Sharing some stitching....

Okay, I want to share some stitching with you that I've been doing this past couple of months.

This first design is from Tanya, The Sampler Girl, and I love it, especially since my birthday is on Halloween, October 31. Tanya is a very talented young lady and I love most everything she designs. The following is the front and back of the pillow I made.




The next two photo's are a freebie (and the back) that came from mausimons. It is such a cute fun design, and I couldn't resist stitching it.

Some of the designs below are ones that I stitched several years ago and had laid aside. I am a procrastinator when it comes to finishing items.

This design is one that I had stitched a couple of years ago, but had not put a finish to it. I have always loved this design (sorry I can't remember who designed it, and I can't find the chart). If anyone knows who the designer is, please leave a message for me. The buttons really add a lot to the design and make it really stand out.

This is the back of the above pillow.

This next hanging pillow is from Brittercup Designs and really points out what Autumn is all about.

Below is the backing on the above photo.

This design is from San-Man Originals, and I believe it was a freebie. It is one of the "letter" charts they do. Following it is the backing on the hanging pillow.

I hope you have enjoyed looking at what I've been stitching on. Remember, you can click on each photo is see a larger view of it.

Thank you for stopping by....please let me a message if you want.

Blessings,

Barbara

Mail Call....and a Cake

I ordered several patterns from Amy at Down Sunshine Lane and they came last week. I love new stash! What I received is Pumpkins 4 Sale by Little House Needlewooks...My Lady's Quaker and Gentleman Quaker by Jardin Prive'...Autumn Days by Val's Stuff...Cottage Pinkeep Sampler by Midsummer Night Designs...Peacock Pin Pillow by Beehive Needleworks. I probably won't get the Autumn designs done this year as I am starting to wound down by Fall stitching, and moving on the Winter and Christmas items.



Even though Fall does not come until September 22, according to the calender, Mother Nature has decided that it needs to come now. The days are getting shorter and the temps are cooler during the day and almost cold at night. You need a light jacket during the mornings, but can shed it during the afternoon, and we are getting our share of rain. Even though the trees have not started to turn, there are leaves falling to the ground, so should not be long before we have beautiful trees. Wayne and I will make a trip to the apple farm before the end of the month to purchase apples to eat, bake with, and share with others. Since the weather is cooler, it makes me think of pumpkin, so yesterday I baked a Pumpkin raisin snack cake and will share the recipe with you.


Pumpkin raisin snack cake.....

1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
15-oz can pumpkin
1/2 cup butter, melted
4 eggs
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2-1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup raisins
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans, optional

Thoroughly blend the sugars, pumpkin, butter, eggs and vanilla in a large bowl with a whisk or electric mixer. Combine flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a small bowl. Stir into pumpkin mixture. Add raisins and nuts. Pour into a greased jelly roll pan or 13 x 9 baking dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes for jelly roll pan, 35 to 40 minutes for baking dish, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool. Spread with Cream Cheese Frosting. I use store bought Cream Cheese Frosing, or you can use the recipe below.

Cream Cheese Frosting:

1/2 cup cream cheese, softened
3 cups powdered sugar
2 to 3 Tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Beat cream cheese, powdered sugar, 2 T milk and vanilla until smooth. Add additional milk if needed to make a frosting consistency.

TIP: Coat the raisins with flour before adding to the mixture to keep them from floating to the bottom of the cake.

Fall is my very favorite season of the whole year. I love the colors of Fall and the cool nip in the air. Do you have a favorite season? Make the most of it by baking, stitching, and decorating your homes.

Blessings,
Barbara

A day at Silver Dollar City....

Wayne and I went down to Silver Dollar City at Branson yesterday. We always enjoy going when the Southern Gospel Picnic is going on. The picnic only runs for 12 days and SDC brings in some great Gospel groups to entertain the crowds. We saw and listened to four different groups yesterday. We also enjoyed our fill of picnic food...Southern fried Chicken, apple butter glazed chicken, orange-glazed chicken, pulled pork, creamy coleslaw, cheesy scalloped pototes, mashed potatoes and gravy, baked beans, potato salad, zucchini and tomatoes, mac and cheese, assorted salads and vegetables, and hot dinner rolls. Afterward, we enjoyed a hot funnel cake with powdered sugar and hot cider. Very yummy food and way too much to eat.


I always manage to do a little shopping while there and purchased the cutest mending basket, which is pictured below.






I also managed to take a few photo's of the decorations around the city.........

If you ever get a chance to visit Silver Dollar City in the Ozarks of Missouri, you won't be sorry.

Blessings,
Barbara

A Special Day...

Today, August 27th is a very special day for Wayne and I, forty-two years ago, around 5p.m., Gordon Wayne came into this world. He was born in Joplin and weighed in at 4 pounds 15 ounces, and dropped to 4 pounds. He had to spent a few extra days in the hospital after I came home. Looking at the photo below, you would never know he was that small. Gordon joined the US Air Force in October 1985, he was 18 years old, and will be retiring from the AF next year. Wayne and I are very proud of what Gordon has accomplished with his life in the military. He has traveled the world, received his Bacholar's Degree and his Master's Degree, been in unsafe places, and is now stationed in Germany. His wife, Tammy is there with him and is a very special DIL to us.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GORDON and may you have many more.

Love you both,
MOM

I'm back....again

Hello Dear Friends,



Well, I'm back, after several months of health issues and whatever, but we won't go into all that. But after having surgery, I must say I am doing better.



The weather here has turned Fall like, cooler evernings and early mornings, with the temps rising greatly in the afternoons. I love Fall with all its many colors, sunflowers, pumpkins, and black cats! We have the windows open with the cool breezes blowing through. The mornings are wonderful, as I can sit on my pation with my morning coffee, listen to the birds sing and watch our two dogs play in the yard.



I've been stitching Fall/Halloween designs from LHN, The Samper Girl, primitivebettys, Stacy Nash, Brittercup Designs, and Jenny Hoffman. Stacy Nash has a new Halloween booklet out full of Halloween pinkeeps, which I will be ordering today. I love the primitive look, they are fun, easy designs to stitch. I don't have any photo's to show today, but will have in a day or so, as I need to take the time to put finishes on what I have stitched.



Yesterday, I purchased the new Debbie Macomber Cedar Cove book #9, 92 Pacific Boulevard. I've read this entire series and have really enjoyed it. I also purchased her new Cedar Cove Cookbook. I do read cookbooks from cover to cover. I don't always make many dishes in them, but they make great reading for me.



Wayne and our are planning a few days trips for this Fall. One is to the Wilder Festival at Mansfield, MO. This is where Laura Ingalls Wilder lived and penned her Little House books. I loved those books and still read them from time to time. Of course, we will also venture down to Branson and Silver Dollar City a few times this Fall.



Until next time, Blessings to All,

Barbara

Happy St. Pat's Day!

May you blessings

outnumber The Shamrocks

that grow. And may

trouble avoid you wherever

you go.

~Irish Blessing

The Merry Month of March.......

I can't believe March is already here....but March brings many things for us. The first day of Spring, my hubbies birthday, my mom's birthday, our grandson's birthday, my step-dad's birthday, and the birthday of two nephews, phew, a full month of birthdays. March also brings the start of planting season for some flowers and vegetables. And, we have St. Pat's day in March and the wearing of the green!


Frist I have a photo of my DH, who will celebrate 70 years young this year (don't tell him I told). Wayne and I met at Crowder College here in Neosho, taking speech class. We were married in May of 1965. The photo shows him with our two dogs, Fred and Maggie Mae. This photo was taken last summer (and I think I posted it last summer also).




Now..for some stitching.

The is a design by Heidi at www.needlenecessities.blogspot.com. This is the design she shared for the month of February. I love the way this turned out. For the handle I simply cut strips of the backing fabric and braided them. Each of these designs will be hung on my Christmas tree this year. I am very anxious to see the next one, which she will post on March 15. These are quick easy designs to stitch up and I do stitch them up quickly, but my problem is getting things finished. As you can probably guess I would rather stitch than finish!

The first photo is the front and the next photo is the back of this very cute design.





You can click on any of the photo's to enlarge them.

I hope each of you have a Merry Month of March also.

Blessings,
Barbara

An unusual tree...........

On the west end of our house we have (had) a rain tree. The winters the last couple of years have taken a tole on the tree. When it bloomed in the spring and summer it was beautiful. However, this past fall we had to have the tree cut back, so we don't know what will happen with the tree when spring arrives and blooming season starts. We are hoping it will come back.

In the meanwhile, we were at Silver Dollar City, in Branson during the Christmas season and they had an unusual tree, so we kind of copied their idea.

This tree is called, "An Ozark Hillbilly Wind Chime Tree". We have just hung old items on the tree. As you probably suspect, we get lots of comments about our "unusual" tree!




Click on the picture to see a close up.

Blessings,
Barbara

Stitching in January...........

I did quite a bit of stitching during the month of January and the following is what I stitched up and put a finish on.

This first design is by Heidi, www.needlenecessitites.blogspot.com. Heidi is a wonderful, caring person. She quilts, makes lace, cross stitches, and now she is designing a few cross stitch items. This was the design she made for December for her home. I am very pleased with the way mine turned out. I hope Heidi is also. You can see the front and back below. I have it hanging in my setting area and simply love it. Thank you so much Heidi. When are we going to get another design? This was a free design by Heidi.








This next design was a freebie from Betty of primitivebettys. My DH has his grandfathers old pocket watch and I thought this would work very well next to it. I love Betty's designs. I did the back in a dark green fabric and love it also.





The next photo is a design by Jenny Hoffman, Country Rustic Primitives. It also was a freebie and you can see the stitched design and the backing I put on it. The fabric on back was a gift from Nancy, www.knittingpathsof life.blogspot.com
She is also Heidi's Mom. OOPS, this is not a free design. I ordered it from PatternMart as an email pattern. Sorry!






This next design is also a freebie, but for the life of me I can't remember who designed it. I love all patrotic designs (our son is in the military, as most of you know). I did not make the pillow, it was one I purchased and you just slip the stitched design in it the opening.




This following design is also by primitiviebettys, another freebie. Here again I did not make the banner. I just slipped the stitched design into it. Very simple!




Now, this next design is the January pinkeep from Maryse in France. She is doing a different pinkeep design each month during this year. She has already posted February's design and it is a very cute heart shape. So I need to start on this new one, so I don't get too far behind.




I have also joined the group on, fortheloveofstitching, that Tanya leads. Several of us are doing a Christmas SAL of ornaments and this was my January ornament. We can stitch any Christmas or Holiday design we want. Maybe by Christmas I will have 12 new designs as we started this in December, 2008. Here again, I did not make the banner.



I hope you have enjoyed sharing my stitching pieces with me. You can click on any of them to enlarge. Please feel free to leave a comment for me.

Happy Stitching,
Blessings,
Barbara

February....

"Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home."
~ Edith Sitwell


"Away in a meadow all covered with snow
The little old groundhog looks for his shadow
The clouds in the sky determine our fate
If winter will leave us all early or late."
~ Don Hailey

Blessings,

Barbara

Christmas 2008 and Family....

I thought I would share a couple of photo's of our Christmas trees and some family photo's.

This first photo is my Snowman tree which I placed in my new sitting room. It is full of snowmen that Wayne and I made last year and some I purchased.



This is the lighted flocked tree in our Gathering Room. I don't decorate this tree with ornaments. This year I put red bows on it with a large red bow with streamers at the top. This is the room that we open and share our gifts.




Our son, Gordon, had not been home for Christmas in four years, so Christmas was very special to Wayne and I this year. Gordon is our only child and we are very proud of him. He is serving his country in the United States Air Force, stationed at Ramstein AFB, Germany. However, the beginning of this month he was deployed to Qatar (prounced "Cutter"). He will be there four months (or so they tell him). Tammy, our DIL, is staying at their home in Germany.

This first photo is the four of us. Wayne, Tammy, me, and Gordon.




This photo is Gordon and his dad.




And here we have Tammy and Gordon.




I've been spending this month relaxing and cross stitching. I've actually completed several small projects (need to do the finish on them). I actually can't believe how relaxed my stitching has become this month. I believe this is because I made the decision not to participate in any swaps with any of the online groups I belong to. One small group is doing a birthday club and I am going to participate in this, but we only have to send a card with a skein of thread. My choice in stitching has turned more to the primitive level and I enjoy these designs very much. They are very simple and usually very quick to stitch. I still enjoy Lizzie Kate and have her new "Boo" charts to stitch for Halloween, and of course I will always love Little House Needleworks and The Sampler Girl charts. But, my world has opened up to several wonderful primitive designers.

Hopefully, later this week I can post some of my stitching, until then...

Blessings to Each of You,
Barbara

and the Saga continues

Okay, I'm back with more photo's of my home, and this will be the last of the remodeling project.

The photo below is the family wall in our gathering room. I started with a photo of Wayne and myself in the middle and went to the right with my family and to the left with his family. We enjoy looking at these photo's very much.



This photo is taken in the gathering room. The reason for this photo is so you can see the sunflowers on the mantel. Gordon and Tammy know I love sunflowers and there is a company in Italy that makes ceramic items and and that is where the sunflowers items came from. Now the ones on the hearth did not come from Italy, they are just plain silk flowers!





The photo below is the gathering room so you can see the carpet. The color of the carpet is Fossil, and it is very easy to take care of. Sorry it turned out so dark.





This is someday going to be my sewing/craft room. Right now it is very messy, but much better than it was a few days ago. I'm slowly working on getting it into some kind of order that will be workable for me. We also need to paint this room, and I think it is going to be a light green.




Here we have our guest room (we still refer to it as Gordon's room even though he hasn't lived at home in 20+ years! It is painted Faraway Blue.




And this is the Master bedroom and painted Thai Silk, pretty bright, but I love it.




Now, this is the bathroom, but I wanted you to see the floor covering in here. It is Mannington covering, also very easy to care for. This is also the flooring in my kitchen. Oops, I forgot to take a photo of the front entrance flooring, oh well, it is wood flooring, and I think very pretty.




And finally, my counter tops. They are Quartz, suppose to wear better then granite, and all I have to do is wipe them with Windex window cleaner! Now you can't beat that!




And that is the ending......In a few days I will post some Christmas photo's, was going to do it today, but this is already long enough!

Thank you for looking. You can click on any of the photo's to see them up closer.

Blessings to All,
Barbara

Remodeling..........

Wayne and I have lived in our home for 37 years. We built the house ourselves from ground up, with help to pour concrete and lay up the fireplace. Over the years we have painted the rooms, had siding put on the house, put up new storm doors, just general things to make the house look good. This past August I got on a kick to do some changing around inside, like cleaning out closets and starting to down size and painting the inside of them, then painting each room, putting down new carpeting all over and new floor covering in the kitchen and bathrooms, new counter tops in the kitchen and maybe even tearing out a wall dividing the hall from the living room. Okay this is in August, so we are slowly starting to do a few things, thinking we had lots of time to get everything in order, no pressure, no company for Christmas, just the two of us. However, this is all about to change.........in October our DS starts talking about coming stateside for Christmas, okay............we told ourselves, "oh this is not going to happen, they won't make the trip," then in November an email comes in saying, "we are coming home, arriving in KC on December 10, will be at your house on December 19 (after spending time with DIL's mother.)" Here we are in a MESS, and I mean a MESS! Things are everywhere, you can't find anything. SO..............I moved fast. Went to Lowe's where the counter tops were coming from and said,"I need them put on before December 1st" they said "no way", I told them to "try". Low and behold two days later they called and said "how would you like to have new counter tops put on before Thanksgiving", "GREAT". Got that done, in the mean while we are trying to paint with the help of our friendly painter friend, who is slow as the seven-year itch! He went by the wayside......so DH and I are painting. CARPET....to be put down on December 1..no way, still painting..put off until December 8...still painting, okay every room and every closet got cleaned out and painted before December 8, except the little bedroom that is going to be my sewing/craft room. Fortunately, Wayne and I are still married. They finished putting down carpet/floor covering on December 10, then everything had to be put in place and boxes unpacked. Well, my sewing room became the catch all and the door got closed. Christmas, had to decorate, got the boxes out of the barn, went through them, brought things to the house and did some decorating, not a lot, but two trees went up, centerpieces came out and put on tables, snowmen (not all) came out.......okay DS and DIL coming on the 19th, we are at the 17th, most everything is done. On Thanksgiving it was decided that the family Christmas gathering would be at our house on the 21st.......okay, time to think FOOD. I did the ham, dressing, sweet potatoes, and green beans. My mom came from Las Vegas and stayed at my Aunt's, they did the turkey and made the pies, everyone else brought other food. There was 27 of us that gathered that day. Gordon had not been home for Christmas in 4 years. My family had not gathered together in many, many years. This was wonderful.........THE VERY BEST CHRISTMAS THAT WAYNE AND I HAVE HAD IN MANY, MANY YEARS.

Okay, I got carried away...you are here to see what we did to the house....

The below photo is what used to be our living room, it is now the dining room and sitting area. Where the white rocker is, was once a wall!






This next photo is looking at it from another angle in the room. Here you can see Maggie Mae relaxing!



The next two photo's are the tin backsplash we had put on. It is smoked pewter and I love it. We also installed a new kitchen faucet and new garbage disposal.





Anyone for a RED wall? I have always wanted a red wall, but was never brave enough to do it...well, I figured at my age, what the heck! This is my new sitting area in the dining room. We haven't hung anything on the wall yet, because I enjoy just looking at it. But, I am searching for just the right thing to hang on this wall. Before all this change I had a quilt rack with a quilt hanging on it that Wayne's mother had pieced, but this all got moved to the hall wall.



I hope I haven't bored you to much. Tomorrow, if you want to check in, I will show you more of the rooms and some Christmas photo's.

Thank you so much for stopping by, please leave a message, I would love to hear what you have to say.

Blessings to All,
Barbara