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.

The Headless Woman

No it's not that good old Aussie expression "Running around like a headless chicken". It is a headless woman lol.

Here is Betsy's progress. I spent days and days working behind the saying that starts - "May spotless ......" It is all worked in 739 in alternate half cross stitch. I always have aaahhh moments when I do this if I am not concentrating as I find I can easily slip into having each row going the same row. It is really easy to do when working among the words. This will stand out more later when I have to work 3052 (I think) around it. It is either needle weaving or further adventures in alternating cross stitch.

Pity she doesn't have a head yet. Oh well, it will come in the progress of time as they say. I love her dress though. Very pretty, sort of green/gold tones. It reminds me of a piece of Thai silk.

On Friday, I celebrated another Birthday. My they are flying past now. I had a lovely day. My eldest son who is married came up by train and spent the day with me. It was lovely as I don't get to spend "one-on-one" time very often. My DIL drove up when she finished work and then they joined my DH and I in going out to dinner. My youngest couldn't come as of all nights to pick he had to perform in a concert at his school. He is in a Brazilian Drum Band. My middle son lives in Sydney and had to work on Saturday morning. He was going to come up to see me on Sunday with his girlfriend, but because of a lot of bush fires that we had, he came up on Saturday as he had to go and fight one of the fires.

My DH started his fire fighting effort on Friday night when he received a phone call to say that they had to go out at 8.30p.m. He spent all night out in the bush and didn't get home till 4a.m. Didn't see much of him over the weekend. He was either fighting fires, patrolling fires or sleeping. All these fires were started by lightening. We had extremely high temperatures and dry storms. Bad combination for bush fires. Thankfully everybody is safe and no property was damaged.

I received some lovely things for my birthday. I should have taken some photos of them. I have this "thing" for Pandora Bracelets. My DH and younger Son bought me 2 silver and gold charms. A Christmas tree and a Tea Pot (I am always saying to my youngest son "Put the kettle on". My Dad and Sister bought me altogether 5 of the Murano glass beads in pinks and blues. My bracelet looks lovely. I have 2 of them. This one I am slowly converting to silver and gold charms. Would love a gold charm (wouldn't we all lol). But...... have you seen the price of those suckers.

My other Sons and DIL bought me a beautiful cushion for my bed. They bought me one last year for Christmas. I dropped a few hints that it looked lonely on the bed lol. Some lovely Body Shop goodies and I received a dvd from my middle son on a Classic English Comedy that I used to watch. His girlfriend was very naughty and bought me a lovely watch.

To all of my friends in the States. I hope that you and your family have a lovely Thanksgiving. It is always lovely to spend time with your family.

A Mad Woman's Sewing

This is this weeks update on Betsy. By looking at the photos they look as if a mad woman is working on it. I am trying to get it all lined up properly and found that I had to go and finish the right hand side border. I have nearly finished the last queen stitch flower and just have to fill in all of the greenery etc.

I can't start the next portion till I get the portion with the saying all worked out. She is looking lovely though. I don't know if you can see them, but there are all different strands of white cotton worked through it to line it all up.

Thank you to everybody for your concerns regarding one of my sons. He is thankfully and is not back to his cheeky self. Sometimes, as our children grow up they become more of worry than when they were small.

I am trying at the moment to beat this computer. Everytime I turn the computer on that I update my blog on, it wants to upgrade something. It just sent me a message that it is going to do it in a couple of minutes. These computers have minds of there own sometimes.

Just quickly thank you for all your encouraging words regarding Betsy. I really appreciate it. I'm sorry if I haven't had a chance to pay a visit to you lately, but I have had a lot going on with sickness in the family. If it's not one it's the other. Ah it's going.

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.