I Have Been Busy

Since my last post I have been very busy. I have framed Sophia.

I have finished Isabella Johnstone and also framed her

I have nearly finished Harriet Burry and there is about another days stitching on her.

I have got this far on Hannah Lancaster and I am currently filling in the bricks on her house.

I have also made a few of these lovely patchwork cushions for the family. I saw these being made one Sunday afternoon when the boys all went to the Football (Soccer). I was able to watch a TV show that I don't normally watch as it isn't my DH's cup of tea and I saw these lovely cushions being made by hand. What intrigued me was that they were filled with unprocessed bran and scented oils. I have also added lavender to mine and I had added lavender oil to the mix. My spare room smells quite delightful at the moment lol.

For an Australian Summer today, it is quite cold. At 6 a.m. it was 5 degrees C in the Mountains and by the sky it looks as if it could snow. If it did it would only be a light dusting and probably wouldn't settle.

I hope you all have your Christmas preparations in hand. I currently have a boiled pudding bubbling away on the stove. It is always a major feat when I make one of these and you wouldn't believe the washing up. Oh boy lol.

If I don't post again, before Christmas, I hope that you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I hope that Santa is good to you.

Merry Christmas.

Harriet Is Slowly Moving Along

It doesn't look as if I have done that much work on Harriet since my last post but she is slowly coming together. I am still working on her border which seems to take forever.

I have completed the left hand side and I am now about a quarter of the way along on the top section. I will be so happy to see the end of her. She is a beautiful sampler, but she has her ways about her:). I suppose if I was this old that I would play up as well.



I have also been working on Isabella Johnstone. I have been working on her off and on. I thought that she would look lovely with the sheep and I am looking forward to working on the cow. I thought that this sampler would be quite appropriate as my DH grew up on a dairy farm on the North Coast of NSW.

I thought that I would show you the lovely jewellery that my DIL Alison is making. She has opened an Etsy Shop called Coloured Squares. She is making some lovely earrings and brooches made out of lovely pieces of material and laces etc. Aren't they beautiful. She is a very clever young lady and we are all very proud of her. I have put a link to her Etsy shop if you would like to stop by.

Love these earrings. They are really lovely.

This brooch would look lovely on a nice jacket. Love the Autumn shades.

Another lovely pair of earrings. They are in my favourite colours red, white and blue. I love red, it always gives a lift to things.

This one is my favourite. I love the old piece of lace that she has added. Another brooch that would look lovely on a nice jacket.

It is a bit chilly here in the mountains today. It was quite nice earlier in the week. We had some lovely Spring days, but yesterday and today, there is a bit of a chill in the air. I think I need to light my fire as I have cold feet. If my feet are cold. I am cold.

I love Spring, I picked a beautiful jug of old fashion roses the other day and they have given me so much pleasure. They are all in the very pale pink shades along with some ivory ones. Their perfume is really lovely and they are near my stitching chair. I love smelling them as I stitch away slowly with Harriet:).

Thank you for stopping by. I always enjoy your comments. I hope that you have a wonderful weekend.

Harriet Is Almost Finished

I'm sorry that I haven't been blogging lately. I seem to have lost the blogging bug. Every day lately, I think that I should update my blog, but something comes along to distract me and before I know it the day is nearly over.

I have been slowly plodding along with Harriet Burry and she is really a beautiful sampler, but she can be a bit of pain in the you know where. She has her tricky moments. She is quite a large sampler so it is a bit hard to take a decent full size photo of her.

I am slowly working on the border which is beautiful. I had so much trouble with her over the weekend that she nearly ended up in the garbage bin. Well, not quite, but I thought about it for a second or two. Luckily I think I have nailed her and I will continue on until she is finished. I am really looking forward to doing something else. I think Hannah Lancaster might be the one as I am trying to finish her before the New Year. I can only hope.

We have had an amazing lot of weather here over the last few days. It is Spring. One day it is really beautiful. The next day it is freezing and we have to light our fire again. On Saturday we even had a heavy down pour of snow, but unfortunately not enough to settle. No wonder people end up with colds etc at this time of the year.

Thank you for all your lovely comments regarding my work. I enjoy reading them. I'm sorry that I have become such a bad blogger.

Where Does Time Fly

Yes, where does it fly to when we are having fun. Sorry I haven't posted for a while. Family members have been ill again. I was also nearing completing my beautiful Sophia and I wanted to wait until I finished her before doing that.

As you can see here she is in all of her glory. She is such a beautiful sampler and I do love the 2 sheep down the bottom. They seem to be saying "Who me!" lol.

I am planning on hanging Sophia next to my Grazing Sheep Sampler. I think they will look lovely hanging together.

I have also decided to work on Harriet Burry for a time. Unfortunately, I am going to run out of the gold silk that is in the house. I am going to try and get as much done before I run out. I haven't done any of the verse yet, bu will soon start tackling it. I always find this bit "a bit boring" and I am enjoying seeing Harriet all come together in all of her glory.

I am looking forward though to starting my next sampler. It is another one of those samplers that I fell in love with when I first saw it (funny though, I seem to fall in love with a lot of samplers when I first see them lol). I struck "pay dirt" when I discovered that I could get this one out here and it is now sitting waiting all kitted up for me to start it. It is another sampler with a challenge. I seem to like a challenge in samplers.

Another reason why it has taken me so long to finish Sophia and also to post is that I picked up the old knitting needles and made myself this lovely scarf.

I saw one of those curly scarves that everybody seems to be making and I decided that I would like to make one in something lovely and soft. We have an Alpaca Shop in the Mountains who sell beautiful clothing and wool made out of Alpaca fibres and this is the colour that I chose. It is a lovely dusty mauve/pink colour.

I started knitting the curly scarf and had about 6 inches done when I decided that it wasn't really me. So I unpicked it all and started again. Luckily I bought 3 skeins but I had to get another skein to finish it. The scarf ended up costing a whole lot more that I originally thought it would. But it is lovely and it is very soft. The only problem is that I most probably won't get to wear it as it is now Spring here. But I will have a lovely scarf next Winter.

I hope that you have a wonderful week, where ever you are in the World and thankful for paying me a visit. I love to receive your comments. They make my day.

I Am Still Here

My goodness, I can't believe how long ago it was since I last posted photos of Sophia. Since that last post I haven't done that much on her really.

I finished the middle section and I have been working on the border that separates the bottom section from the middle section. This is all over one and it has been slow going. I am now filling in the rose buds, but I am currently sick of working over one at the moment, so I have decided to go down to the bottom section and work up from here. This where the sheep are along with a lot of green fill ins.

I have also since I last posted done a little bit more on Harriet Burry and she is looking lovely. I thought that I would leave the verse for a while and go and complete the right hand side of her. I have always liked this sampler and I find that I enjoy working on her.

It has been a long time since Hannah Lancaster made an appearance, so I thought that I had better post an update on her. At the moment I only work on her on occasions and she is looking lovely. For some reason I am all versed out at the moment so I thought that I would come back to that later. I was eager to find fresh fields with her.

I have also made this Stacy Nash Pocket which I quite like. I thought that it would be good to store odds and sods such as scissors and pinkeeps. I enjoyed stitching this as it was a change from working on a huge sampler. I changed it a little bit. It is supposed to have a string tie but I changed mine to 2 MOP buttons and I think that it looks ok.

I keep forgetting to post this chart, but while I was in hospital for my recent operation I was talking to Margaret of Days of a Sampler Lover about how I liked the sampler Jane Atkinson and the problems that I was having getting the chart as my Needlework Store in Sydney had run out of it. Margaret, very kindly ordered a copy for me when she was ordering a copy for herself and sent it to me as a get well present. Have you seen Margaret's Jane. I always knew that it would be a stunning sampler and I was right. Margaret's Jane is truly beautiful and I am looking forward to seeing it framed.

As I couldn't get Jane I ordered Sarah Bignell which has similarities to Jane and is another samper that I want to do. I love the floral borders on both of these samplers and when you really study them, you can spot the similarities plus the differences in the border. Both are all kitted up and ready to go. I just have to make up my mind which one to do when I finish my current samplers. I would just like to say a big thank you again to Margaret for allowing me to do this beautiful sampler. I don't think the Needlework Store has reordered it as yet.

I don't know if you can see these properly, but since my last post my Sister has come back with a bulging suitcase full of goodies for herself and my family. These are some of the wonderful things that she bought back for me.

While she was in England, she went to Windsor Castle again with her friend who has never been to England before. She spotted the sewing case and also the tape measure and knew that it would be the perfect gift for me. This sewing kit is very special as it is made out of a special piece of material, but more on that in the next picture. She also went to the Royal School of Needlework at Hampton Court and brought me back this stunning book on English Embroideries along the beautiful black pair of scissors in the red case. I love them all.

This is the other side of the sewing case and as I said the material is very special. I originally saw this beautiful material many many moons ago when I last paid a trip to England. I had always wanted to go to Broadlands which was the home of Lord Louie Mountbatten as we used to see him riding behind the Queen when we went to the Trooping of the Colour. One of the bedrooms in Broadlands is done with this material. The walls, along with the curtains are done in this particular bedroom.

The original design was created for the Royal Yacht "Victoria and Albert" in the 1850's and it is also in Queen Victoria's bedroom at Osborne House.

What makes this piece of chintz so unique and hopefully you will be able to see it is that amongst the twigs that form part of each bouquet you can see the profiles of both Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Their profiles are in pink and Queen Victoria is on one side of the bunch of flowers and Prince Albert is on the other. If you concentrate on the middle bunch you will hopefully see them. I think that you can also buy these sewing kits from Buckingham Place as there is a label sewn on from there. Mine came from Windsor Castle.

And finally I have added a few more books to my sampler book collection. My eldest DS and DIL very kindly sent to England to buy the book on Samplers by Rebecca Scott for me for Mother's Day. I had to wait for it to come in the post. What a wonderful book this one is and I have enjoyed both reading and looking through it. I also obtained the Perpetual Engaging Diary by Needleprint which I thought was lovely. There are some lovely graphs in this collection which would help to make a wonderful sampler. The last book is one that I have been after for a long time.

Where I live there are a lot of 2nd hand book stores in a lot of the villages that make up the Mountains. I was going through the list of books at my favourite 2nd hand book shop, I discovered that they had the Samplers and Tapestry Embroideries by Marcus Huish. Believe me I hot footed it down to get it lol. Wonderful book.

Well, that is about it. I'll try to do a bit better in the future, but I haven't really been on the computer for ages. I hope that you have a wonderful week and that the weather is kind to you. I know that my friends in the Northern Hemisphere are going through extreme hot weather at the moment. My DH told me yesterday, that we only have 3 more weeks of Winter left. Where has the year gone. It seems to be flying by.

Another Sophia Update

I'm sorry that I have been such a bad blogger, but I have been away staying with my Dad while my Sister has been away on holidays. I have been keeping Dad company.

It was lovely staying with him for a little while, although I found that for me it was a lot colder in Sydney than it is in the Mountains. Dad and I had a lovely time together. We caught up with my Aunts and Uncles. It was lovely seeing them, as I don't see them that often.


Here is my current update on both Sophia and Harriet. Both are looking lovely and I really enjoy working on both of them. Hannah is still in the mix, but I haven't touched her for awhile. Hopefully she will be making an appearance very soon.

I love the colours that are in Sophia and I am sure that she will look lovely hanging near my Grazing Sheep sampler. I have nearly finished the middle section, then look out sheep here we come lol.

Harriet now has all of her windows and her garden. I thought that instead of going down the bottom that I would head up towards the top and then do the bottom last. I really enjoy stitching Harriet and I am sure that when I have finished her she will look lovely hanging with my sheep sampler collection. I have a lot of patterns with sheep in them. I just need to sit down and do them. I'm finding though that a lot of the patterns that I want to do would be better done on 40ct linen and I am rapidly running out of it. My LNS doesn't have any and my other store in Sydney seems to have run out as well. I think that I will have to investigate further.

Thank goodness the sun is out today. We have had a lot of cold wet weather lately and it is nice to occasionally see the sun. I don't mind the cold weather as long as I am warm.

My youngest is on school holidays again and he has been enjoying spending time with one of his

Brothers and my DIL as well as my Dad who came up for a few days. We went for a few drives out into the country and it was lovely to see things that we don't normally see.

Thank you for your lovely comments regarding my work. I always enjoy reading them and it is always lovely to make new friends. I hope that you have a lovely week.

Not Another Sampler With Sheep

I haven't really done a great deal of work on Sophia's Sampler this week, but each stitch is a stitch closer to the finish I say.

Sophia to me is still a really beautiful girl and I am enjoying working on her. I have nearly finished this section and it is sort of similar on the other side except for an extra piece. I have some stem stitch work to do on this bit round about when the bottom flower is, so hopefully I will get to it today or tomorrow. I love how Sophia has scattered all these little bits that look like stars. The verse is coming up next and in case you are wondering where the sheep are. They are in the bottom section.

The reason why I haven't done much on Sophia is that I decided to have a break from her over the long weekend. I decided to see if I could finish the house that is on Harriet Burry's Sampler. This is a sampler that I fell in love with when I first saw it on the cover of the Sampler and Antique Needlework Magazine.

When my friend Tawny and I were considering which samplers to stitch on our Sunday SAL. Hannah and Harriet were both in the mix. We wanted to stitch both of these samplers, but we decided to work on Hannah Lancaster first. Don't worry Hannah is still in my basket. I am waiting for Tawny and Deb to catch up with me. I think Suzanne who also joined us has caught up, but Suzanne has started in the middle.

I decided to start Harriet and do her for a little bit while I waited, but because I was so wrapped up in Grazing Sheep I hadn't done much on Harriet. So I thought, this weekend I was going to just concentrate on her and this is the result. I think that Harriet could be a little bit of a problem child as I have already had a few problems with her, but like all problem children she is worth all the trouble. I have the house all finished except with the windows. I have worked out the problems with the windows and hopefully all will go well with them. Maybe Harriet will appear again this weekend.

Harriet is a very special sampler to me as my dear friend Tawny kindly sent me the fabric and the silk threads to do Harriet. This is really the first sampler that I have done in silks and I am enjoying the experience of working on them. I can see why a lot of you really enjoy working with this wonderful medium. I have worked on occasions with silk but only on small amounts. I would just like to say to my dear friend "Thank you for allowing me to have this experience. I am really enjoying it".

Today isn't that good in the Mountains. It is very windy and quite cold. My fire is having a good work out today. I hope I have a better day with it today, that yesterday. It kept going out on me. I always have problems with this fire. I think sometimes, I have problems getting it going as I must be mean with the kindling as I hate using a lot of it.

Well, again thank you for paying me a visit and I love reading comments that people leave. I have been having problems with blogger leaving comments on some blogs. For some reason it has changed a little bit and requires my password which it doesn't seem to like. Hopefully, it will stop asking me these questions soon and allow me to make comments.

I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend wherever you are and that the weather is kind to you.

Grazing Sheep Is Framed

Last week I discovered that I had the perfect frame for my Grazing Sheep Sampler. It had another piece in it, but I decided to remove it and reuse the frame for Grazing Sheep. The frame was too big for what was in it and I will look for another frame for the other piece.

I'm really happy with the outcome of this sampler and it is now hanging in my Sons bedroom. I decided that this was the perfect place for my planned "Wall of Sheep Samplers". I think he is ok with the idea lol.

I haven't done that much work on Sophia this week. I ended up sewing something for my friend who has a needlework shop. Sophia is looking lovely though and I am enjoying my work on her. I am currently doing the multi-coloured pine tree on the right hand side. This sampler will join Grazing Sheep when it is finished. Not sure how my Son will cope with this one.

I have always quite liked the Stacy Nash Pinkeep Drums and after a lot of consideration I paid my friend Karen a visit at her store to buy one of them. She had the Schoolgirl Pinkeep and Netty's one. Unfortunately she must have had a few customers in over the weekend who also like Netty's one as she sold out of it. So to cut a long story short I ended up buying the pattern for the Schoolgirl one.

I really don't know how this came about, but I ended up putting aside Sophia for a few days and I worked the Schoolgirl Pinkeep Drum instead for my friend.

She now has it and is using it as a shop model. It took me awhile to figure out how to put it all together, but I worked it out. So that was my weekend project. I haven't made up my mind yet if I will do another one for myself yet. It is lovely and I enjoyed working on it, but I keep saying to myself "where am I going to put it". Unfortunately my house isn't big enough to have a sewing room (ahhhh a sewing room, what bliss). I have enough problems working out where I am going to hang my samplers. They keep replacing other pieces. I know you are all saying -"send them my way", but no I'll keep looking for the right spot lol

It is very windy in the mountains today. Although it is sunny which is good. It doesn't make me so depressed like the rain does. Days upon days of rain is so depressing. I know that we need rain, but there is a limit on how much a girl can take. Oh well, it is always a good excuse for staying inside and stitch lol.

Thank you so much for the lovely comments regarding my work. It is always nice to receive compliments.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend and that your weekend is wonderful.

A Miss Sophia Update

This will probably be a short post as really nothing much has happened lately.

As you can see I have been working on The Scarlet Letter's Sophia's Sampler on 40ct Newcastle Linen using the recommended DMC threads, although I did find a mistake with one of them. Instead of the pale pink that you can see in the portion of the flower near the butterfly, it was charted on my chart as 720 I think it was which is a terracotta shade.

It sort of stuck out like a sore thumb, but lucky I checked the AVAS thread conversion that Scarlet Letter has on their website and found the right shade of pale pink. I was also lucky that a had a full bobbin of it in my floss collection.

Miss Sophia is really a pretty sampler and I am love working on her. In case you are wondering she is in 3 sections of which this is the top. The butterfly and the flower are repeated in the other corner. Then at the bottom of the blue vase there will be a collection of trees and things either side of the central vase of flowers.

As I have said nothing much has been happening. Weather here has been wet and cold for over a week, although today the sun is shining so it is washing day. Hopefully, it will be a good drying day as I usually hang my washing outside.

Thank you for all the lovely comments regarding my previous sampler, Grazing Sheep. I hope to frame her some time this week. Just have to sit down and do it.

I'm Back And A Finish

I'm sorry I have been away for so long, but I have been having computer problems. We have 2 desk top computers and would you believe both of them had problems within a week of each other. Both had to be sent away to be repaired and they came back the same day. So I haven't been able to show you my progress on Grazing Sheep.

As you can see, she is now completely finished. She is a beautiful sampler and I loved working on her. In case you were wondering, all the sheep are filled with Bullion Stitch. I always like doing Bullion Stitch and French Knots so they aren't a problem for me. All I have to do now is get a frame for her and frame her.

This is my next piece. It is another Scarlet Letter sampler (I love Scarlet Letter samplers lol). This one is called Sophia's Sampler and it is really beautiful. Guess what it has down the bottom. Yes, more sheep. I told you I like samplers with sheep in them. I am collecting quite a few of them. If I had the space, I could start a sampler sheep wall.

This is my current progress on Sophia. I am currently working on the large vase of flowers that is in the middle of the top section. This sampler is in 3 sections. The top section is a bit flowery, with butterflies and trees etc. The middle section has the verse. It is a verse that I seem to be getting a few samplers with, - Jesus Permit they gracious name to stand etc. although this one has a slight twist to it, Sophia added her name into the second line. The bottom section has the sheep.

I also wanted to show you the beautiful pinkeep that Suzanne from Squazi and the Chickens sent me. Isn't it beautiful. It is something that I don't have and I have never made my self one as I seem to work on big samplers. It has pride of place in my work basket.

On the health front, I am going along fine and venturing further and further.

Where's The Sheep?

I'm sorry if these photo's are a little bit dark today. It is very overcast here at the moment and I can't get any better photos. Winter is on the way. Extra blankets are being put onto beds. In fact 2 days last week we had our fire alight. It was all nice and cosy when that was going.

This is my current progress on Grazing Sheep by Scarlet Letter. It is such a glorious sampler. I keep raving about the colours that are in it, but they are worth raving about.


As you can see I figured out the border. It is very pretty and looks quite lacy.

Judy from Crazy 4 Books asked the other day where were the sheep. Well, here is one slowly appearing. I am now back into over ones and I am half way up a tree at the moment, but I thought this morning that I would quickly do the outline of one of the sheep to prove that they are there. There are 7 sheep altogether. I noticed that 2 of them have dark faces.

While I was stitching this sheep this morning I was remembering one of my trips to England where we drove around for a month and we travelled over a few of the Moors e.g. Dartmoor and Yorkshire in Bronte Country. The sheep with the dark faces reminded me of the Yorkshire Moors. I was also remembering going on the first day of this expedition to Salisbury Cathedral and seeing Jane Austen's resting place. Ah memories. I quite enjoyed visiting a lot of English Cathedral's and Churches. I always remember visiting one Cathedral where they were having a choir practice. Beautiful. I am very partial to listening to choir boys. They voices of angels.

We have had a lovely long weekend for Easter. It was lovely as I saw my other 2 Sons and lovely DIL. It was lovely to spend some time together. The Easter Bunny paid a visit and eggs were enjoyed by everyone. Hopefully the waist bands don't expand to much.

On the knee front everything is slowly getting back to normal. Although I had a bit of a fright a little while ago when I nearly tripped over. Knee is a bit sore now. I just have to be careful with what I do.

Thank you to Deb from Lavender Rose Ramblings for giving me a Sunshine Award for my blog. I have tried to cut and paste it onto this posting but for some reason it won't work for me.

I have to nominate 12 other people for this award, but the way I am going today, I don't think it will work so I would like to nominate everybody who kindly visits me. Your comments and thoughts really mean a lot to me. Thank you.

Well, my youngest is on School Holidays again for 2 weeks. There goes to the peace and quiet. Although it is good that he is able to help me.

In case you are wondering where Hannah Lancaster is, I am taking a small break from working on her on Sundays to allow my friend Tawny who leads a very busy life to catch up with me. I am more of a lady of leisure at the moment. Hannah will be back again in a couple of weeks. I have been working on Grazing Sheep instead.