Mary's little tree is finished

I worked on the tree on the left side of the sampler, and finally finished it.

It extends from the bottom all the way up to the strawberry border. I am glad I started at the bottom because there are exactly 2 threads separating the flower from the border!

Here is how the whole thing looks so far:

Next, I am on to stitch  a parrot that will be just to the right of the carnation. It is just as big as the sheep! Yikes! That is one big parrot!

On the home front, our new little chickies have just started laying. Four out of ten have started laying these little eggs.

Three out of the ten are laying green eggs!

In the beginning, the eggs are always very small. You can see how small they are compared to a regular sized egg. They will be big soon though!

Now, just a question to put out there -  Does anyone know why a perfectly good iron that has not been dropped, abused, or mis-handled in any way should start leaking? Aggh! For the past 20 odd years, I have been using Rowenta irons. They have always been very good. The last two however have not been so good! They have both leaked. Tricky business when you are ironing a sampler!
What kind of iron do you use? Are you happy with it?
I guess I need to buy another one.

A Slow Go with Mary Hart

I really thought I would be finished with Mary by now. It is certainly not the fault of the sampler, because it is a very easy, pleasant stitch.

For any number of reasons this has been a very turbulent and distracting time around here. There were several evenings that I just was too tired or distracted to stitch.
I took this photo two days ago.

Since then, I have finished the border on the right side, and last night, I made a start on the cat.
It seems like I am back in the groove, so hopefully it won't be too much longer for a finish.

On the home front, we did not have good luck with our eggs.I think we had a problem with our incubator. Out of twenty two eggs, only 2 hatched. One was very weak, and only lived one day. The other one was a French Black Copper Maran. He (or she, I hope), was very weak for the first week. We fed her by hand, a mixture of vitamin water and honey.

Suddenly one day she was alert and hopping about. We didn't want her to be alone, so we drove upstate to buy a few chicks to keep her company. They are all thriving now.

Here is a photo of the little one at two weeks old.

 

We really hope it's a female, because Black Copper Marans lay the most beautiful chocolate brown eggs!

 

We had a little setback with Walter too. He had finally been integrated with the hens (or so we thought), and spent 2 nights with them. We came out to find him huddled in one of the laying boxes. Apparently he had fallen off the perch, and was pecked mercilessly by the hens. When we found him he was walking with a bad limp. We had to separate him again. His leg is much better now. He is walking normally again, but now we have to start the integration process all over again.

Poor Walter!

 

We are still looking for Spring around here. I did have some crocuses come up, but still no sign of a blooming daffodil! That is very unusual for this area! Seems like it has been winter for 6 months!

 

That's all I have for now. I will be back in a few days, hopefully with a finish!



Progress on Mary Hart, TUSAL, and more

I have made some progress on Mary Hart.

The Mary Hart Sampler - 32 ct linen with AVAS

I just love the bright bold color. I have always been partial to red!

The verse is tiny, tiny, tiny, all one over one. I just started a bit of it to see what it would look like.

I have to bring the border down both sides a bit more before I work on the verse.

It's also time again for the TUSAL!
You can see all the red from Mary.

Furry loves to supervise!

Still no peep from the peeps!

The first batch has one more week to go. This time next week, we will be on peep watch.

I really hope something hatches, or I will be very disappointed!

Unfortunately we are not making much progress with Walter. The hens still peck him mercilessly!
I have heard of this happening with other roosters, but I really though he would be able to handle the hens by now. Walter clearly prefers people and cats to other chickens!

Here he is with Keith.

I don't know what we are going to do with him! He should be old enough to be mixed in with the other chickens, but I guess we have to give him more time.

Enjoy your day everyone!
I'll be back soon!

The Harriot Boardman Sampler is finished!

Yay!

I tried to follow the pattern of the flowers and the grass as closely as I could, but there were a few places where the hilly grass seemed to get away from me! Oh well! I am pretending the wind was blowing it!

Generally I am pleased with how she turned out.

I did have a hard time taking a photo!
Why is it, as soon as you lay something out to take a picture, this happens!

Not just one of them, but two of them had to get into the action!

Ollie scooted off, but Furry was not about to leave!

Finally!


The Harriot Boardman Sampler - The Scarlet Letter
Stitched with DMC on Green linen

I really enjoyed stitching this one, and I loved the special green/blue linen!


For my next project, I picked the Mary Hart Sampler.

 

Here is a better look:

I am a cat lover, and simply cannot resist a sampler with a cat on it!

Mary is from the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. CA.

The colors on the cat are truly weird but it is suggested that perhaps exposure to ultra violet light over the years has changed the original color of the dyes.
The verse is quite morbid, and a second verse is given for those who want to change it.
No problem for me! I love the morbid ones!

This is the verse:

This little Piece my Friends may have,

When I am dead and in my Grave

When greedy Worms shall feed on me.

My name hereunder you may see

 

Ha! Love it!

I am going to stitch it on 32 count linen in Antique White, using Au ver a soie, my favorite silk. Luckily for me, I had all the necessary colors.

 

 

(Notice the furry foot at the top of the page ? - Different day, same Furrytail foot)!

 

On the home front, Walter, our reluctant rooster has been growing like a weed! The problem is, he doesn't know he is big. He is quite a bit taller than the hens now, but still hasn't filled out. He is a little older than 3 months now, and is at that awkward adolescent stage. He is still terrified of the hens and keeps well clear of them.

 

Walter

 

We were looking to replace our hens that were killed by the hawks, and we decided to try to hatch our own.

 

We love our Gertie's blue-green eggs, so we ordered some Ameraucana eggs. We also ordered some of the dark brown, Black Copper Maran eggs.

 

 

Here they are in the incubator:

 

 

We have been told to expect 50% to hatch at best. I am hoping we will get lucky with the odds and get more hens than roosters! We also have 6 more eggs on their way. That will give us 20 eggs. If 10 hatch, hopefully we will get 5 or more hens!

Time will tell.

Our first hatch date is March 18th!

 

I will keep you posted.

Harriot's Goofy Deer are finished

Finally!

This was not without problems however.

Sometime after starting the second deer, I noticed that the dye lot was different. The deer on the right is actually a lot brighter than the one on the left.
I am hoping that it is not too noticeable.

I can't help but think these look like cartoon deer! I don't think they had cartoons back in Harriot's day, but these guys certainly have a Disney-esque quality to them! I think it's the eyes.

One of them turned out to be a bit larger than the other. Not sure how that happened.
Oh well. I am certainly not going to do them over again!

I started working on the flowers. They are also done freestyle. I am not having any easier time with these, but atleast, the vines and leaves aren't quite as obvious when you mess up!

Here is how it looks so far all together

I have a ways to go. I have the center floral motif, and then the left motif to do yet. After that, I will go on to do the grass.


On the home front, things have been a bit gloomy here.

We lost another chicken.

We have had a terrible problem with hawks!
We have had a total of 5 attacks. Three chickens were killed, one managed to get away, and one seems to be traumatized. She will not come out of the shed, and has stopped laying eggs. This last attack was by a pair of giant red-tailed hawks!

Poor Sally! She was such a happy little thing!

I can't think of anything more terrifying than some unknown peril dropping out of the sky to kill you!

We are hoping to get a few more chicks this spring, but they will not be laying eggs for some time.
We are four hens down now, so it has cut into our egg production.

We need some SPRING here, and soon! I normally don't mind the winter, but this year, here in NY, it has just been relentlessly cold and windy! Brrrrr!

Hopefully Spring will not be too far away!

Update on Harriot

Hi everyone!

I meant to give this update last week. Not sure why I didn't send it.

Since last time, I completed the alphabet in the eyelet stitch.
Next came the gold dividing band.
The next alphabet was done in a satin stitch.

Then came the strawberry vine. This was done in cross stitch first and then returning to complete the little leaves in a freehand style satin stitch. I must say I found it difficult to keep the leaves consistent. I hope they came out all right. It was a persnickety kind of thing!

Then it was on the the attribution, which is being stitched in a rust color. I am almost finished with it. I just need to complete the date.

Next will be to complete the right hand border and do the freehand scene on the bottom. That should take a while!
Here it is so far:

On the home front, let me introduce you to the newest member of our family.

Meet Walter:

Walter at 2 months

Walter is a 10-week old Buff Orpington cockerel.
He is actually a lot bigger now. This photo was taken almost 2 weeks ago.
We got him in the hopes that he would protect our flock from hawks. We picked out a Buff Orpington because they are know for having gentle, sweet, and calm personality.

Unfortunately Walter might just be a little too sweet. He is terrified of the hens!
Poor little guy! He has bonded with us, and tries to hide behind us so the other chickens won't see him. (LOL)!
I hope he gets a little more courageous as he gets older!

Back soon with more progress.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

It is Christmas eve, but not all has been peaceful here.

Over the last two days, we have lost a chicken on each day to a hawk. First we found Lulu, the little red hen, then yesterday it was Dotty, the little Silver Spangled Hamburg. We ran out but it was too late!

Today, I watched them very carefully, and everything seemed ok. No signs of hawks. I went us to the attic to get some ribbon, and I heard the screams. I ran down to find the chickens scurrying everywhere. One by one, they came out of hiding and returned to the coop. That is, all of them except Bev, a very friendly Black Australorp. We looked everywhere for her. By now it was dark. Keith got a flash light and we continued searching. We finally gave up and came inside. It is bitterly cold here tonight. We were getting ready to eat when I asked Keith if he wouldn't look one more time.

Out behind the tool shed is an old wood chipper with a tarp thrown over it. He shined the light under it, and saw her red crop. He thought the worst, but pulled her out. Next thing he knew, her eyes opened! He brought her inside to check her out. She seemed ok, but very stunned, and very cold. She had a very close call! After a few minutes he re-united her with her chicken buddies in the coop.

It sure made my Christmas!

I just wish we could have saved Lulu and Dotty, but atleast we saved Bev. I do not think she would have made it through the night there. The raccoons would have gotten her for sure. I hope she is just dazed and will be ok. Tomorrow will tell.

I know! People eat these little creatures, but when you raise them from 1 day old, handle them, hand feed them, and name them, you become very attached. I have gotten very used to them running up on my deck to beg for food. They will not like it, but we will not be letting them out for a while, not until this hawk moves on.
Tomorrow they will stay in their pen.

The light you see behind the wreath is from a light bulb.

So, not the most peaceful of Christmas eves, but a Christmas miracle of sorts !

Hope all of you have a very Happy, and Peaceful Holiday!

Back from SANDY!

It is so nice to come back and read all of your nice normal blogs! Normalcy is wonderful! I love just ordinary days!

Our power came back on last night (Friday) about 10pm. Just when I was beginning to think that it would never happen!

Monday night with that storm was truly a horror! We lost four 50+ ft trees, and many, many branches! It was so loud, all the crashing and snapping. We knew something huge had come down because the house shook each time. The sky was lit up with blue flashes. Later, we figured out that they were all the transformers exploding. When there was a momentary lull, we went out on the deck with a flashlight. The big hit was a 200 year-old Silver Maple, which landed on our newly constructed chicken shed. When we came out in the morning, we found out that although damaged, the shed part was intact, but the chicken run was completely destroyed. Some of the chickens had gotten out and were running around. Some of them were trapped in the shed part. Amazingly, all of them survived! I did take us a while before we could count them though!

Hard to tell,but the roof of the chicken coop is in the left of the picture.

One of the trees that came down cut off access to the rest of the yard. It left a hug 15 foot hole in the ground where the roots pulled out. I don't know how, but we will have to fill the hole, though I think the tree itself will be there for some time to come!

We were so lucky that the house was spared. The divider on our deck was ripped off, but other than that, the old house remained intact. I guess someone up there was watching out for us! We spent Tuesday and Wednesday trying to clean up. We ate omelets courtesy of the chickens for dinner, and gave away some eggs to our next door neighbors, and the man who helped us pull the tree off the chicken coop.

Our road was closed because of the many trees stretched across it. Finally when the Tappan Zee bridge re-opened, Keith went back to work on Thursday. It was really awful being stuck alone in a dark house, wondering what was going on in the rest of the world! He was disappointed that the power was not on when he got home Thursday night, and Friday night.
Four days and 5 nights without power was a pain in the neck, but nothing compared to what others have had to contend with though.
I am a pretty easy-going person, but it will be some time before my nerves recover from this one. I still jump when I hear a loud noise!

I am so glad to be able to get back to stitching! I wasn't able to with the power off because I really need my magnifier light to see anything!

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.

I am not sure I like this background.

After frogging, re-frogging, and frogging again, I finally finished the area inside the big D.
The forget-me-nots proved to be challenging because the chart showed the easier choice, rather than the written directions. I decided to follow the  written instructions which were considered a bit more difficult.
The forget-me-not is made up of 3 different parts. In the center, there is a tiny gold eyelet. This is surrounded by 12 tiny cross stitches (one over one). This area is surrounded by satin stitches, of varying lengths using the silk.

The buds on the stem are made with Smyrna stitches.

At the top, there is a dragonfly in the upper left, and a butterfly in the upper right. These are both done in silk with satin stitches. At the ends of their antennae are petite French Knots.

The background stitch is done in a darning stitch. There are 5 colors of cotton floss used here. The top is the darkest, which fades to the lightest color at the bottom. I can't decide if I like this or not, It seems to muddy it up a bit. It is harder to see the small details.

Here is the whole thing so far:

Not sure if I like it, but I don't know how it would be without any background. Maybe it should be lighter?
Just don't know.

On a different note, we had some eggciting news!

Gretchen presented up with a little egg! She is about 2-3 weeks early. I understand that sometimes they do that before the regular egg production begins.

It is a perfect little, light brown egg! It is hard to tell from the picture, but it is much more slender than a normal size egg.

That's all I have for today.
I hope you have all been having a nice summer!

Sarah's house is finished!

I also finished the floral motif in the left-hand corner. ( I am  not sure what that little basket looking thing is).
I still have a few more flowers to do, and then it will be on to stitch the giant chickens!

Speaking of giant chickens, I took a few pictures of my own giant chickens.

DeeDee

Millie

Dotty

Gigi

Gretchen

Andy (Formerly known as Annie)

Bonnie

Sally

L'Automne est finis!

Finally! Yeah!

I have to say that I found this very difficult. I'm sure that part of it was that I stitched it one over one, but the design itself was very curvy with the winding vines, etc. I do not think I have ever made so many mistakes on a design, at least not in recent history.
There was a lot of improvising going on here, especially towards the end.

Here she is. Sorry about the crooked picture.

L'Automne - Birds of a Feather
Stitched 1 over 1, using DMC threads on 28ct natural linen

Since we have been immersed lately in all things chicken, I couldn't help but be drawn to The Sarah Whiteley Sampler. I love the crazy looking chickens in it!

The Sarah Whiteley Sampler -Reproduction of an 1823 sampler

This is an oldie from 1985, from Susan L Coyle of Creative Designers.

I made a start.

There is something amiss here though. I started in the center the way I always do, and then moved to the left side, and up to the top. I was really surprised to find how much fabric I had at the top. Gives you a very uneasy feeling that there won't be enough on the bottom. There is also more on the left margin than there should be. I have measured this so many times. Mathematically, it seems to be reasonably correct, but my sense is that something is wrong. I am also wondering if the stated finished size is correct. Hmmm! I was thinking of re-doing it, but I would really hate to do that. Aggravating!

The chickens are keeping us in stitches! They are such funny little things! They seem to double in size in front of our eyes. When they were little, I would feed them the small bits from the bottom of the popcorn bag. The mere crinkle of the bag sent them into a frenzy! I created a monster, or monsters I should say. Now they come to my door to beg for popcorn, the silly things! I had no idea that chickens could interact so much with people. I'm afraid they have become unintended pets!

Chickens calling!

Late TUSAL and some progress

This spring has been incredibly turbulent for us! One thing after another. Last week, my brother-in-law had a stroke. It turned out to be a relatively small one. He was very lucky. It totally upset all of us though. Thankfully he is home now and doing well.
Anyhow, here is my very late TUSAL.

Lots of orange from the pumpkins and her hair.

I completely underestimated how long this design would take to complete. All of those swirling vines, etc take a lot of looking at the chart, which slows things down. The basket also took forever. I know there are many mistakes in that basket, but they will have to stay there! LOL!

For a long time, we have wanted to have chickens. Years ago when we moved in, there were chickens living on the property. They had basically gone wild. Needless to say, they did not meet with a good end with all the raccoons around here.
Keith was furloughed from his job for 3 weeks in April. This came as a surprise to us. We certainly were not ready for it. Financially we took quite a hit, but we made use of the time to construct a chicken coop. We had fun doing this!
We ordered the day-old chicks from McMurray Hatcheries. We ordered the "Rainbow Layers" mixture. Looking at them now, I cannot believe they came in this little box. Here I am picking them up at the Post Office.


 We got them April 1st, so they spent the first month of their lives in a plastic box in my foyer.

It is amazing how quickly they grow. They seem to double every other day. We were up to three containers before they were big enough to put them outside (Thank God)!

It was not without its harrowing moments!

Here they are at 4 weeks old, finally out in the coop.

The weather has been warm, so we have been experimenting with letting them out of the pen. Of course this required putting up fencing to keep them out of the neighbor's yard. We still have more areas to fence, but so far they seem to keep to the wooded areas in the yard. I have to keep an eye out for hawks though. We have quite a few of them here.
Here is a picture of Millie that I took this morning:

They will be 9 weeks old tomorrow. They should start laying eggs between 22 and 24 weeks. We should have eggs by October!

Over the Memorial Day weekend, Keith harvested the first honey of the season. We got about 40 bottles. We were hoping for more, but it seemed like a short spring for the flowers. Hopefully, we can harvest again around the 4th of July. The bees seem happy though.
Back soon!
Erica