Sunny Sunday Afternoon

I wish I had something exciting to write about. I wish I had some wonderful new pictures to share. But....Lizzie loves to take pictures on my camera and now the batteries are dead. So I have no new pictures to share today. So what is going on here at the Dunton household?

We have a hole in our living room ceiling where John is trying fix a plumbing leak from the shower upstairs. Let me tell you, it looks lovely!! (SNORT!) Thank the Lord for a husband who can fix these things without having to hire a plumber. We spent $23.00 at Lowes for the parts...hope that will do it. It was leaking so bad, that you can stand downstairs under the shower and get a shower too!!! Wish I had a picture...

I've been busy working on a couple new designs this weekend. I am getting more comfortable designing on the computer and not by needle. It certainly is much faster. I have a large one now passed off to Amy for stitching, and another good size piece that just needs some tweaking...the edges aren't lining up just right, but an hour or less of fiddling and it should be ready to stitch also. I REALLY love this new piece. This one will be called Quaker Alphabet I think.

The trees and flowers are finally in full glorious bloom here in Western Washington...it certainly LOOKS like spring around here. It has been so cool and rainy though, I haven't spent any time outside enjoying the flowers. I hope it warms up soon, I am itching to get outside and work in my gardens! John and I took the chain saw to the wysteria and hot red poker plants last weekend and really cut them back big time. They always look so much better with their new growth, and the blooms are nicer too. They look a little butchered right at the moment though!!!

Only 16 days until we leave for Maui! And on that note, I will close with a few of my favorite pictures from our trip to Maui last time (18 months ago). Have a great week!

Another Sunday afternoon...

and time for another blog post. This week has been pretty routine and quiet, so there is not much to share, but I do have pictures of some stash shopping I did last weekend. So here goes!

I travelled to the Sewing and Stitching Expo last weekend in Puyallup, WA, and made a beeline for the Martha Pullen booth, and purchased two more premade dresses to smock for Alana. She is going to be flower girl in a friends wedding in August, so the white dress will be for the wedding. The bride is wearing ecru/offwhite/cream...not sure what the exact name of the color is, instead of the traditional white, and she wanted Alana's dress to match hers, so we will probably try a tea or coffee dye on the white dress. It will be smocked in solid ecru. I'm thinking of perhaps getting some pretty french lace for a bit of a trim. Here's a picture of Alana wearing the dress I finished for her last month, thank you Amy for the picture.

After leaving the Martha Pullen vendor booth, I took a quick look at the Stoney Creek booth and Liz Turner Diehl, the only other stitching vendors in attendance. All the others were geared toward machine sewing and quilting. Because the crowd was horrendous and impossible to get close to many of the vendors, I quickly left. A friend of mine told me she always goes on Sunday morning, and that it is nearly empty then. I think I will skip church next year and try that. At least I would have a more pleasant shopping experience!

So I got back in the car and headed up to Issaquah, about 40 minutes up the freeway, to my not so local, but closest, needlework shop, ThreadNeedle Street. I spent about half an hour on the phone talking about the Waterlilies color selection with daughter Amy...we were wanting some very specific colors for a design I am working on...so I described them all to her and then we chose together. It was fun. Picture of what I came home with is here. I also found some Victoria Sampler and Just Nan leaflets that I wanted. (Also pictured here). The Blue Carnations leaflet is very special as I had the incredible honor of working with Thea on this project. I still had the working patterns, but wanted the leaflet for a special souvenir. If you ever see the leaflet, look inside and you will see why I wanted it for a souvenir. I also purchased a yard of cashel white linen...a big expenditure but I was tired of never having enough fabric when I needed it!!! It was a great time, and a rare treat to be able to visit the shop.

DD#2 (Alli) and her hubby (Christopher) just got back from spending a week at Disneyland/Los Angeles. They had a great time. They shared the plane ride home with Henry Winkler (Fonzie on Happy Days, etc.) and they thought that was pretty cool. It was a very quiet week without them here, and we are glad they are home!

I purchased enough of the Blue Lavendar Waterlilies to finish my M Designs "D" (see previous post regarding this), and have put a few more stitches into the design. I think that the dye lot is going to blend in just fine, thankfully! I am busy working on a companion piece for one of my designs at the moment, so I'm not sure when the "D" will get finished, but it will be next on my list!!!

Only 31 days until we leave for Hawaii!!!

More than one way to finish a project!

I started this design "Catch the Wind" by Butternut Road in 1997. I had always loved this piece since I first saw it, and promised myself that if I ever had three daughters that I would stitch it for myself. Well, our third daughter, Lizzie, was born in 1995, and I no longer had a reason NOT to stitch it! I managed to get it about three fourths done before it made it to the bottom of my UFO (unfinished objects) basket for 10 YEARS!!!! Yep. It sat untouched for 10 years. Lizzie is now 12 years old. I really wanted this design finished, but just couldn't seem to get myself to do it. I decided to ask DD#1, Amy, if she would be interested in finishing the stitching if I paid her for it, and she agreed, and immediately set to work. It took her about a month of stitching here and there, and yesterday my piece came home, finished. I am so pleased! Thank you again, Amy! I need to dig through my frame stash and see if I have one that will work for this before I go and buy one. I am so excited to have it done!!!


This afternoon I stopped at an antique mall, just to browse and found some real treasures. The first thing I found is this little china dish with a cross stitch or needlepoint, design on it. The lady at the mall said it is a regular china pattern, she has some of the larger pieces. I had never seen it before, but I think it is lovely. It cost me $3.50. The little doily underneath came from a different booth, and was only $2.00. Then I found a bag full of embroidered pieces...but only the top piece was showing enough to be able to see...I was amazed at the beautiful bouillion flowers that someone had painstakingly embroidered, so I bought the whole bag for $7.00. Most of the pieces are just embroidery cut out of whatever they were in, some are not in great shape with stains and a few little holes, but others are whole and in good condition. I am very excited about these treasures and I am sure I can use them somewhere. I think I will soak most of them in Oxyclean and see if I can't get some of the stains out. These boullion stitches are just absolutely perfect, not a thread out of place. Mine never look this good!! My hat is off to the person who embroidered this piece!