Hark The Heralds Angels Sing

Well, here is my progress on Miss Betsy Manchester. I am slowly getting there. I went through a period where I couldn't be bothered doing any sewing and then I had a lot of worries with a couple of family members.

In case you are wondering the reference to Angels. Well, it is for 3 reasons really. The first one is obvious as there are 2 angels on the top of Miss Betsy. The second is that last Sunday was the 2nd Anniversary of my Mum's passing.

The 3rd is on this particular Saturday/Sunday evening one of my Sons was rushed to the Emergency Ward of the Hospital. Some charming person decided that it would be great fun to spike his drink. I am so thankful to his girlfriend and her family as they rushed him to the hospital. Her Brother drove through red lights very late on Saturday evening, threw him over his shoulder and ran into the hospital with him. He kept going into and out of consciousness, he had chest pains, pins and needles and was hyper-ventilating. He was in a bad way for a few hours.

By the time my DH, younger Son and I got to the hospital after our 2 hour drive he was feeling a lot better after they had flushed out his system. Thankfully he is now on the mend but is still suffering pains in his body. We don't know what was in his drink, but honestly I think some people sit on their brains some times. I think my Mum and the Angels were looking after him.

See I have scary ladies again. I think the one on the rights eyes are too big hmmmm. I might have another bash at doing them.

This Betsy is a little bit shorter than the other Betsy.

After a week of rain and cold weather the sun has finally come out today. I have so many roses again which are lovely. I also have these beautiful flag iris's out, snap dragons and poppies, but the never ending forget-me-nots. I have hundreds of forget-me-nots. Everything is a sea of blue.

Well, to all my friends who celebrate Halloween, I hope you have a lovely weekend. We don't celebrate it here.

Miss Betsy Manchester

As you can, Beatrix Potter has been replaced for a while by Betsy Manchester. But don't worry Bea hasn't gone far. She is still in my sewing basket. I decided to do a motif every now and then until I have finished her.

Over the last week I have been working on Miss Betsy Manchester. Oh she is such a beautiful sampler. I took photos all along he part that I am currently working on so that you could see how beautiful she is.

I have also noticed that she isn't as long as Betsy Davis which will be interesting when looking for a frame for her. She doesn't have the added bit that Betsy D has on the bottom.

There are still parts of this vine that I can't do at the moment until I have worked the border that goes all around the middle piece. I am planning on finishing the leaf and vine between the top 2 queen stitch flowers and then working down. I think it might be an angel, but I am not sure. Will have to check. It is just a rectangle with nothing in it on my chart.

I haven't filled in the vase yet, as I found that the first one that I did rubbed slightly on Betsy Davis, so I will fill this portion in towards the end of Betsy Manchester.

Well, we have been having strange weather again. We had a long weekend on the weekend and you guessed it, it rained. It has been cold over the last few days and I have had to light our fire. Today is cold outside, but the sun is shining. I think though that it is colder in Sydney then here in the Mountains. My Sister was complaining how cold it was and that she had to get her overcoat out again.

Nothing much has happened in my life at the moment. My youngest son is on school holidays (he always seems to be on holidays), so my peace and quiet has gone for a little while. One good thing though is that I can sleep in for 15 minutes more. Ahhh sleep.

Thank you for paying a visit to my blog. I love reading all the comments that I receive and it is lovely to know what I do is appreciated by my peers. Thank you.

Happy Dance Time

Well, as you can see Betsy Davis and now finished and framed and hanging in my bedroom. She isn't in her final spot yet, as I need Betsy Manchester to hang besides her. They will eventually hang above my bed. I currently have 2 other needlework pictures, that did a long time ago hanging there and I plan on hanging them where Betsy D is now hanging. One on top of the other. These picture are of French Porcelain Dolls that I did when my eldest son who is nearly 25 was a little boy. So they are over 20 years old. There is a photo of them here and here.

I finished Betsy yesterday. All I had to do were the last 2 numbers in the date down the bottom, which didn't take my very long to do.

I decided last night to spend a little time on my Beatrix Potter. I have another motif and a bit of another one done. I don't know how long I will spend on Bea as I am itching to start Betsy Manchester. I also decided this morning that for me Bea works better as a day stitcher as it is all over one.

So I am thinking that I might start Betsy and every now and then stitch a motif on Bea. I joined the SAL for Bea, but I was totally hopeless at keeping to the commitment. I might make a deal with my self to stitch this every now a then when the urge overcomes me lol. I really don't know why I feel like this as it is such a beautiful thing. I think it might be after Elizabeth Cox and Betsy Davis I find it a bit boring. I seem to like samplers with a bit of a challenge lol. But my current plan sounds good, so I might see if I can stick to that.


I have so many other beautiful samplers all kitted up and ready to go. I am really looking forward to doing them.

It is another beautiful day in the Mountains today. I was able to wash my quilt that you can see in the background of these photos. I was able to get it totally dry and it has that nice clean smell. Hopefully I can wash another one tomorrow. Thank goodness the dust storms have gone. We had another one on Friday night/Saturday morning, but it was nothing like the earlier one. The earlier one was so amazing.

The End is Coming

The end is so near with Betsy Davis. As you can see I am now working on the black background. I don't know if you can see it, but the urn is outlined, I just have to fill it in. I decided to wait till I finished the background to do this.

So what remains in the black background, fill in the urn and then of course there is around 10 rows on the bottom which includes Betsy Davis's name. I still think that she will be finished in around 2 weeks time. I still can't get over how fast I have finished this sampler.

Well, what an amazing day it is here in New South Wales. We are in the middle of a huge dust storm. Everything outside is covered in red dust, which turns to mud when it is wet. I am sure owners of car wash establishments are jumping up and down today with glee.

We awoke this morning earlier than normal as my youngest son had to be at school very early as his year were going on a school camp for 3 days camping in tents. Not a good idea at the moment I might add. There was this orange glow all around and you just couldn't see that far ahead. The Blue Mountains are the Red Mountains today.

Anybody flying into Sydney today would have been so disappointed as all the well known icons e.g. Harbour Bridge and Opera House were not visible.

I know that the planes were either delayed, diverted or cancelled. The Sydney Ferries weren't running at all. It is still extremely windy outside and I think this dust will be around all day. Guess who isn't doing their washing today.

I know while driving my Son to school this morning, people were ring the radio stations wondering if this was the end of the world. Well I am still here, so I guess it's not today.

I just realised that my subject for this post could be taken two ways lol. I am referring to the sampler of course.

Another Betsy Update

Well, as you can see Betsy D now has black background in all the right places except on the right hand side. I am now working on the Queen Stitch flowers down this portion of her. I am wondering if she will be finished in 2-3 weeks. I can't believe how this one has flown along. I know that when I did the American Sampler, it took me 12 months to go, but I was working at the time, which would have stretch it out a bit.

I am really looking forward to finishing this one and starting her Sister, although I'm toying with the idea of finishing Beatrix which I really must do. I already have the frame for Bea and it is sitting besides my Son's desk. If I don't get it hung on the wall, I will end up having to buy another one because of broken glass lol.


Here is Betsy from the top. She is everything that I expected and more. I just love working on her.

I have been very busy in the garden over the last week and weekend. Although it wasn't such a good idea for me physically. By Monday I couldn't walk very well. But it is amazing what a heat bag will do. My garden is looking quite pretty at the moment. I have forget-me-nots all over the place and violets out. Now if I could get somebody to cut the lawn for me (ha ha) it would look lovely.

The fire season has started early out here and they are really worried about bush fires this year. We had some lovely warm weather over the weekend and by Sunday, it was a Total Fire Ban sort of day. My DH and one of my DS were "On Standby" up at the Fire Shed. So they were no use to me. The youngest DS had a lot of school projects to be done so it was just me, Sally the dog and my iPod in the garden.

I got my copy of Dan Brown's new book yesterday. I think I was the 4th person to get it. I gave it to my DH to read, but my youngest has pinched it from him. Oh well, he doesn't take very long to get through books. He usually costs me a small fortune trying to keep books up for him.

Usually when school holidays are coming up, I will buy him a couple of books and I think before the holiday has started them, he has finished them. That is how he has fallen under the spell of Dan Brown. I am trying to get him into the classics, but for some reason, I am not having a lot of luck. Ah well, he told me the other day that the holidays will be here again in 3 weeks. I don't know, he always seems to be on holidays.

A Little Bit of Background

After finishing the top portion of Betsy, I decided to have a little break. I decided to start filling in the black background. Mainly to split this task up and a change is always good.

She is looking ever so lovely and I can't wait to finish her. She and her Sister Betsy Manchester have always been up there among my favourite samplers. I am eventually hoping to hang both of them in my bedroom.

I now have Betsy Manchester all kitted up and she is ready to go as well. I am looking forward to the experience of working on her. What a great pity that there are no more samplers that we can do from the Mary Balch school.

We have been having typical Spring weather here. We had a beautiful weekend. This morning was overcast and then it started to rain. Now the sun is shining. It is still a little bit chilly. I keep saying to myself "Will I light the fire or not?" So far I have resisted the temptation. BTW I have my slippers on so my feet are nice and warm lol.

We had a lovely weekend. It was Fathers Day here yesterday and also my DIL's birthday. My eldest son came up on Friday night, but unfortunately they had to go home before lunch on Saturday. Yesterday we went down to have lunch with my Dad and it was lovely. It is always lovely to see him and my Sister.

Well, I hope that you have a lovely week. I am still trying to catch up with my housework. For some reason I keep getting distracted. I am sorry if I haven't had a chance get to pay you a visit, but I will get there lol. Have a good week.

Strawberries are done

Here is an update on Betsy. I finished working the strawberries (I think they are strawberries lol) along the bottom and the black background. I think she is such a stunning sampler.

I have decided for a change of pace to go back up the top and finish that section. When I have finished doing this I might start doing some more of the black background. Hopefully Betsy has only a few more weeks work in her. I also have to put her name down on the bottom. But she is looking good

Every time, I go to my friend Karen's needlework store I keep falling in love with Larry the Lamb. So of course I had to buy him and make him didn't I. Larry is made from wool felt and is filled with crushed walnuts. I have him in a tray that I use which contains my threads, scissors etc. He is very handy when I am using a few different needles at one time.

Before taking the photos for this blog, I picked my self a little bunch of Parma white violets. Aren't they beautiful. Violets are one of my favourite flowers. I love the perfume they have, although many years ago when I first started working I bought myself a bottle of Yardley April Violets. I found that stuff quite strong and every time I wore it which wasn't often, the smell would give me headaches. Funny I only ever bought one bottle of it lol.

Well, I have finally finished doing the boxes that I was doing. These ones took forever to do as they all had to been cut out. They actually look a lot better than they do in photos.

Now I will be able to get to my dreaded housework lol. It is always a case of a women's work is never done.

I hope you all have a lovely week. Guess what I will be doing this week. Housework.