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