Exactly what we did NOT need !

Keith was going to his brother's house to pick up a small generator, when he saw this. He caught it on video.

I just love their explanation of what went wrong! (Heard at the end of the video).




This is right down the street from us. The road in front of the dam was closed. He walked down the road on the way back and found that a pipe had burst somewhere in United Water’s property and there was a gusher of water shooting up about 50 feet.

Great! Can't wait til the storm gets here! This area is usually under water anyway!

Deep Peace is finished!

I was beginning to think it would never happen! Actually I finished the stitching last week, but I didn't iron/steam it until this morning. Hopefully I took enough of the volume out of the center of the D with the steam. It seems to lie a bit flatter now. I hope when it is framed, it will not be noticed.

First I had to re-stitch the berries with the pink color.

Then I illuminated the vertical and horizontal columns with silver back-stitching.

I didn't have a picture that showed the pearl purl around the letter last time. This one shows the completed D.

The letter is over-layed with gold filament as well. I was worried about ironing/steaming the metallic area, so I used as little heat as I could. The purl at the top still looks a little wonky, but I am hoping it will stretch out when it is framed.
Next, the gold and silver paillettes were added. They were supposed to be done with French knots, but on occasion I had to take an extra stitch to keep them secure.

Here is the whole piece completed:

Deep Peace

Phew! I am very glad to have this one finished!

Just in time for the hurricane! Hope I will be able to get some Deep Peace and we don't lose any more trees! The winds have really started to howl here! I wanted to post this before we lost power.

Hope all of you stay safe from Sandy! Good luck!

TUSAL and. . . getting closer with Deep Peace

Here is my October contribution to the TUSAL:

All the sparkly bits on the top are from the metal stitching on Deep Peace.

I have made more progress on Deep Peace, but it has not been without frustration!

I finished illuminating the D.

I did not stagger the rows as described in the directions, except where the rows were uneven. I started to, but just didn't like the way it was turning out.

I was pleased that it was finished, and I was ready to go onto the pearl purl part, until . . .  to my horror, I discovered that I had one skein of silk that was unused! I checked and discovered that the berries were supposed to be stitched in pink! This was sort of buried in the text and I missed it. I stitched them in the same shade as the vines. Admittedly this gave it a rather November look, but I thought it looked ok. Then I realized that the scene inside the D was a Spring scene. Yes, it would be better to have pink berries! Those !*#&@ berries got me again! Well you guessed it, spent the next two evenings replacing the brown with pink. If anyone out there stitches this design, I would strongly suggest going through the entire set of pages and highlighting all the steps. Some of them are easy to miss.

Ok, now it was finally time to go onto the pearl purl. I found the secret to this was to go very slowly. You feel like you need 3 hands to do this, but it finally got done.
Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of this yet, but I will very shortly.

I do have another problem though, and I'm not quite sure what to do about it. The linen inside the D has stretched. It now puffs upward. Grrr! Not sure how to shrink it back to size. Not sure if it will show when it is framed. I am really not sure what I could have done to avoid this!

Have to think about it for a while I guess.

OMG What a dummy I am!

After all that crowing about finishing the border, I just looked at the picture and discovered that I still have to stitch the berries on the top right-hand side of the border!

Oh well,. that will be quick!

Deep Peace progress and some non-stitchy stuff

I  finally finished the border of Deep Peace!
Whoopee!

The berries are made up of Smyrna stitches. I am not totally happy with the way all of the leaves came out. They are done with a satin stitch. On some of the leaves, the center line did not work out exactly perfectly, but I am not going to change them! I prefer to look at them as a "variation occurring in nature" ! LOL!

Here is how it looks so far:

Now, on to the illumination!

The entire D is to be overlayed in cross stitch, using two strands of gold cord. Thankfully, the stitching is one over two threads. The underlying stitching is all one over one!

I finished the border very late last night, so I only made a small start on the gold work. Only the very first row at the top of the D is done completely. The second row is done in one direction.

Click to get a better view of the gold stitching

The cord has to be very short. I am using an 18" length, folded in two. The cord has to be looped to the needle so the two strands don't move around. The stitching has to be done vertically with a quick jabbing and stabbing motion. This takes a bit of getting used to. The length has to be very short because it frays easily.The idea is to lay the strands down side by side, so more of it is illuminated. Well, you know how that goes! It is very hard to keep it from twisting and laying down on top of each other! I am doing the best I can, but all bets are off here! LOL!

The real problems will begin when I start working with the purl. That is very slow, fastidious work. It has to be couched all along the outline of the letter. Well, I am getting ahead of myself. I have a long way to go just covering the initial first!

I was hoping to be working on some Christmas designs by now. I had no idea this one would take so long. Hopefully I will be able to sneak in a little ornie before the season is upon us!

Now for some other stuff.
Most of the chickens are now laying on a regular basis. Gertie, one of our "Easter Eggers", presented us with this little prize:

A Blue-green egg !

We still have about 5 chickens that haven't laid an egg yet. Not sure what's up with that. Hopefully they will catch up.

I spent quite a bit of time working on some signs.

I have a great respect for anyone who makes signs! No one knows how much work is involved! It really took a long time. I'm sure that someone who really knew what she was doing could have done it much faster.
Unfortunately, I'm not so sure the sign shows up well enough. It looks rather small out by the driveway.

I also had to design a simple label for the egg cartons (hmmm, not so simple)!.

So far we have sold 5 dozen eggs, and of course we have given some away to friends and family.

We were hoping to have another honey harvest this week, but Keith says there isn't that much honey in the hives. The bees need what is there to make it through the winter.
We have been selling the summer honey on a regular basis, but only have about 18 bears left now.

 It's so pretty! Don't you think? I hate to see the end of it.

WOW! I lead such an exciting life! LOL!

By the way, I have added my blog reading list to the side bar. I don't know what happened when I did this, but not all the blogs made the transfer. I am adding them as I find them. If I am a reader of your blog, please don't be offended. It is just techno-fizzle with blogger!

This has been a very long post. Congrats if you have made it all the way through it!
I will be back soon to let you know how the gold work is coming along.