turkey feathers

My Recipe for FUN

Have a good one, see ya next week!

xox Summer Stitchwork xox

Ready or not, it’s a new month (Hello July!), and I just put the new free-with-purchase embroidery transfers up on the PatternBee website.  These little offerings are fun to put together.  As always, some are sourced from my collection of vintage patterns and some are my own designs.  I think this one reflects a wee Tasha Tudor influence.  She has certainly been on my mind a lot this past week.  Hope these gentle designs spark a few creative ideas of your own.

And to all the wonderful generous stitchers out there that keep contacting me with old embroidery patterns to share, I’m grateful.  It’s always so exciting to find a rare pattern to restore and make usuable again.  However, my Wool Project Book is front and center right now, so I’m not accepting any more patternwork until I see it safely off to the printer, which should be by summer’s end, if I push. Also, please don’t send me your patterns without contacting me first.  I receive many duplicates this way, and it takes time and postage to return them.  It’s true that many patterns are not on the website.  Sometimes there are good reasons for that.  Drop me a note if you have questions, I'm always happy to chat with you.

Now...I think it's time for some freebies don't you?  The folk art bird (top) and plaid peach designs are gifts for the taking.  Enjoy!

 

Happy Trails To You

Thanks everybody for the blogaversary love and the congratulatory comments.  I took them to heart and, uh, *celebrated* just a little...per your instructions.  (ha ha) Yes, I’m blaming YOU for my bad behavior here.  The Mister doesn’t help either.  He thinks we should start every morning this way. We split this giant croissant (from our favorite French pastry shop) in half as it was, but I munched on so many strawberries this week I gave myself hives.  I just can’t resist these tiny ripe ones, they’re so sweet and delicious.  The rest is safely put up in jam jars now, but I threw in the towel after the second batch because the temperature soared to 102 degrees here in the valley on Saturday!  Just too hot to be standing over a boiling pot.  Too hot to do be doing anything but floating neck deep in a pool of water, I say. 

But instead, we went to watch the regional horse trials (out here) yesterday.  The weather wasn’t as hot as the day before, but still, significantly warmer than usual, (about 90 degrees and humid).  Particularly uncomfortable for spectators as there was no place to sit down or duck out of the sun, which was searing through my hat.  The riders and horses seemed to be handling it beautifully, but I still felt sympathy for them all buttoned up in their riding costumes. 

Ginger, who is ten now, is going through a horse phase.  Horses have been on her mind and in her daydreams for some time now actually, and she's been piecing together a large wall mural with detailed drawings of scenes just like these, with riding arenas and horse ranches, and continues to expand the "facilities" so that the mural is about six feet by four feet at the moment and probably growing as we speak.  It's fantastic.  Anyway, we’d been standing and watching the competition for about an hour, when she suddenly went pale and collapsed in a dead faint into her father’s arms.  She came out of it OK, but that was the end of that.  She was done in.  Not sure if it was the excitement or the heat, or both, but we went straight back home and consumed lots of iced lemonade and strawberry sorbet.

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Got some good pictures though.  Love this one, it looks like a carousel horse!  More my speed.

 

Time to Jam

So there I was, at one of our local farms picking strawberries this morning, bent over and lost in my thoughts, when it dawned on me that (hey!) it’s my blogaversary!  The blog is never far from my mind, apparently.  Thinking back, it was exactly three years ago today that I was standing in my kitchen, hair pinned up, apron tied on, wooden spoon in hand, stirring the big jam pot like I always do, except on that day I decided to blog about it.  I should mention, my original first post entitled: Jam Kitchen, was deleted (by me), along with dozens of others for various reasons. Little did I know back then how long my interest in blogging would last, or how it would lead to hundreds of blog entries and photos to manage! 

I also didn't anticipate how many wonderful talented friends I’d make along the way either.   Two blog pals in particular, Wise Craft, and Simple Sparrow, both of whom, recently decided it was time to go in other directions.  Just like good neighbors that move away, you understand, but wish it wasn’t so. (miss you guys)

 

Back to the kitchen . . the first batch---all done.  Will cook another 2 quarts tomorrow.  I'm testing the new plastic screw down lids. So far, so good. 

The labels were fun to make.  Feel free to grab my edited image if you want.  Anthro Strawberry, compliments of Vogart #231.  Next up: breakfast for dinner.  And strawberry jam's on the menu.  Yum!

Taking It All In

It's been wonderful hearing from so many Tasha fans here in blogland.  She will surely be missed but her legacy lives on.  It's good to rejoice over a well-lived life.  To celebrate it.  And appreciate all she gave.  I'm still pausing throughout the day to look at her books; which have inspired me all over again.  Of her many interests and talents, Tasha quipped, "I'm a Jack of all trades, yet a master of none."  I beg to differ.  I love the idea of planting roses in her memory--as Suzanne reminded me; in threes, as Tasha always did.  Speaking of roses, we were at the Oregon Garden on Sunday, and the fragrance in this rose garden was intoxicating.  It was absolutely incredible.  I lingered here quite a long time, saying hello to every single rose. 

June is a good time to go and visit, when the spring flowers are in bloom, and before it gets too hot because there's little shade and few places to sit down.  There's one tram that now runs on the half hour circling this 80-acre parcel, which is included with the price of admission, so you can get on and off as often as you like.  We wandered around for about four hours under cloudy skies before the hot sun emerged and our feet gave out.  With three camera bugs buzzing the whole time, we took over 200 hundred pictures collectively.  I love that we have the freedom to do that now.  No more worries about wasting precious film rolls with 24 exposures.  (36 if you were lucky.)  How did I ever manage to only take 24 pictures before digital? 

Anyway, we've been trying to get back out here to this garden for ages.  I think Ginger was four the last time we visited, and now she's, um, going on eleven.  Yes, it's been awhile.  The OG project had just gotten underway at that time and was still mostly funded and run by donations and volunteers.  All that's changed now, with a beautiful resort hotel nearly finished and plans for making this a destination.   It's certainly showing potential along those lines.

Our own front yard is still a work in progress, after we literally stripped most of it bare and started over again two years ago.   So far we've managed to plant a few trees and some rather pitiful lawn, but it still has a long way to go.  I dream of this (above).  Some of the grand plans we had didn't pan out, or fit the landscape, or we ran out time and enthusiasm before the rains returned, but we are still making slow and steady progress along the way.   

A water feature of some kind seems appealing.   

But sometimes it's just hard to choose a path and commit to it.  In my mind, I'm standing in the middle here, still somewhat undecided. 

~

"A garden is not made in a year; indeed it is never made in the sense of finality.

It grows, and with the labour of love should go on growing. "

~Frederick Eden