A Finish, Adam, Eve, the Serpent, and a Phobia

I have to start with a story about my childhood to explain my snake phobia. My father is the youngest of six children who all had children, in some cases several children, which makes me the third youngest of 19 grandchildren. My grandmother loved nothing more than have all her children and grandchildren visit her in her little pink house :-). Picture 13 adults, 19 kids with only about 8 years between the youngest and oldest, and you can start to envision the craziness of all of us in one tiny house together. Some of my fondest memories growing up center around my grandmother's home, picking and eating berries, cucumbers and tomatoes from the garden, playing hide and seek, flashlight tag and kick the can with my cousins. My boy cousins, and there were lots of them, 12 of the 19 kids, chased us with garter snakes. Which funnily enough didn't actually cause my snake phobia.

My grandmother had a chicken coop and I loved to go collect the eggs. The nests had these plastic coverings over them with a small hole that expanded to let the chicken in and out and I would just reach in and get the eggs. I went to collect the eggs one afternoon and reached in to grab eggs and found a large black snake instead. To say it scared me would be a huge understatement, I was petrified. I ran screaming to my grandmother who, being the country woman she was, grabbed the hoe and killed the snake. And the love hate relationship with snakes, i.e., serpents was born, LOL.

I am the girl sitting on the side of the swing set, the toddler is my sister, and three of my cousins are sitting on the swing.

All of this makes my fascination with Adam and Eve and the Serpent a bit difficult to understand. But there you go, I love to stitch the snake coiled around the tree. It's almost therapeutic :-). I finished Goode Huswife's Sarah Seifer today. I have loved this sampler for so long and I am so happy to have her stitched.

The handpainted pieces were done by Tanya

Thanks to the bad influence of my friend Tanya and my quest for all things A&E, I ordered this plate from Eldreth Pottery. Isn't it gorgeous? I told my DH it was my Mother's Day present, along with two plates from Ginger Cazan :-). He asked if he was generous, I told him I thought so, LOL. I think this plate will make a great companion for Sarah.

In keeping with my theme, one of my other very favorite pieces is Earth Sampler by The Primitive Needle. Jill Rensel framed it for me and even added an extra snake on the mat :-).

Finally, I love Paulette's big blue snake on Paradise Lost, add to that Eve looks like Betty Rubble and Adam has man boobs, perfect :-). It's just the most gorgeous piece.

Thanks for taking the time to read my rambling, memory filled post :-). I hope everyone is happy, healthy and getting lots of stitching time!

Anniversaries and Mail

Finally! I promised my mom and dad a stitched piece for their anniversary, ummmm over 2 years ago. I finished it yesterday :-). I put the year they married and their initials on it and tomorrow I will take it to my LNS for framing. My parents are going to be so surprised it's done, my mom's been dropping big hints for the last several months, LOL. I love this piece, it's Blackbird Designs Willow House.

I also signed up for my Sampler Guild's mailart exchange. I used Carriage House Samplings 1803 Pennsylvania House for my piece. I changed the colors a lot because I did things a bit backwards by chosing the lining fabric first :-). I hope the recipient loves it as much as I do.

Hope this finds everyone stitching and creating :-). I am going to get Paradise Lost out again and try to stitch a few more stockings. Thanks so much for taking the time to read and comment on my blog, I so appreciate it!

Finishes and Framing

Wow, has it been that long since I posted? Hope this note finds you all happy, healthy and stitching ;-). I've been busy, we had two birthdays, Easter, and company. Not to mention my guild is doing a mail art exchange so I've been working on that. I am dying to get back to Paradise Lost and Blackbird Designs Anniversaries of the Heart. I've decided to stitch them all on one piece of linen.

I did get the Blackbird Designs Summer Harvest class pieces stitched and sent off to Deb for finishing. They are so gorgeous, I could never finish them as beautifully as she does. I put my mom's initials and the year she was born on the needlecase. I can't say enough good things about Alma and Barbara's classes, they are wonderful ladies.

Here's a close-up of the needlecase.

These are my Blackbird Designs stockings. Of course, Deb finished these too :-).

I decided to use all Blackbird Designs fabrics as the backing for them. It just seemed appropriate. I only have another 20 something other's I want to stitch, LOL.

I got my TitD framed at my LNS too. I absolutely love the molding, it's so perfect for the piece.


This is a close-up of the molding.

I also decided it was time to redecorate my blog! I owe a big thank you to Heather for putting together the collage in my header. I absolutely love it. As always thanks for taking the time to read and post comments. It's so much fun to hear what you all think :-).