Autumn is Here

Hi, stitching friends!

How is September already almost over? The days are getting shorter. Hubby is falling asleep on the couch at 8:30 p.m. because it's so dark outside, but I do like the temperatures. I wore a long-sleeve shirt to an appointment yesterday and I was glad I did. It's that time of year when A/C is still cranked up inside even though outside it's only 72 degrees.

Bittersweet September

Have you ever stitched something you love, only to hate the finish? Aggravating, isn't it? You put so much work into something only to end up hiding it in a closet. That was the case for me with Bittersweet September by Blackbird Designs.

I stitched it last year. I loved the stitch and the autumn colors and the wonky way the "W" is bigger than all the other letters. (Why? Why not?) But when I put it in a thrift-store frame I had painted brown, it just looked blaaaahhh. So I put it away in the armoire for a year. I didn't know what to do to make it look better.

Franken Frames to the rescue! With a recent order, I made sure to get something for this sweet stitch. I love this frame. I think the walnut goes really well with the colors in the stitch, and I love the beaded edge.

Macintosh Mill

Macintosh Mill was a Dimensions kit based on a painting by Charles Wysocki. I stitched this years ago, so long ago I don't even remember when. At the time, I wasn't doing any framing myself, and framing can be expensive. It seemed like there was always something more important to spend the money on. So I folded it up and put it back in the package with the kit and forgot about it.

Fast forward 10 years (or more!). I was purging my old cross stitch magazines when I found the kit and the completed stitch folded up inside. I ironed it and again thought about having it framed. Not in the budget. I put it in a plastic storage bin with other completed stitches and forgot about it again.

Fast forward a year, and here I am framing things myself! And here you have it... Macintosh Mill, framed and ready for fall.

The horse and buggy, and the children and their dog (or goat?)...

Rocking on the porch....

The pumpkin patch and pumpkin pies...

Hay in the loft...

Apple picking...

The water wheel...

Sheep in the field...

Late summer turning into autumn, a bountiful harvest, my favorite time of year....

Halloween at Hawk Run Hollow Reveal

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll remember that last year my big project was Halloween at Hawk Run Hollow by Carriage House Samplings. I started in January and finished at the end of August. I've shown each block as I completed it but never the whole thing.

The plan was to have it framed and ready for the blog in October last year, but there was a major mix-up at the framer and I didn't end up getting the fully finished project back until after Thanksgiving! They had it for about three months (can you imagine?). Apparently there was some misunderstanding between the framer and the supplier with the moulding I chose and it sat on a cargo ship in a dock somewhere all that time. The framer felt so terrible about the whole situation that she framed it in a plain black frame so I could at least have it on the wall for Halloween. When the correct frame came in, she reframed it, but I didn't want to show you a Halloween stitch just before Christmas.

I am so happy with the final result. I think the frame looks like creepy vines, and it picks up the shapes in the tree limbs and roots, the pumpkin vines and the swamp. The photograph doesn't show it well, but it's a really pretty dark gold with black undertones. The second photo shows more of a closeup of the frame next to the pumpkin square.

I hope you are staying well and continuing to do everything you can to keep yourself and the ones you love healthy. You are too important! Until next time... happy stitching!

i thank You God for most this amazing

Fall view of the Lost River Range as seen from the ranch

Hi, stitching friends!

Never before have I had a religious post, or a spiritual post, because I have always believed that religion and spirituality are a personal thing. If you want to stop reading now, by all means, do, and come back again later when it's just about cross stitch and life. I won't be offended in the least.

I'm not going to try to convince you to believe what I believe, but I wanted to share with you a neat "Aha!" moment I had the other night. I was reading Some Answered Questions when I came across a paragraph that just flipped a light switch on in my brain.

I'm going to link a poem to a cross-stitch pattern I charted nearly 30 years ago to a horse to miracles. (A horse? Yes, a horse.) Ready?

First, the poem. 

When I was in college studying English, I fell in love with the poetry of e e cummings. The poem "i thank You God for most this amazing" just spoke to me:

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Next, the cross stitch.

I liked the poem so much that I charted it for cross stitch when I was in college. I was a new stitcher then, still working on Aida, and I picked a pattern from an issue of Cross Stitch & Country Crafts magazine to use for the top and bottom borders and the scene at the bottom.

My brother framed it for me, cutting the mat himself. I think he mounted it on sticky board. Over the years it has started to wrinkle in the frame a little as you can see, but it has been hanging on a wall in my home for nearly 30 years.

I was so proud of myself for learning a couple of new stitches: the pavilion diamond stitch and the "braided" backstitch lines (I can't remember the name of the stitch).

And the horse.

Yes, there really is a horse in all of this.

My parents moved to central Idaho two months before I was born. Growing up in a small mining and ranching town, I never felt like I belonged. People can live there for decades and still be considered outsiders. I didn't fit in with my classmates, and I often felt like I was bullied. I couldn't wait to move away.

Driving through Round Valley, the Lost River Valley and across the desert to the nearest "big city" that had a mall and a movie theater was my first escape. My mom would take me school-clothes shopping, or would take my brother and me Christmas shopping, and sometimes we would go just to eat Chinese food, stay in a "fancy" hotel and see a movie. My brother and I would ride escalators and elevators for fun, since there were only a few buildings more than one story tall in our entire county.

The mountains were invisible to me. They were just something we had to drive past to get to the city.

The Lost River Range, as seen from the top of the Burma Road leading into Copper Basin.

When I was a senior, I was applying to Penn State, Carnegie Mellon and Oberlin. I wanted to get away.

And then I met Shawn.

Shawn and me, in 1993, at his
parents' house over Christmas break
during our junior year of college

How had I not met him before? He went to school in a neighboring town an hour away, and our basketball teams had played many times. He was a center on their team, and I was in our pep band. (How had I not seen him? Oh, wait, I know. The guy who played center for our team was my crush, so I was probably wasting time watching him instead.)

My friends and I joined Academic Team, a new activity for our central- and eastern-Idaho schools. All the teams met in the "big city" for a meet-and-greet orientation. My friends and I were sitting at a table when my friend Heidi jumped up and said, "Shawn!"

I looked up to see who she was yelling to. I know it didn't happen this way, but this is how I remember it: slow motion, the most beautiful blue eyes and gorgeous smile I had ever seen, tall, handsome, dreamy. His friends were there, too, but I didn't see them. I only saw him.

The entrance to Copper Basin, summer range for the cattle

Fast forward a few months. Blue eyes and I were dating ("going out" is what we called it in the 90s). Blue eyes grew up on a ranch, and I could hardly believe that I was dating a ranch kid. His family had a 1,000-acre ranch with about 500 mother cows, and they summer-pastured the cows in Copper Basin and along the "bar," a long stretch of sagebrush-covered ground running between the Lost River Mountain Range and the highway. I had driven past this area dozens of times and never paid attention.

One early summer, I was helping Shawn and his family gather up cows from the bar to move them to Copper Basin. I had very little experience riding a horse, so Shawn put me on Smoky, a gentle, older quarterhorse. We got to one point and Shawn said, "Ride along this ridge, around that way, and then meet me on the other side." We were gathering up strays.

"The Bar," spring to early-summer range for the cattle, where Smoky and I had our moment

As soon as Shawn and his horse, a tall, high-spirited thoroughbred with racehorse blood, were out of sight, Smoky stopped. No matter how much I kicked and yelled, that darn horse would not move. The more I yelled and fretted, the more he just sighed and shifted his weight from one side to the other.

He would not move.

I panicked. What if I got off and tried to lead him? Would he run away? Would he know he got the best of me? What would Shawn think when he got to our meeting point and I wasn't there?

Smoky and I sat in the same spot for nearly two hours.

With nothing else to do (bear in mind this was long before smartphones were invented), I opened my eyes. I looked around. And for the first time in my life, I saw the mountains.

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

And finally, the miracle.

When I read and stitched "i thank You God for most this amazing," I thought the last two lines were about my experience seeing the mountains and the beauty around me for the first time. I knew the poem was about God and the natural world, but I thought it was about opening my eyes and my ears to the beauty around me, really seeing it and hearing it, not just seeing and hearing it.

And then I read this passage in Some Answered Questions, and the poem, the cross-stitch that had been hanging on my wall for decades, had new meaning:

"Consider that Christ reckoned as dead those who were nonetheless outwardly and physically alive; for true life is life eternal and true existence is spiritual existence. Thus if the Sacred Scriptures speak of raising the dead, the meaning is that they attained everlasting life; if they say that one who was blind was made to see, the meaning of this seeing is true insight; if they say that one who was deaf was made to hear, the meaning is that he acquired an inner ear and attained spiritual hearing. This is established  by the very text of the Gospel where Christ says that they are like those of whom Isaiah once said, They have eyes and see not, they have ears and hear not; and I heal them*."

My understanding was not wrong before. But as time progressed and my capacity for understanding increased, I was able to see another, deeper meaning in those lines.

"(i who have died am alive again today," = "if the Sacred Scriptures speak of raising the dead, the meaning is that they attained everlasting life..."

"the ears of my ears awake" = "he acquired an inner ear and attained spiritual hearing."

"the eyes of my eyes are opened" = "he acquired true insight."

Sitting on that horse with nothing around me but sagebrush, mountains, sky and silence opened my eyes and my ears to the world around me then. Reading 'Abdu'l-Bahá's words awakened the ears of my ears and opened the eyes of my eyes.

Have a fantastic week, stitching friends. I'll be back soon with more "regular" posts about fall stitching and framing (I have lots to show you!). Until then, stay safe and happy fall, y'all!

*Cf. Matt. 13:14-15; John 12:39-40.

Autumn Leaves

Hi, stitching friends!

A few days ago I featured an autumn freebie from Ricami di Marula at Crocette a gogò. You can get the free pattern by clicking here.

I wanted to stitch this while our leaves were still so beautiful, so for the past few days this is all I've been working on. I finished it last night and framed it today. Isn't it sweet?

I've had this little mahogany 4x4 frame in my stash for more than 20 years! Isn't it great when you finally find a use for something? I thought about painting the frame green or white, but my son said I should keep it natural because he liked how it went with the tree trunk and branches.

I stitched "Autumn" one-over-two on 40-count Flax Newcastle with the called-for DMC thread, except I substituted DMC 817 for the called-for DMC 321. I thought the 321 was a little too fire-engine red and bright, and I wanted a more "orangey" red for the birds. I stitched the string in DMC 898, same color as the branches, instead of the called-for DMC 310.

I have to thank Carol at Stitching Dreams for recommending the 40-count Flax Newcastle as one of her favorite stitching fabrics. I bought a big cut of it because she liked it so much, and while I was stitching on it, I thought, "Where have you been all my life?" It had such a nice feel and I love how I could use just one thread.

I absolutely love those birds. I changed the legs a tiny little bit, removing a couple of stitches in the pattern so they would be more delicate.

I think this would be a fun stitch to alter for different seasons, using different color schemes. The acorn between the birds could be a Christmas gift and they could be cardinals, or, for spring, the acorn could be a little tied bouquet.

Autumn Leaves

I call your attention to the title of this post: Autumn Leaves. It has a double meaning. The local news tonight said we're going to get "winter-like" temperatures in the middle of the next week. I'm not sure I'm ready to hear that! But I do like it when the colder weather sets in because I like to make soup and homemade stock, and I start getting all giddy thinking about watching Christmas movies and getting busy with the holidays.

My heart goes out to all of you still suffering the heat. Hold tight. This, too, shall pass. They just never say when!

Be well, friends, and I hope you have lots of time to stitch.

Halloween Finishing Spree Day One

Hi, stitching friends!

If you're like me, you've got a bin or a drawer full of finished-but-not-finished projects. And if you've been reading my blog, you know that "finishing" is a four-letter word in my book. I don't usually enjoy it. But thanks to some inspiration from all of you, I've been on a finishing spree.

"Moon Over Blackbird," a freebie from Lizzie*Kate, was in my to-do pile. I stitched this in 2018 and featured it on the blog in this post. It is stitched on 32-count coffee/tea-dyed linen. I used colors I had on hand, as well as some of the called-for colors.

I laced the stitch onto foam core and added a fabric-covered chipboard backing. Then I joined the two together and pinned two layers of ribbon to the outside.

Both ribbons were from my stash of old Stampin' Up supplies. I used the orange chevron ribbon for the hanger, and then folded it in half to go around the outside. Then I layered a ruffled ribbon over that, picking up the light and dark oranges in the pumpkin. A sweet, simple little finish to help kick off fall and Halloween!

Hello, Green Tomatoes!

Last night, our local weather forecaster said, "Freeze warning for Boise tonight. Better get out and harvest what you can now. The growing season is OVER." Ugghhhh.

Winter is coming.....

My husband spent the weekend at his family ranch in central Idaho, and he had to brush four inches of snow off the car before driving home.

When he got home, we spent a good two hours out in the garden picking green and mostly green tomatoes. I estimated that we had 100 pounds out there, and I think I may be right. We've had to do this in the past, and while it does take time, they do eventually turn red.

I looked up "how to make green tomatoes turn red" and a YouTube video showed this lady wrapping each little tomato in tissue paper. I nearly laughed myself to death. Can you imagine? Another had a guy putting them in a paper sack with a banana (which gives off a gas that speeds the ripening process). I'm going to try that this year (with lots of paper sacks and lots of bananas). Hopefully it will speed up the process. In any case, we will have tomatoes well into fall and early winter.

See you again tomorrow, friends. I'll have another fall/Halloween finish to show you. Until then, I hope you have lots of time to stitch!

Autumn Is Here

Hi, stitching friends!

Autumn is officially here. We are enjoying the perfectly warm 72 degrees of late summer here in Boise, but cooler days are not far ahead.

I'm welcoming fall with a cute finish called "Autumn is Here," a freebie from Maja at The Snowflower Diaries. You can get the free chart here and you can visit Maja's Etsy shop here.

I stitched Autumn is Here on 32-count "Fog" linen by Picture This Plus, using my own color combination: DMC 310, DMC B5200, Weeks Dye Works (WDW) Molasses, WDW Clockwork, WDW Crimson, Colour & Cotton (C&C) Primitive Vines and C&C Bumblebee.

I found the metal flowery pumpkin at Hobby Lobby. I laced the stitching onto chipboard covered with a piece of batting, then mounted that on another piece of chipboard covered in gingham fabric.

I found the perfect little spot in my kitchen to hang this. Welcome, autumn!

I hope you have many warm (not too hot, not too cold) days ahead, and lots of time to stitch. Thanks for stopping by!

Black Cat Hollow, Autumn Leaves and a Freebie

Hi, stitching friends!

I hope this finds you all enjoying the last warm days of autumn, with plenty of time to stitch. Our weather is typical for Idaho this time of year - frost in the mornings, then mid- to late-60s in the afternoon, with blankets ready for curling up in the evenings. I can't decide how to dress each morning. A hoodie is great for staving off the cold in the morning, but by midday I'm sweating and asking, "What was I thinking?" So lately, since I have the luxury of being able to do so, I've been staying in pajamas until late morning (or early afternoon, if I'm working!). Problem solved.

I have not been able to do as much stitching as I would like lately. I have put in some long (up to 12-hour) days typesetting. I have never been so thankful to have cross-stitch as a hobby. It's such a great way to relax and unwind.

"Black Cat Hollow"
by Barbara Ana Designs
Stitched on 32-count Dark Cobblestone Lugana
Called-for DMC threads

I'm excited to show you "Black Cat Hollow," a 3-part sampler by Barbara Ana Designs. I purchased the PDF downloads from Creative Poppy as they were released. I mounted the stitched piece on sticky board, then mounted some black-and-white homespun on cardboard and attached the layers with magnets onto a metal sign I picked up at Hobby Lobby. (The metal sign was originally white with metal words attached that said "Good Things Take Time," but the word "Things" was mounted upside down! I bought this "defective" sign on purpose because I knew I would be taking the words off and painting the sign with black chalk paint.) I made a bow - Priscilla and Chelsea style - with some black plaid ribbon and some fall foliage picks. I'm thrilled with how it turned out.

Taking a cue from Priscilla, I hot-glued the bow and foliage to the stitched piece, rather than the black sign, so I can reuse the black metal base to display another seasonal project.

Don't you just love those mischievous little witches? They are definitely up to something wicked.

I have so many Halloween-themed projects finished, but not fully finished, and I'm anxious to show them to you. My craft room/office is a DISASTER. When I first started staying home, I tackled each room of my house, purging and organizing. But since then, the chaos has crept back in and it's obvious I need another go at this room. At the time I first organized the room, I was still doing a lot of card-making. I have a LOT of paper, rubber stamps and embellishments taking up space. While I'm not ready to give them up, I would like to put them in storage so I can have a better space for finishing cross-stitch projects. I'm looking forward to the workload slowing down in the coming weeks so I can get this done.

Autumn Leaves

"Autumn Leaves"
by The Prairie Schooler
Stitched on 28-count white Irish linen with called-for DMC threads
and limited-edition "Ginger Cake" thread by The Gentle Art

The next project I have to show is "Autumn Leaves" by The Prairie Schooler. I actually stitched and finished this last autumn, before I started my blog. I used the called-for DMC threads, but I substituted "Ginger Cake" by The Gentle Art for some of the words ("said the," "to the," etc.). I received the skein as a thank-you freebie from an Jen at Jen's Stitching Niche on Etsy and I was anxious to use it. Unfortunately, it's a limited edition color, so I'm not sure about its availability.

I followed the cube tutorial from LHN (for their Hometown Holiday series) to finish it. The best part? NO sewing required! None! I had purchased this gorgeous autumn leaves fabric from a quilting store in Whidbey Island, WA, more than 20 years ago (!) and have had it in my stash all this time, waiting for the perfect project.

I used flat, wide beads attached with pins as "legs" for the cube, and I just love it. Every time I see it on the cabinet in my entryway, it makes me happy.

A Fall Freebie

A big thank you to Beth at Garden Grumbles and Cross-Stitch Fumbles for bringing the newest Lizzie Kate freebie, "Moon Over Blackbird," to my attention! Look how cute!

I couldn't wait to get started on this, but I did not have all the suggested overdyed threads. I substituted for some of the colors (my substitutions: WDW Grasshopper, Seagull, Deep Sea, Whitewash and Chrysanthemum, and CC Pumpkin Harvest). Here's my finished (but not fully finished yet) stitch:

"Moon Over Blackbird"
Freebie by Lizzie*Kate
Stitched on 32-count coffee/tea-dyed linen
with suggested/substituted overdyed threads

I wanted the pumpkin to have a vertical-striped look, like a real pumpkin, so I outlined it then filled in the stitches going up and down rather than side to side. It was a fun, quick stitch. Thanks, Beth, and thank you, Lizzie Kate!

Adventures in Driving

My son, who is going to turn 16 in December, is taking driver's ed. He's doing well, and he is loving the driving experiences. The school where we have him enrolled has very fancy cars for the students to learn in. His first driving experience was in a 2018 Ford Mustang convertible, and he drove in rush-hour traffic around the mall. He did so well, his driving instructor asked him if we had been letting him drive in the city already! (We haven't.) His dad lets him drive pickups in the corrals at the ranch, and on some of the tiny back roads around the ranch, but this was his first city-driving experience. 

The second time he drove, it was in a $75,000 pickup. It will be quite a shock to his system when he has to drive his mom and dad's cars. We drive old Hondas (Hondas last forever if you take care of them), and mine is the "newest." It's a 2006 CR-V with 108,000 miles on it! My husband's car is a 1996 Honda Civic with more than 300,000 miles on it, and our other "good" car is a 2004 Honda Accord with more than 200,000 miles on it! When it comes to cars, we are firm believers in "use it up, wear it out." I get my "new car" fix when we vacation in Oregon and I get to drive a new rental car for a week.

My son says his first car is going to be a Ford Mustang GT350. I asked him how much it costs, and he said, "Only about $50,000." Dreams.....

Well, I'd better get back to work. It was fun sharing with you, friends, and I look forward to hearing from you. When you take the time to comment, it's like getting "happy mail" in my inbox. So thank you! Have a great week, and I will be back next week with more to share, and hopefully some finishes.

Autumn House Freebie

Hi, stitching friends!

Heavens to Betsy, it seems like I have been working on this forever! I mentioned in May that I was working on a series of seasonal houses to release as freebies.

A few hours ago, I finished my autumn house stitch into a beanbag--technically, a rice bag! I've been wanting to try using crushed walnut shells as pillow filler, but I saw a YouTube video by McKenna of Stitching in Sequins where she used rice. Since I had a brand-new bag of plain old white rice in my pantry, I thought, Heck, yeah! And it worked like a charm. It has a nice weight to it, and I did not have to stress about getting fiberfill stuffed tightly into the corners and seams. Yay! I did not add a hanger since this will sit in a tray with my other autumn stitches.

Can you believe I found that lace in a secondhand store in my hometown this summer? Three to four yards for twenty-five cents! The volunteer who rang up my purchase said, "How did I miss seeing this? Oh, this is lovely." I gave her as much as she wanted and still had plenty left over for lots of projects of my own.

I'll show you a few more photos of the finished pattern. You can use any neutral color linen. If you don't have the over-dyed threads I've called for, substitute anything you have and it will be beautiful. I do recommend using "Autumn Leaves" by The Gentle Art, rather than substituting for that color, though, because the variegation of the yellow, green and orange is perfect for the leaves and leaf piles.

The pumpkin vines spell out "Love." This is my love note to my favorite season.

The finished size of the design, if stitched over two on 32-count linen or evenweave, is 3-3/8" x 2-3/4", so it's a perfect project to use up a small scrap of linen you can't bear to waste.

I hope you enjoy stitching this as much as I enjoyed designing it. I used the artwork of Charles Wysocki as a jumping-off point for my sketch, but as I sketched and stitched the final piece, I made it my own.

You can download a PDF of the pattern here.

Happy fall!