Power Launch!

So much for a soft launch of The Nebby Needle.  It has taken off like a shot!!!  I really wasn't going to jump into this until after the first of the year.  I wanted to have enough designs ready to go so that I would release a new one about once a month....and stay well ahead of the game.  Well...I've released 3 designs in just a couple of weeks! 
(You can find my designs at:  Dyeing To Stitch in Virginia Beach, VA; and Just Cross Stitch in Lederach, PA)

The first release was Cabin In The Pines

Then came True Friend

And just today Nanu's Hankie!

It's all very exciting...and exhausting!  Think I'll breathe a bit...oh wait...there are two more currently in the works...no time to breathe!!!!

Nature Nerd

I'm a nature nerd.  Luckily I have a friend who shares my excitement for large acorn caps and such.  On my walk this morning I resisted picking up fall leaves for about a block and a half.  Once I started I couldn't stop.  Embarrassed to encounter a passerby as my bouquet grew, it didn't stop me from adding to it!

Nature's color palette is so inspiring!  

The veining of this selection caught my eye!  Nature just knows what colors look great together!!!

So many shades of yellow and reds!

Even the browns are beautiful!  Would they think I was crazy if I strode into Nordstrom with a leaf and said "I want a pair of boots this very color"?

Go take a walk!

Soft Launch

About to "soft launch" my new cross-stitch design company:  The Nebby Needle!  I have one design packaged and ready to go...will deliver it Thursday.  I wasn't going to jump in quite this soon...I wanted to have more ready to go...but an opportunity presented itself and...well...HERE I GO!

This is the first design from The Nebby Needle:  Cabin In The Pines

Cross-Stitch Design

Just returned from the Shepherd's Bush Cross-Stitch Retreat in Utah.  If you're not familiar with Shepherd's Bush, they are cross-stitch designers extraordinare!  They have a shop in Ogden, UT to die for!  The retreat is held every other year in Park City and is just heaven for stitchers!!!

This retreat the "Fun Girls", as my friends Jenny, Barbie and I are called (we were dubbed by Ann from R&R at a previous retreat), were in the track with the teachers:  Shepherd's Bush, R&R, and The Thread Gatherer.  Our projects are fabulous and I can't wait to finish them (will post those pictures when I'm finished).

I was able to show the gals from Blackbird Designs some of my "enhanced" work.  Two pieces I "tweaked" of their's.  They were impressed and told me I was ready to do some designing of my own!  It was like receiving permission to go ahead and do it!!!!  What have I been waiting for?

Here is a picture of a design of my own that I made up as gifts for my Fun Girl stitching sisters (didn't show Blackbird these...don't know why?):



Spent yesterday charting out another design idea.  I'm on my way!!!!!!

Fig Success!

I found more figs!  I bought 10 figs...again, at 79 cents each. (I've got to buy a fig tree!)  The next morning I used the Fig Pickle recipe from the Ball Canning Book and...delicious!!!  This is the amazing taste I remember from last summer.  Nothing like Fig Newtons...which is what I think of as the taste of figs.  You can Google "Fig Pickles" and get pretty much the same recipe I used.  You gotta try it!

Canning

I guess it was last summer while visiting my in-laws that I tasted the most amazing spiced figs that a friend of theirs had canned.  This friend has a fig tree with an abundance of figs!  I have been in search of this recipe since then...this friend seems to think no one would want to take the time to make these so hasn't shared the recipe.  Well...I found, what I thought was the recipe.  Finally found some figs at the grocery store...no posted price.  There were 15 figs in a box and we took them to the check-out.  Of course the price didn't scan...they looked them up...the green figs didn't compute...so they rung them as black figs...79 cents EACH!  Whatever...these spiced figs were amazing that I had tasted.  Three days later when I had time to make the recipe, five of the figs were too mushy to use...threw them away...79 cents each.  Put together the recipe and read that you had to boil the figs in this concocted syrup 10 minutes a day for 3 days...okay, did that.  When they cooled the third day, I just had to try one!  THICK syrup...super sweet...not the same amazing spiced figs I had tasted at my in-laws house.  On with the recipe search.  Bought the Ball Jar Canning Book and there is a spiced fig recipe in there that I will try when I can find figs again!!!!!  Hope they're cheaper this time!

Porches

One of my priorities for a new home is to have a porch.  I have been hauling around an oak porch swing I bought when I lived in Blowing Rock (northwestern NC) in 1979...have not had a porch since!  A year or so ago we actually ran into the guy at a street fair in Hendersonville, NC that made it .  He is still in business...expanded quite a bit.  I told him I had one of his swings and it turns out that it is one of his first swings.  He was very interested in it and offered to give me a brand new one for the old one...he would love to have some of his firsts.  There is no way I could part with this swing I have been hauling around for 31 years! 

The house we want has a very nice porch!  Along with the coveted oak porch swing, I will hang this cross-stitch piece I just finished.  I'll be taking it to the framer this week.  The buttons in the piece are from my grandmother's button box.  In case you can't read the saying it says:  "You don't have to have tickets to listen to crickets"  Is that not perfect for a porch?!?!