Would You Believe It Is Nearly Finished

Take a look at her now he he he. Isn't she beautiful. Hopefully she will be finished by the end of the week. All that I have to do is finish the black background on the right hand side.

I have really been enjoying working on these two Rhode Island Samplers. You never it is quite possible that they might be joined by a few more samplers from Rhode Island, but these 2 of the jewels amongst my small collection. I have a few more graphs in my collection, but they are more the Newport RI ones. I would love to get my hands on some more of the Mary Balch School e.g. the other Betsy Davis and/or Mary's Mother, Sarah Rogers. What a collection that would be. Oh well, it doesn't look possible, so I can only dream aaahhhh.

Have you ever had 2 samplers kitted up in your work basket that are both jumping up and down telling me to "pick me" no "pick me".

I have that problem at the moment. I don't know which one to do. One minute is Hestera and the next it is Grazing Sheep. I really don't know which one will be my next piece. What do you think?

I had a lovely Christmas. We all went down to my Father's house and we had such a lovely time down there. It was lovely to spend time with my eldest sons as I don't see them that often now. Santa was also good and brought me some lovely presents which I really love.

I will probably be murder for publishing their photos but you can see that my 2 eldest sons must have had a lovely lunch. I think this was before the pudding though lol. This is what you would call Brotherly love. Quite different from when they were younger as they were always fighting. Boys.

This is my youngest son. He played Santa and gave out every bodies presents. He is still down at my Father's house. The chocolates ended up coming home with us though lol. I don't think we would be popular if we ate them though.

My goodness this year has really flown by. Sampler wise, I think I have completed 3 which is lovely. I always seem to pick big, complicated samplers that occupy my time, but I really enjoy working on them and I love it when they are finished.

I just want to wish everybody a Happy New Year. I hope that you all have a lovely time and remember that there is always another beautiful sampler awaiting around the corner. Happy New Year.

Another Betsy Update

Do you think I will have finished with Betsy by the early next year? Quite possibly. As you can see this is my progress with Betsy. I have to finish working the squiggly line all around it in 739, do a leaf, give the strawberries stems and then I have a lot of alternating half cross stitch to do.

She is looking good, if I say so myself. My progress on her might be quite speeded up though through a series of misfortunes.



During last week I had to have a lot of Xrays, bone scans, MRI's etc. etc. For quite a while I have been complaining about a pain in my leg which they thought at first was clots. After a Doppler - No Clots. Still more pain so another trip to the Doctors and it is off to have an Xray on my spine. Doctor is horrified at the condition of my spine. He doesn't know what to do, so it is off to a trip to my Spine Specialist. He sends me off to have all these tests and also books me into to see an Orthopedic Specialist re the knees. He thinks the time has finally come for me to have knee replacements. Mind you I was originally told 22 years ago that I needed knee replacements, but I was to young. So I have had 2 operations on the right knee. It is the left knee that is causing me so much bother.

So I go and have a bone scan which reveals among a few things that I have 2 stress fractures in my lower left leg around the knee area. No wonder I have been in so much agony. So it is a trip to the local hospital to see what I can do to help me with the pain. The answer is - go and see your local doctor. Ok. Still more pain and agony. I go to see my local doctor who tells me know wonder you are in so much pain. But because I am in the middle of having all these tests etc. he can't send me to the hospital to have them put plaster on it.

He gets in touch with my specialist (I have nearly finished all my tests by this time. One to go) who gets me to come to see him earlier and tells me. Yes I definitely need 2 knee replacements and can see no point in putting me in plaster as I have to see the Orthopedic Doctor next week which is tomorrow. So I am still in pain and agony. So it is keep talking the Nurafen Plus and Panadol and come back later. Oh and by the way, keep off the legs. Yeah, right. Bit hard sometimes.

I also forgot to mention that last week I kicked my toes on a metal piece that divides the slate floor from the carpet. Guess what I did lol. I broke my toe on the right foot. It is the toe next to the little toe. I tell you. Sometimes.

So I think my stitching time will be speeded up, especially from tomorrow as School Holidays start. So guess who will be doing the housework. Yeah, right. I say no more.

Anyway, I'm really sorry if I haven't paid you a visit for quite awhile. I'm not really into blogging at the moment, although it is a good reason to keep my mind on other things.

If I don't post next week, can I wish you all a really Happy Christmas and have a lovely New Year. Take care. If you don't hear from me for awhile you'll know that they have grabbed me and they have sent me to hospital to have a knee replacement. Not looking forward to it. I remember the last operation I had lol.

Could The Headless Lady Be Eve

Here is this weeks progress on Betsy M. As you can see the headless lady now has a head. She also has a suitor, plus trees, sheep (or are they dogs lol) plus something that looks like a cat.

What I find interesting while stitching her and also while I was stitching Betsy Davis is whether these ladies are actually a Rhode Island version of Adam and Eve as they are both standing under apple trees. In this tree though there is no snake, but there is a bird.

In Betsy Davis there are 2 groups of these figures both standing on different sides of the apple tree. Interesting thought.

You might look at the above photo and think that I am having one of the moments where I forget where I am. But in between these 2 areas there are a lot of queen stitch strawberries and vines.

I thought before attempting this piece that I would go down to the bottom and work on Betsy's name and the border above and below. I will then go back and work on the queen stitch strawberries. Also coming out of the urns is a vine that runs along the top border above Betsy's name.

So when I look at Betsy and work out what is to be done there really isn't that much. I have to do the strawberries and vines. Fill in the urns and do the vine coming out of them as well as finish off doing portions of the border that cross over into the centre piece. A couple of leaves.

Then comes the interesting part as most of it has to be filled in with half alternating cross stitch in either black (mostly black), green around the saying and the fill in behind Betsy's name with cream. So I am thinking that Betsy will be finished in "A Couple of Days", no, no, no better make that a couple of weeks. We used to have a Comedy Show in Australia where there was a Greek Greengrocer called Con. Everything would be beautiful in "A Couple of Days". The no, no, no reminds me of a character in The Vicar of Dibley. Every time you ask Jim a question you would also be answered with no, no, no, no, yes. My youngest son keeps telling me that I watch to much TV, but that isn't the case.

I mostly listen to music during the day when I am by myself. My favourite music as the moment is listening to The Gypsy Kings. Don't understand a word of it, but I seem to have a lot of their music on my Ipod at the moment and I sing along with it all day long. My favourite song is called Montana which I think means - I walk among the mountains etc. I don't know what they do in the Mountains, but I love the song.

We have strange weather here at the moment. By Thursdays and Fridays the temperatures seem to rise really high. Saturdays have been unbearable with the heat and are dangerous days in these Mountains with dry lightening starting fires which have been all under control. By Mondays the weather starts getting cooler with showers and the other day it was quite cold. You could nearly have a heater going to keep warm. Strange weather, strange times.

Well, I hope that you have all have a lovely week. My youngest turns 15 on the weekend. My he is getting tall. He now towers over me lol. Although that's not hard these days as I seem to be shrinking lol.