More Photos from Our Vacation

Oh, how vacations revitalize and soothe the tired souls, rest for the weary and food for the spirit.  Yes, those are exactly the feelings we experienced, getting away from our everyday routines at home, and it was just what the "doctors ordered" before my throat surgery last week.  So, now that I am peacefully resting at home, today is the first day that I have some energy to share more photos of our wonderful trip to Pennsylvania.

Here are a few photos of our day trip into Intercourse, Pennsylvania, and I thought that you might enjoy reading about "How the Village of Intercourse Got It's Name"! 

        We stopped at an old country store, where this description of "The Cross Keys Tavern", now called "The Lunch Basket" at the country store, was posted.  The farmlands just across the street from the store were just so peaceful and beautiful. 

Just as I was taking this picture, an Amish woman with her horse and buggy, was preparing to pull out onto the road in front of me, and I couldn't resist taking this photo, because she was turning away.  I would not have wanted to offend her  by taking a photo, if she had been looking at me.  Such a peaceful wonderful country town...  We much prefer the areas away from the touristy areas as much as possible.

After lunch we went a little further down the road and visited "A Showcase of Quilts" at the People's Place Quilt Museum, in Intercourse, Pa.

These are just a few of photos of some of my favorite quilts.

"Crazy Quilt"

                                                              Sections of  the Crazy Quilt

"A Green Sampler Quilt"

"Patchwork Appliqued Tulip Garden Quilt"

Closeup View of Appliqued Tulip

    

"White On White Quilt"

Border of "White On White" Quilt

"Purple Posies"

"Postage Stamp Colorsplash"

Closeup View of Center of "Postage Stamp Colorsplash"

Aren't these some of the most beautiful quilts?  I think that my favorite one was the Crazy Quilts.  I am just so enthralled with all of the luscious colors, velvets and embroidery throughout these gorgeous types of quilts.

Must go and rest for a while now, and then fix some lunch.  Hope that this day finds you well, with some sunshine in your life, some peaceful moments just for yourself, and perhaps some time for a stitch or two!

                            

Some Special Memories...

Bruce and I returned last weekend from a wonderful trip to Pennsylvania, with our best friends, to visit our son, Kevin, wife, Gwen and our little 7 month old grandson, Emerson, who is just the happiest, most contented little boy in the world!

Grandma Kathy Playing "So Big" With Emerson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grandpa Bruce With Happy Boy Emerson!

 

 

We also managed to find time to enjoy some wonderful daytrips.  Our son, Kevin, and Emerson took us to see the Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, Pa. 

These very moving sculptures are entitled, "A Moment of Mercy" was at the Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, Pa..  It depicted a very solemn 90 minutes at the Battle of Fredericksburg, Va. in Dec. 1862, when a 19 year old sargent, turned "Good Samaritan", when he could no longer stand listening to the cries of the wounded soldiers on the battlefield.  For 90 minutes, all firing stopped  and all was very quiet, on both Confederate and Union sides of the battle, as this brave young man carried water to the wounded soldiers.

 Martha & Kathy With President Abraham Lincoln 

 

 

 

 

 

                                   We also enjoyed visiting the Amish farmlands.

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An Amish woman waiting to enter the road from a roadside market.

Miniature Quilt Exhibit at Quilt Museum in Intercourse, Pa.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Miniture Amish Quilt & Sewing Accessories

 

 

Another day, we visited Valley Forge in King of Prussia, Pa.  We learned that the land on which Valley Forge stands, was originally a land grant, owned by William Penn, who gifted his eldest daughter, Letitia, with the 600 acres of land, for her wedding present.  This is all very interesting to me, as I am a direct descendent of William Penn on my mother's side of the family.  My grandmother's name was Margaret Penn, and my youngest brother is named William Penn.  In my parents' home, stands the 300 year old Penn spinning wheel, owned originally by James Penn.

Soldier's Cabins at Valley Forge

 

 

Inside of a Soldier's Cabin at Valley Forge

George Washington's Home at Valley Forge

A Room inside of George Washington's Home

 

 

Kitchen inside George Washington's Valley Forge Home

Beautiful Garden Outside of the Valley Forge Museum

 There are more beautiful photos of our trip to come, including some of the beautiful quilts we saw in a Quilt Museum in Intercourse, Pa. 

Wishing all of my dear friends a blessed and beautiful day today wherever you may find yourself, and hopefully you will find some quiet moments just for yourself to do something special...like perhaps finding time to take a few stitches in one of your favorite needlework projects. 

Some Exciting Stitching Giveaways!

Be sure to check out these wonderful stitching blogs who are offering some great "giveaways":

"I'll Cross That Leg When I Get There" ( There is also an interesting April 2011 retreat mentioned here.)

"Stitching Devotee" (Maggee)

"Peaceful Threads" (Fiona)

Have Fun!

Peaceful Pursuits...

This past weekend, my husband, Bruce and I spent a lovely, lazy weekend together at home.  We are both avid stitchers.  Bruce is an avid stitcher of Hardanger.  Here is one of his recently finished pieces.  Pretty amazing, wouldn't you say?!

Sometimes, I am overwhelmed by his talent, which I think far surpasses anything that I stitch.  He is so kind though, and says to me, "Oh honey, you stitch beautiful needlework too.  It's just that we each have different interests in what we like to stitch.  What a sweetheart!  He definitely wins the "Blue Ribbons", dont' you agree?

Last weekend, I decided to start something easy to stitch.  I just wasn't in the mood to do anything complicated, so I decided to stitch a pretty little piece called "Cottage Pinkeep Sampler", by Midsummer Night Designs.  I changed a few of the fiber colors here and there, substituted some Weeks Dried Thyme for the trees and flower stems, but I it has been fun and relaxing to stitch. There is just one more row of little pinkeep designs and then a sweet green border with little flowers that goes all around the pinkeeps.  Fun!

We are leaving on a vacation trip to Pennsylvania this coming Saturday, August 14th, with another couple, who are our best friends.  We will be spending a few days with our son, Kevin, his wife, Gwen, and our 6 month old grandson, Emery.  Then we will be off to explore interesting areas, like Gettysburg, the Amish towns, and then on to King of Prussia at the end of the week, to visit the gorgeous botanical gardens of Longwood Gardens, located near Kennet Square.  You could spend a whole day there.  Longwood Gardens was developed by the Dupont family, where their historical home is also located.  We always visited these beautiful acres of gardens when Kevin attended Messiah College.  It was always our very special treat to go there.

So, of course, I am thinking of a new stitching project to take along, just in case I have a few quiet hours, when we are all sitting and relaxing.  Bruce gave me a wonderful design, complete with linen and fibers for my birthday called "Quaker Faith" by Little by Little".  I have already prepared the linen, fray checked the edges, and am about to baste it onto my roller bars to be attached to my mini-doodler frame. 

One word of caution if you would like to stitch this design, the pattern calls for an R&R Reproductions Dark Expresso 35 count linen, which is a wonderful color, but I unfortunately discovered that it is not colorfast!  There was a little mark on the linen that looked like a pencil mark, and I tried to gently dab at it with a a little drop of water on a cloth, and the color RAN!  I was so upset!  Fortunately for me, it ran within the 3 inch margins of the piece where I will not be stitching!  Some lessons are learned the hard way, but now at least I will be more cautious and test the overdyed linens in the future first!  Thank goodness that I didn't try to wash the linen first!

Hope that you find some quiet, peaceful moments to stitch sometime this week, hopefully in a cool place.  These summer days have been filled with lots of sun, and pretty humid weather lately, but now and then, we have enjoyed some cooler evenings, thank goodness!

Blooms 'n Things...

Last week was such a flurry of busyness that I can't even recall where the days went, but I loved the gorgeous sunny weather, and some of the flowers in my gardens were so beautiful that I just couldn't resist capturing them in a few photos. 

When I was a llittle girl, I absolutely loved daisies, just as much as I still do today.  In fact, one summer, when I was about 8 years old, I decided that, because  they grew in such abundance in the fields around our home, that I would dig up great bunches of the them and go door to door to sell them.  I put the plants into my little red wagon and knocked on all of the doors of the houses in our neighborhood, asking people if they would be interested in purchasing one of my beautiful little daisy plants for only 10 cents a plant.  Imagine how thrilled I was when, by days' end, I had sold all of my plants and went home with $2.00, quite a lot of money for an eight year old at that time.  

Over the weekend, making some color changes to my own choice of threads, I finally completed my "Jenny Bean Pin Tuffet".  I'm not terribly fond of a lot of black in my stitching projects, so I chose more golden and brown hues, more appealing to my choice of color palettes.  I need to find some cute Puntini-Puntini pins to go with it.

I am thinking of adding some twisted cording around the edges of the tuffet box.  It was a bit of a challenge gathering the linen up in two different rows underneath to fit over the matboard and then gluing it into place in the round box.  

When I purchased "Jenny Bean's Pin Tuffet", I also purchased "Jenny Bean's Humble Servant Sampler", and it is calling to me to be stitched very soon!  We'll see.... My husband, Bruce also has given me a lovely sampler with accompanying linen and fibers for my birthday, so I haven't quite made up my mind which one will be my first choice.  Oh, such difficult decisions.....

What a Joy!

Our Happy Little Grandson, Emerson with Daddy Kevin

Our son, Kevin, his wife, Gwen, and our 6 month old grandson, Emerson, came for a weekend visit from Pennsylvania over this past weekend.  This precious little boy is one of the happiest babies we have ever known.  He has the most wonderful disposition and just breaks out into smiles from ear to ear whenever anyone speaks to him.  He is a big boy too, and now weighs 17 & 1/2 lbs and is 27 & 1/2 inches long.  We think he will be a big boy for sure!  It was such a joy having them here.  They were headed off to a family vacation home in New Hampshire with Emery's other grandparents for a week of rest and fun on a beautiful lake.

It is those precious moments with our loved ones that rejuvenate and bless us as our live intertwine with one another.  Thank heaven for for such precious times as these...

I want to thank so many of you for taking time to read my blog and leave such wonderful and thoughtful, caring comments.  How blessed we are that our lives have crossed, and that we share so many common "threads" in this journey of life, with each other. 

Ella's Brown Bunny Name Sampler

Thank you to many of my dear stitching friends for your thoughtful well wishes and prayers.  It is very comforting to know that others are so kind and caring, and I appreciate your words more than you can know.

Recently I completed a special sampler for our new little granddaughter, called "Ella's Brown Bunny Name Sampler".  Why brown bunnies?  Well, our daughter, Carra loves bunnies and decided to decorate Ella's nursery in shades of antique pink, and wanted to incorporate a theme with little "brown bunnies"  She chose curtain fabric with pink and brown bunny "toile" etchings.  A close friend created a beautiful appliqued, "brown bunny" quilt, using some of  the "toile" curtain fabric.  (I will have to take a picture of it to post.)

So of course, Grandma Kathy just had to create something special for Ella's nursery to go with the "Brown Bunny" theme too.  Using an adorable alphabet bunnies booklet of designs,  making color adaptations and a few of my own little creative additions, I created "Ella's Brown Bunny Name Sampler".

These photos don't do justice to the true colors of this piece, because the actual colors are rose and shades of medium and light pink, although some of the photos make the colors look like more peachy tones.

Well, although I need to sharpen my photography skills, at least you can see each "Bunny Letter" a little more closely. 

The little pink rosebud vines and baby bunny holding a cabbage are my attempt at being creative.

"Consider the Lilies of the Field..."

Sometimes when the storm winds blow in our lives, it is difficult to see or understand why some things happen the way they do.  But, it is all part of life, that we will all travel the roads of life through the peaks and valleys, on sunny beautiful days and through the dark, and rainy days too.

Last week I learned that I will need to have some surgery to provide some relief from a medical issue with which I have been dealing for quite some time, without a great deal of success.  I wasn't prepared to deal with the potential outcomes from the surgery, because it will mean that I will have limitations that I am just not ready to face, but I have to come to terms with it and accept it.

I have prayed a great deal about it over the past week, cried, and at times have wanted to be left completely quiet and alone to come to a place of peace and acceptance.  Fortunately I have a very loving family and a few very close and caring friends, with whom I have sought counsel and prayer, and now I am at peace. 

Several years ago, I stitched this piece called "Consider the Lilies of the Field", when our oldest son was hospitalized with a serious illness.  It kept my mind and hands busy during the long hours of waiting and praying for his recovery.  Everyday,  this piece of needlework reminds me of how blessed we are that our son is stable and well, and it also reminds me that whatever trials life brings, we can find comfort, peace and beauty in all of God's creations.  

Our Sweet Little Ones

Our little grandchildren are growing so quickly.  A wise woman once said, "Children just grow up when we aren't looking."  Isn't it so true?  These precious little babies come into our lives, and are so small when they are first born, and then the months seem to pass by so quickly in that first year, and before we know it, they are walking and talking!

This is little Emerson, our 5 month old grandson, who lives in Pennsylvania. We can't wait until our son and daughter-in-law visit at the end of this month, so we can hug this cute little guy!  He is such a good natured baby.

Here is our little 3 month old granddaughter, Ella, who spent this past Sunday afternoon with us, while her Mommy and Daddy attended a wedding. 

I am loving this wonderful experience of being a grandmother!

"Random Thoughts"

Some of my stitching friends have seen my Drawn Thread piece, "Random Thoughts", of which I posted a photo on my June 6th blog post.  I just learned that in the July 8th, 2010 Traditional Stitches Newsletter they announced that they are having a "July Stitch Along" for anyone who would like to stitch "Random Thoughts".  It is totally on your own, but you can connect online with other stitchers who will also be stitching this really fabulous piece.  I had an absolutely wonderful time stitching it!  It was such fun stitching every new little element of it.  I just could not put it down until it was finished.

You can subscribe to the Traditional Stitches Newsletter if you go to their website at http://www.traditionalstitches.com, or email janice@traditionalstitches.com. 

"Hands to Work ...Hearts to God"

At long last,  I finished my sewing accessories to Blue Ribbon Designs, "Beauty in Simplicity", which was the  New England Stitcher's Retreat May project this year.  Since I was down with a bad cold and a fractured toe last week, I was pretty much off my feet, needing to rest, so it was a good opportunity to get some stitching done when I was up to it.  It feels good to have finished these little stitching accessories, since I have always shied away from small items, for fear of complicated finishing.  Belinda Karls-Nace's finishing photographs and instructions are so meticulous that it was not difficult or a bit scary at all to finish off any of them.  I feel so proud of myself :).

So here are my needlebook, pinkeep and scissor fob!  I designed the back of the needlebook a little bit different from Belinda's finished piece, but it seemed to suit my personality more this way.  Let me know what you think too!  I love the theme of "Hands to Work...Hearts to God" because it speaks to my heart about the scriptures that tell us to  "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." (Matthew 5:16)  I pray that all the works of my hands will reflect my love for God in all that I do and all that I create in my life.

 May others be blessed by all the works of your hands as a true reflection of your hearts deepest thoughts  and love of God in all that you do and in every way that your life touches the lives of others.

Sweet Land of Liberty!

"Our Country Tis of Thee, Sweet Land of Liberty
Of Thee I Sing!"

How blessed we are in America, that we can still sing of the incredible freedoms and liberties that we, as Americans, still enjoy in this beautiful country, home of nation of free people.  We are blessed by a nation, so rich in its' heritage of men and women who sacrificed so much, fighting in many wars, both here and abroad, to preserve our precious way of life here in the United States.

Today, July 4th, may we celebrate our Declaration of Independence, signed 343 years ago by our founding fathers, declaring  our independence from Great Britain, and establishing our country as a free nation of men and women, to live, under God, with liberty, freedom and justice for all people!

I was inspired to pull out an "Americana" needleroll pattern, from my Shepherd's Bush stash.

It has been a really hot day here in Massachusetts, reaching 93 degrees in Boston, where the Boston Pops is getting ready to start up the 4th of July celebration at the historic "Hatshell" with a great celebration of music right now.  We have stayed indoors most of the day where it is cool.  I baked a rhubarb crisp for us all to enjoy tonight while we enjoy watching the festivities together at home.  Yum...can't wait to taste it.  It is an old recipe from Bruce's mother, and she was an incredible cook.....mmmmm. wonder if my attempt to recreate it will be a good one.  We'll see...

God Bless You...wherever you may be spending this 4th of July, and God Bless America!

A Little Piece of Heaven Away From Home

My husband, Bruce and I decided that we needed a little overnight getaway on Saturday, to one of our favorite B&B's, the Shaker Hill B&B, in Enfield, New Hampshire.  It was a lovely, sunny day in the high 70's, when we left home, after my husband finished working, and what a perfect day for the drive there.

When we arrived around 5:00 p.m. it had just rained in Enfield, and it was cool with a slight breeze.  The gardens at the B&B were all in bloom and all so beautiful that we just had to walk all around the grounds and take some pictures. Talk about peace and tranquility......it was like a "little piece of heaven" away from home.

You can imagine that it was not easy to leave on Sunday.  We would have loved to spend hours rocking peacefully away on this porch, taking in all of the beauty and simplicity of this very peaceful and tranquil setting.

Our Precious Little Granddaughter

Last night our daughter, Carra, came over with our 3 month old granddaughter, Ella, while Carra's husband was helping some friends move.

Ella is so adorable with her big blue eyes, that just seem to glow with delight as she takes everything in around her.  She was especially fascinated with a little brown bear, and fell asleep in her little infant seat, with her hands resting on the bear.  Too adorable for words!

                                           Carra and Ella

                                              

My Latest "Works In Progress"

Do you ever feel like you have so many exciting pieces in your stash, just calling out to you, "stitch me", that you just have to start something new, and sometimes have a few pieces going all at the same time? 

For the most part, I am a fairly disciplined, organized person, who needs to finish one project before starting something new.  I often choose detailed needlework projects, which usually take a fairly long time to complete, and sometimes it feels good to be able to work on a smaller, less complicated piece, to relieve the stress of my larger project.

 In May I completed a wonderful design, from Belinda Karls-Nace, of Blue Ribbon Designs, who was our guest designer and instructor at The New England Stitcher's Retreat at the Enfield Shaker Museum in Enfield New Hampshire.  Currently, I am working on finishing up retreat project pieces and hopefully will be able to show them to you soon. 

                                                           "A Sampling in The Square".   

I loved stitching this piece because of the unique designs in each square.  The colors blend beautifully and it was a lot of fun to stitch too!

When our little granddaughter, Ella, was born this spring, our daughter asked me if I could create Ella's name in cross-stitch, with "little brown bunnies" because the nursery theme surrounds a quilt and matching curtains in a pale pink with little "toile" brown bunnies.  Years ago, I had saved a "Bunny Alphabet" cross-stitch book, from which I drafted Ella's name with a different bunny for each letter in her name.  I think that it came out really cute, and I will post a picture of it as soon as it returns from the framer.

This is a recently finished piece, "School of Needlework" from Little House Needleworks.  As you can see, I just couldn't resist changing "Mrs. Ross' School of Needlework", to Mrs. Roseen's School of Needlework!

One of my "works in progress" has been a favorite piece, called "WILLKOMMEN" from Rosewood Manor.  It is on my roller bars and awaiting the beginning of the 4th panel. 

Alas, there just aren't enough hours in the day to stitch!