Little French Sampler

I'm so excited for my mom - last night she finished her Marguerite Dumas french sampler. Our sampler guild had Lorraine Mootz do a lecture several years ago on french schoolgirl samplers and she repro'd this sampler from her personal collection. Marguerite is darling. Mom doesn't stitch on linen any more so she used aida lambswool with GAST Mulberry. We can't wait to get her framed - I am especially excited because Mom said she *might* could come and live with me when the framing is complete. YIPPEE - we already set up a date to go and have her framed and also mom's other recent completion CHS Scarlet Berries.

Wow - between my mom and my dad - they are putting me to complete shame with the completions this year. My dad just finished another Mirabilia - one of the older Santas and he is about 1/2 finished with my next mermaid - Blackbeard's princess I believe it is called - ooh la la - she is soooooo gorgeous and that will be on my coin to frame. One day soon I'll have to show photos of my other two gorgeous mermaid pieces he has completed for me.

I keep promising to show some WIP photos since of course I have no finishes - not yet - anyway but one day there will be something finished on my list.

This is the A&E by Primitive Needle - it is stitched on the called for PTP Mello but in 32ct instead of 40ct and with the called for NPI but I am doing the tree of life in Belle Soie. I thought I would give up before I could get thru the lettering - I don't know why I hated doing it so much and I'm sooooo glad it's done and I am able to start the tree. This was supposed to be incentive stitching on one of the yuku boards I frequent but I am obviously not going to make the deadline in August. However I love it and it will go beautifully with my A&E rug - I know I know - I have been promising a WIP on that one too but I keep hoping I'll get more done on it and have something more to show -

Hooking news is slim to none - I am still working mostly on the pomgranate runner - it will look great on my new dining room table so there is some motivation to get it done. We have a hooking retreat starting next friday at the Olde Green Cupboard - WHHEEEEE - I'm soooo excited about that - there will be some friends there and we'll have food and lots of hooking time on anything you want but no teacher - well what to take - I am torn whether to devote my whole 3 days to hooking on one project so I can really show progress or caving in to my ADD tendencies and work on 2 projects - heck - I could work on a different project each day and show some progress on all 3. I know I want to take Merrie Halloween - she has not seen daylight in quite a while and I also am feeling the pull of the A&E rug - what with all this bragging about how good my A&E sampler will go with my A&E rug - need to keep both of them in rotation. OK - I promise to show progress photos of rugs after my retreat.

Several people have asked about our possessions that were taken in the burglary - well they caught the scum that robbed at least 26 homes in our county but supposedly did not recover any of my stuff. I still don't have a penny from the insurance company. Oh well - it is getting easier to realize it is just stuff and stuff don't mean much in the grand scheme of things. I do miss certain pieces of my jewelry very much and my favorite purses of course but thankfully they did not take our TV's or laptop which would have been very annoying to say the least. We always can be thankful that it prompted us to get an alarm system and that no one was hurt in our home.