Updates Galore

Wow, I lost a whole week somewhere!  I've been around, I've even been stitching!  I guess I just haven't had a lot to say blog-wise.  But my grandparents have received their anniversary gift, so I can talk about the finish of Dove Love!

First of all, here's Dove Love, a freebie from Alessandra Adelaide Needleworks, all finished.  It was stitched 2-over-1 on 28-count linen.  Colors are DMC - 2 are as called for, and the other 2 are "close enoughs" I had in my stash.  Stitching time on this was about 3 months.  I fray-checked the edges and machine-stitched this piece to a piece of muslin.  Katie chose the red and gold ribbon that I used to cover the linens edges - note: I cut the stitching fabric before I knew how I would finish this piece.  I used this as the cover of the the Family Tree Book.  You'll see the colors repeated on another "page".  There are 8 small hearts on Dove Love, which to me stand for the 8 grandchildren.

Her'e a scan of the cover page.  Thanks to Debbie from Tangled Stitch for her input on bringing this concept from my head to fabric.  You should be able to see on the tree, there are 8 red hears (grandchildren again) and 4 yellow hearts for my dad and his sisters.  The great-grandchildren are there, too, they are just leaves branching off from red-heart-branches.

The subsequent pages have a lot of my family's personal information on them, so I won't post them.  They've all received scans via e-mail.  But I'll describe them.  I made four additional pages, for my dad and his 3 sisters.  I continued the colorway, so my dad's name is in the mustard-yellow, and each of his children are in the blue-red.  The dates are like the branches on the trees - the numbers are done in green, to look like leaves and the slash marks are satin-stitched in brown.  However, instead of birthdates, I incorporated baptism dates.  On each page is a portion of the scripture found in III John verse 4 - "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are living according to the truth. " (NIV).  I know this verse means so much to my grandparents, who have dedicated their lives to ministry.  But the ministry always started at home.  This book is not just about births in the family, it's about legacy.

Here's what it looks like all put together.  It folded flat for shipping (yay!),  but it can also stand on the back page to be a display piece.  I included this picture in the package, and it was a good thing I did!  My grandparents love puzzle things, and they like watching people try to figure things out.  Not only does it stand like a pyramid, it also doesn't read straight front to back, so people have to flip it around - LOL, it will give them hours of entertainment.

Here's BoInk through week 11 - I didn't stitch this last Sunday.  I took a few days off after finishing the book, and the kids had a choir concert, so I felt it was as good a time as any to take a break on this one.  I still have a bit of color on the cat (did we decide it's a cat?) in the top right corner - the purple is a color I have to steal from Emma's baggie, but I can do that because.......

I've finished all the cross stitches on Emma #2!  Mini happy dance - still have a heck of a lot of backstitching, "lace" and a few beads to sew in place.  But you all know how I like that light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how dim it may be.

Also, I did hear back from my friend, and she's received the little purse I sent her, and she loves it, so I feel very happy about that.

House updates - we've passed the appraisal, and have entered the underwriting phase of loan approval.  Closing is still set for the 29th - is that really next week?  Could it really happen?  We went to Bed, Bath and Beyond today to just look for curtains - we'll need something for the living room slider, and we want a cafe curtain for the dining room and a valance for the kitchen.  I'm not big into matchy-matchy things, but I do like things to go together.  We found a panel we liked, and the person looked it up and said "Good news - it's on clearance, only $9.99/panel.  Bad news - our store is completely out." So he ordered all the panels we needed from other stores in the area, which will ship directly to us.  I remember a time when you actually had to drive to other towns and hope and pray that the clearance item was still waiting for you.  We plan to cut down one of the drapery panels and make our own cafe curtains and valance out of that.

In the meantime, I really should start cleaning, decluttering and packing.  My husband is so much better at the packing part, but he's still in Seattle, so I have to do it myself.  I've put the girls to work this evening, separating all the plastic grocery bags in the kitchen by store type (Walmart, WinCo, Albertsons, etc.).  Now that Katie's potty-trained, I don't have the need for as many plastic bags.  I need a craft idea for these!

I hope everyone has a safe weekend - it's a holiday in the US, Memorial Day, on Monday.  The unofficial start of summer.  We'll bbq hamburgers on Sunday and steak on Monday, with sweet corn, baked potatoes and orange soda.  Until next time...