And the Fallower Fall Give-a-way Winner is:::::::::::

The Fallower Fall Give-a-way drawing at midnight last night from the Random Computer Number Generator picked this lovely lady!

Patti from United Kingdom

Patti thank you so much for your kind thoughts and I hope you enjoy your added stash items.

Email me at jennifer.dalenberg@yahoo.com  for your snail mail address

Thank you so much for sharing your Fall thoughts with me. I loved reading every comment and got to visit with new folks who also love stitching all around the world!

We are getting ready for our trip to Chicago in just a couple of weeks. I'm so excited about it!  Abbie is already practicing her longest howling notes.

All the hustle and bustle of activities before going on a trip takes us a couple of weeks to get going, planning this and that, and when and what.

I know that is about as clear as mud but honestly time is flying so fast and so many things to do before we leave are spinning my head.

Today I spent many hours designing some new samplers for future stitching projects. I really am enjoying it and hope I can burn the needle a bit faster to share.

Any day I should get a good supply of some new overdyed threads to tweak and put the final touches on the projects I'm working on. I guess you could say I'm like a kid at heart in the middle of August with a new pack of Crayons for the year.

 Back to the thread before bed,

Jennifer

Mums in Fall sampler

Mums in Fall

32 count Vintage Country Grain Belfast linen or Vintage Autumn

Threads by Crescent Colors or your own choice

 Sunshine Girl~~~1 

Red Currant~~ O

Eve's Leaves~~heart

Ruby Slippers~~backwards C

Blue Beadboard~~3

Magnolia Blossom~~2

Copper Penny~~orange half block

Tennessee Clay Red~~half circle, muted red

Blue Beatrice~~~darkest blue, white circle

Fallen Leaves~~~auburn color with shamrock

Ye Old Gold~~ X

Colonial Copper~~~triangle copper color

This morning I designed this sampler anticipating the first Fall mums.  I know soon the vegetable and flower stands here in the North Georgia mountains will be full of choices and colors. My favorite color of mum is the dark burgandy red ones and gold. They are the prettiest perineal flowers to me!

The colors I chose above are just for a guideline. I have ordered several of these colors this week and will do a happy dance the day they come in the mail. A few of them I did not have in my stash before so I'm hoping this design will all jive in color once I stitch a model.

A vintage fabric would make a lovely background shade for these colors.

You are welcome to substitute your own family initial in the design.

I love Delft colors so I chose the blue shades for the bowl.

I plan to stitch this one up for a pinkeep, backed with a piece of homespun cotton to put in my kitchen wooden bowl this year.

If you stitch this up, send me a picture of your finished piece and I will display your work on the blog!!

If you stitch to sale, please give me credit for the design....thanks so much!

Enjoy.

Housekeeping---Sweeping

Just a quick long housekeeping note. I just got home at 8pm from a long day of work and errands. I have not had time to respond to many emails but did read several that were concerned that the give-a-way posting comment is closed. I didn't realize when I closed the comment section of one posting that it went for ALL postings. That was not meant to be and I do apologize for the confusion.

I will be taking a blogging break for the next couple of weeks in planning for a trip out of state, catching up on stitching, reading and my newest crave, designing some of my own samplers.

I am going to try and fix the commenting section shortly. In all fairness, I am extending drawing a name until tomorrow night at midnight. I'm a night owl and I promise I will be up at midnight! LOL. I didn't realize the give-away posting comment section was closed off as well. 

Just a few things about this blog that I need to communicate( this is reminding me of the first day of school, sorry, but this is necessary this week):

1.  This blog is not just a stitching blog, I have other aspects of my life as well.

2. Comment moderation was placed on this blog well over a year ago due to the decision as this keeps spammers and other, what I call "verbal vomit", off the blog. I try to moderate them as much as possible. If you don't see your comment immediately, it means I have been working or not able to get to the computer. I try to moderate them as quickly as possible. I also work a full-time job.

3. Unfortunately, common sense housekeeping note is............if you read my blog every day and don't like it or the nature of it, then PULLEAZE, don't feel obligated and move to the next blog. There is a help button for Google Reader if this is a problem for you. I try to keep this blog real and unfortunately, it may not meet your need.

4. I try to write daily or every other day as this seems to work well for me and sometimes I post more than once in one day. I know that is irritating to many people but again, there are many blogs to read out in blogland that may fit your needs better. I'm certainly not trying to send you away, but my journey make not be the highway you want to take, so to speak.

5. From time to time, I will take a longer blogging break to catch my breath from everyday life. I find this necessary a couple of times a year. One is coming up soon.

6. I do enjoy reading comments and I read each and every one, even if I do not always send a personal note of thanks back, I do appreciate you taking time out of your day to consider reading and interacting on this blog.

7. Please save temper tantrums on personal emails for your mamas. I do not mind personal emails about opinions, stitching, kids, pets, or whatever but I will not tolerate attacks on my spirit. And for the 99.9% of folks who I've met through this blog, it's been a very pleasant experience but it's that .1% of Poo that can stink it all up.

Now, I'm off to trying to fix this blog's commenting section, feeding my never-ending, tail-wagging dog, and tending to my husband who came home very sick. More Poo cleaning.......LOL

The Giveaway deadline

I so appreciate each and every one of you who have participated in the giveaway. Unfortunately the deadline will have to moved up to tomorrow at noon. If you are interested, please post on the Give-away posting and good luck! The order message I got yesterday was this is a discontinued item. I did luckily find another shop that had one left. I hope to receive it any time this week and will choose a name tomorrow evening. Thanks so much for your time and consideration to stop by my blog. It's definitely appreciated. There are some sweet souls out in blogland.

Thank you for your kind comments. They did mean alot to me. My last posting was totally not to meant for any pity parties. I was truthfully trying to help others who may be experincing the same  thing. If this is offensive, I am very sorry. I do not flaunt this memory nor do I enjoy it. I did find comfort in expressing my thoughts as a memorial to my son. It seems that whatever I write is not taken well. I try to be positive but I guess it takes a talented person more than me to express that. Again, I so appreciate you taking the time to visit here. It's more than I could have ever expected. And for those who pass judgment, I really don't have much else to say on that except you don't understand if you've never experienced it. Learn from that and don't hurt others with harsh words.

Giving thanks to good souls,
Jennifer

Aaron's Sampler 1985

With inspiration today, just wanted to share a sampler for my firstborn son who would have been 25 years old on August 16th. When I see yellow butterflies, I always, always think of him. He was buried in yellow with a blanket that said in the corner, Thank Heaven for Little Boys, in baby blue.

If you or someone you know has been through the death of a child, take a look at The Compassionate Friends or better yet, look for your local chapter. There are chapters all over the world, as this is an international support group for bereaved parents. I miss participating on the board of the group in Augusta, Georgia for 5 years before I moved here in 2001. As a board member, I got to help plan community activities, memorials, serve on panels to answer questions at the Medical College of Georgia medical students, and a phone resource for newly bereaved parents.

The butterfly symbol has been the group's logo. That's one of the reasons I love having the butterfly bushes right outside my window because I know his little spirit is here.

I have added this to the growing list of patterns to stitch. You certainly are welcome to substitute the name and date  if you would like to personalize it.

The colors are for whatever you choose but the DMC I selected are numbers:

728

727

645

310

519

368

367

603

602

Hope you enjoy your evening!

Butterflies and Time--Flying

Time moves quickly when having fun. Whoever said that the first time was a genius!

Last night I worked a bit more on the Abigail Summer sampler and have found that the pattern I created needed some add-ons and whatever else my mind was thinking but this is the progress so far. I am off today and hope to get much more done/ maybe almost finished. {{XX fingers}} I have changed some of the colors as I go and I can't wait to get an order of 50 colors of new overdyed threads soon in the mail!!!!!  O happy day! This piece has alot of Secondhand Rose (CC) in it. I am putting some dark brownish tones in it as I love pink and brown. Note:  those diddies in the middle are not number 2's.......LOL , they will make more sense as dog treats when I finish the last line.........I digress. This is one of my first samplers......forgive me.

This morning I looked at a video on a health topic for work, lasted an hour but intriguing new scientific research on obesity and the factors that are multifactoral. The reason why I watched the news on this data is because obesity affects female hormones so much, a thing that we try to balance at work and it's quite challenging when we throw this factor into the loop. It's harder but it can be done......ok, I'm not at work now, I will not bore you with any more.........LOL

Ok, ok,  one last thought.  Most problems are hormonally -based. That 's just my opinion and please don't substitute that for your providers advice.

That curbed my appetite a bit for lunch, even though, luckily, I've never been obese and the closest I got to a fast weight gain was pregnancy....not too good for the lower back, that's for sure but wouldn't trade it for the world as I had 3 beautiful babies.

As I was playing with Miss Abigail, I couldn't help but see the numerous butterflies out the window again. This year we've noticed many, many large colorful butterflies around our butterfly bushes.

I took this picture through the window. I should get outside and take some close ups and I just may do that after I lazily quit reading this morning afternoon now.

I've had to answer the phone about a zillion times only to hear recorded political announcements. Me and Bodyguard are trying to figure out how we got on the big list of these things. Anyone know how to stop them besides changing phone numbers? 

a cropped view here

and cropped again. Isn't it beautiful?

I have so much I want to do and need to do that I get in a tither wondering which to do first. Thank goodness for the Y chromosome that helps me multi-task.  : 0

Hope a yellow butterfly passes your way today, fluttering around, reminding you of peace and promise.

Watching butterlies and time fly,

Jennifer

Midnight Progress

This weekend was full of stitching or reading. I've started the book Redeeming Love and so far it's a bit sad in the beginning but the author writes where you can easily follow and is definitely a book I don't want to put down tonight.

I put some more time into the Abbie Summer Sampler. I'm changing things around as I stitch and I will have to go back and conform the pattern. I know that's backwards but I digress......everything looks different on linen.

And if that were not enough, I got about 2/3 of a new sampler designed, called Abbie Goes to the City with a September/ Fallish theme and a memory keeper for our trip we are taking.

Back to the Summer one.

32 count Bo Peep Belfast linen ( a beautiful light, light pink shade)

Crescent Colors and Weeks Dye threads

Still needing more work but I stopped here for the night.

Still loving the Kelmscott Lace Scissors too.

The piece that I'm working on for the September one has many Fallish colors in it for the windy city of Chicago. So stay-tuned. It's larger and will require alot of needle burning hours. I ordered many overdyed threads to expand my stash selections and can't wait till they come in the mail.

Color, color, color. Can't get enough of color.

Here's hoping you have a restful night and a great early Monday morning. Many counties around our area are starting back to school in the morning.

Nite

Abbie Tales

How did this little half-pounder turn into a 3 lb lion?  Honestly, I was going through some Abigail pictures and could see her growing. For newbies, Abbie is our little lump of sugar, our sweetness in the household.

Her little legs have never touched the ground outside. She thinks she is definitely one of the pack here and will announce her prescence quite readily if asked to!

Here she is at 3 months old.

 

and growing and growing

She grew as expected into a beautiful long-haired chi, but she is mostly all hair and then the hair is growing like weeds this Summer. I'm sure she didn't get a Miraclegro stick out of my planted pot on the porch but yesterday, I had to take a snapshot of her mane.

We learned later that the long hair growing downwards on her hiney is called pants in dog language and Abbie has some pants!

She spent some time with us on the back porch after her daily hair-brushing. The humidity didn't help her hair one bit! LOL

Her hair is angel soft and pure white with a few brindle markings of lightish tan.

She is now 11 months old......and a bit spoiled, just a little bit.

Next month we are going to visit BG's family, who we love dearly in South Holland, Illinois and Miss Abbie has a plane ticket too. Her ticket to go along in a tiny little box to put under my seat on the plane.

I'm not sure how she is going to handle this because the airlines says that we can't take her out of the box from the security check until we reach the destination. Ha!

Will she yodel through the TSA checks?

Will she yodel on the plane?

Stay-tuned for more on that. Should make for an interesting day.

Things Abbie will have in her luggage are Sweet Potato treats (her faves), her favorite pink blankie, and 2 sundresses to sport in the big city of Chicago. She's never been walking on a leash, ever so this will be an interesting trip.

Abbie wishes you a good Sunday today!

She is ,right now, in her usual place---the sofa. Yes, she took over the sofa now and watches TV until she falls asleep, unless I'm sitting in my stitching chair. Then, she likes to sit under me. She has been known to search for her favorite toys and drop them one by one under my feet while I'm stitching. That's her way of saying, Play with me instead, please.  If that doesn't work for her, she will pick them up one by one and drop them at Body Guard's feet and then stare at him for play and he caves every time.

She is definitely a bright spot in this homestead!

She is inspiration for a couple of designs I'm making of late.

Stay cool!

Jennifer