machine stations are placed smack on the kitchen table....  I guess that I ought to feel bad about that...  :-(

Well, what better excuse to stay in and stitch than freezing weather?  I got time to stitch up a storm this weekend!  I started off on Friday evening with finishing up as much as I can on the PS Birth Sampler.  Now the baby boy needs his full name to be decided and we are ready to get this sampler on the road!

Saturday got interrupted with taking care of the fuzz-balls.  I was left as the single parrot parent on Saturday, since DH had to work (I keep forgetting - I think that I am married, but I am not sure if we actually live together anymore...)  and to be nice to him and the birds I had fun leaning over the bath-tub for a couple of hours.  I have probably mentioned it in the past - 6 large bird cages take time to clean...
Anyway, it's definitely worth it - as you can see below, Rocky and Hugin are quite pleased.  Rocky is munching away on a large chunk of apple.  I remember that I thought that it was absolutely fascinating the first time I saw a bird eat like this! 

Rocky and Hugin have had 19 babies together and they are out only mating couple (thank goodness!!!).  Rocky (Rock) is the female and is quite a little overachiever, laying up to 10 eggs per clutch.  There is not a chance in the world that she can sit on all 10, so generally about 4 of the eggs hatch.  That keeps mom and dad quite busy as it is...  The first time Rocky sat on her eggs, she was so devoted that she refused to come out of her nest-box to eat.  Hugin  did actually have to go in to the box, chase her out and guard the entrance until she had eaten some food and drunk a bit of water.  She was really skinny when the eggs finally hatched and I am sure that she would not have survived without him taking care of her.
After the babies hatch, she is generally not too interested in family time anymore.  See, she loves DH and probably wishes that she could have married him instead of Hugin.  She does not even bother trying to keep it a secret.  :-)  She will sit and kiss DH on the forehead and tell him "Hi baby!" for hours.  Luckily neither Hugin nor I are the jealous type! 
Hugin is a great dad!  It is pretty cool to see how birds are taught how to fly in your own living-room.  He will line up all the babies beside him on the top of a cage, look them all over to make sure that he has the undivided attention of all babies and then he will fly over to another cage or object close to where he started from.  Then he turns around and all the babies fly after, one by one.  Then he makes sure that they are all lined up, paying attention, and it is off back to the point of origin.  It is quite a sight and he has the patience of a saint.  And I must say that the concentration and discipline of the babies are simply awesome!

Well, after bathing birdcages for a while, I thought that it would only be logical to finish up the final stitches on Just Nan's "Birdcage"/  I had some beading, back-stitch and charting to do, so I opted to do that at home instead of at work.  I switched out the text on the outside back for my initials and a large egg.  I like the egg, but I am not certain about the letters just yet.  (They are taken from the PS Birth Sampler book btw.)  After that, I read that finishing instructions about three times and fell asleep...  Snore!

I did also finish up a small stitch for Littelest Sister.  I always used to call her my little piglet, since she is very blond, has a beautiful rosy complexion and has the cutest little button nose (oh, how I wish that I had gotten that nose...)!  I think that it is only fitting that I could be called a chicken, so this design is  dedicated to her as a symbol of the two of us.  If you surf the on-line stitch stores as often as I am, you probably know that this little square is only the part of this design.  I am sorry that I can't show all of it to you, but LS, "Herr Slusk", follows my blog regularly.  I promise to show you as soon as I have handed it over to her.

I was a tad tired on Sunday, but managed to start on a brand new kit; the LH 1818 Quaker Pocket, which is an old kit from The Goode Huswife.  This was the very first kit that I bough by contacting the desiner directly.  I got two kits - one to sticth for my Mom and one for me.  I have been thinking that I'd better stitch on these ni parallel, or I have a feeling that only one will be done...  Supposedly, the pre-finished pockets that came with these kits werer accidentally made with the wrong count linen, so I feel a bit like I am living on the edge...  It will be very pretty when it is done and I think that it will stitch up a lot quicker than I originally thought.

So, since I can't stick to just one new beginning, I started on yet another kit tonight.  I have the opportunity to take the Hare Pyns finishing class with Sherri Jones of Patrick's Woods through the QCSG in October.  I took this class at CON back in 2007 and never even opened the kit.  I even missed the class!  I do have a good excuse; I took Forget-Me-Nots-in-Stitches "A Victorian Melon Bag" that year too and the classes were scheduled during the same time slot.  Well, Sherri's class was jam packed and there were only three students in Lauren Sauer's  class, so it was an easy pick of which class-room to sit in!  I think that Lauren is the sweetest person, by the way!  Oh, and Sherri is also a lovely lady.

Anyway, I have told myself that I am not registring for the finishing class unless the stitching is done.  Basta!  It is a lovely design, but the vast majority of the stitching is over-one I think, so nothing that I will whip up over a weekend...  ;-)  Here is the beginning of the needle book.  Herringbone stitch and over-one..... 

Before I say Good Night, I guess I'd better post a picture of the Melon Bag!  It was a fun prooject and the first one that I ran amok and redesigned a big part to be more personal.  I will have to go back and change out all the rings that the drawstring goes through.  The keep snagging the string and it drives me batty!!!!
The secon pic shows my monogram - that was the panel that I redesigned.

So, Good Night all friends - talk with you soon!