Our House = Shelob's Lair

As you may be able to tell from my earlier posts, I am pretty fascinated by all the birds, bugs and other critters who live near us and come visit our house. Last summer, a big brown spider took up residence in the doorway between our deck and our kitchen. All summer and fall, she built the most incredible webs, and we always tried not to disturb her, since we figured she was making a dent in our pesky local mosquito and Mayfly population.

And then one day late last fall, she disappeared. All winter, we wondered what became of our spider, who Steven had affectionately named "Shelob."

To our amazement, last night Shelob came home, and built a huge web in exactly the same spot where she lived last year. I was anxious to get a good photo of her, and I wasn't sure if I'd be able to do her justice. Tonight I took some pictures, and I think I managed to get a couple of good ones.

Here's the first one I got from inside the house. From that vantage point we get a view of her tummy:

Next I stepped outside and got this shot of her back. Isn't she incredible, in a terrifying kind of way?

Shelob quickly tired of my whole paparazzi act, and she retreated into a gap in our siding:

Curious about what kind of spider she is (and you know, whether or not she's capable of biting and sucking all the blood out of me, Steven and Sassy), I did a little google search and I'm pretty sure she's from the family Araneidae, also known as an orb weaver spider, after the big round webs they weave. According to this website, these spiders are reluctant to bite and when they do bite, the symptoms are pretty mild. Phew!

Embroidered easter egg

Since Easter will be here soon, this week I whipped up a little free-hand embroidered Easter egg.

Here it is hanging out in our Easter basket with the plastic eggs:

On the pink side I did a little fern stitch, some running stitch, backstitch, lazy daisies, satin stitch, and of course, blanket stitch on the edge:

On the purple side, I wanted to experiment with some new stitches, so I tried out sheaf stitch (there in the middle), and open cretan stitch (on the top and the bottom). I saw both of these stitches in Jenny Hart's Embroidered Effects. I've also got a little chain stitch (my favorite stitch of all), some more small satin stitch circles, and a bunch of french knots, which I really needed to practice.

We've got our basket, a package of Peeps, and now this embroidered egg. I'd say we're nearly ready for the Easter bunny's visit. Bawk bawk!

Blue-footed booby!

I've really enjoyed stitching up my little avian tributes (like the red pileated woodpecker, the black capped chickadee, and the little owl). I originally planned to focus my stitching on our local, Hudson Valley birds. But recently I was introduced to the blue-footed booby, and now I've decided to make a little detour to the Galapagos Islands, where the blue-footed booby lives.

After watching this video, I was convinced that the blue-footed booby is highly stitch-worthy:

I made the blue-footed booby as a bookmark; he's a gift for a friend.

Here's a close-up of my booby (come on! you had to know that was coming):

Since the booby is such a serious romantic, I thought it would be fitting to include some love song lyrics on this piece. I chose Louis Armstrong's "We have all the time in the world," because the friend I'm giving this to chose it as his wedding song.

We have all the time in the world

Time enough for life to unfold

All the precious things love has in store

We have all the love in the world

If that's all we have, you will find

We need nothing more

Every step of the way will find us

With the cares of the world far behind us

We have all the time in the world

Just for love

Nothing more, nothing less

Only love

Every step of the way will find us

With the cares of the world far behind us

We have all the time in the world

Just for love

Nothing more, nothing less

Only love

Only love

Isn't the blue-footed booby so much fun? Which little birdy should I turn my attention to next?

Spring has sprung!

I'm sure my enthusiasm for the arrival of spring is pretty apparent at this point. My excitement even endured after I spent a good chunk of the afternoon picking up and bagging lawn refuse and tree detritus in our backyard. After all, how could I be in a bad mood with these little buds popping out all around me?

Springtime sampler giveaway-- winner!

Today is the first day of spring, which means it's time to pick the winner of our springtime sampler giveaway!

Since it's nearly easter, I decided to draw the winner from our new easter basket.

Sassy volunteered to oversee the drawing.

And the sampler goes to...

Meghan! If you haven't been there already, you really need to check out Meghan's blog right this minute. Her work is beautiful, her writing is beautiful, and her photos are beautiful. Get over there!

Congrats on winning, Meghan! Happy spring, everybody!

Springtime sampler - finished!

If you've become a Fourteen Countess follower, or made a comment on a Fourteen Countess blog post, you'll be in our Saturday drawing for the springtime sampler.

I finished it today; would you like to see it?

Our winner will be drawn on Saturday after 12 noon. I can't wait to send this out!

Spring-time sampler give-away SNEAK PEEK

I'm having so much fun stitching our spring-time sampler that I thought I'd share a sneak peek of one of the flowers:

If you'd like to be in the drawing for a chance to win our spring-time sampler give-away, just:

-Become a follower of Fourteen Countess, or

-Make a comment on any Fourteen Countess blog post by 12:00 noon, March 20.

Happy almost spring!

Fourteen Countess calling cards!

I decided to order some calling cards to give away when I chat with folks about Fourteen Countess. Check 'em out:

I can't wait to start handing them out! (Many thanks to Steven for hand modeling services.)

Our house, squeaky clean

I finally finished stitching the cross-stitch of our house that I was working on for nearly two months! I mostly worked this piece on the train, and even though I made an effort to keep it clean, I still felt like it picked up a little train grunge by the end. So before moving on to framing it, I thought a little bath would do it some good.

I set up a pan with cool water and a couple drops of laundry soap (the kind for delicate stuff):

Sassy decided that this would turn out best if I had some competent supervision.

I decided to soak the piece for fifteen minutes.

Here it is soaking.

Not one to take any chances, Sassy stayed nearby throughout the soaking process.

Then a cold water rinse until all the bubbles disappeared. If only it were this easy to clean our actual house.

I knew I should be gentle in drying, so I laid the piece out on a clean, white towel.

And simply gave it a little hand pressing to gently squeeze out some of the water.

Here's the ironing set-up. Please ignore my cheap crappy iron.

Here's the back. My mom always taught me that it was very important to keep the back of your pieces as neat as possible. In a recent craft night, one of the girls mentioned that this rule goes back to the time of Queen Victoria. Not sure if her Majesty would approve of my work here, but I'm pretty happy with it.

I ironed the back of the piece, gently, on a low heat setting.

And to take you back to the original inspiration for this piece, here's a photo of our house taken last year:

And here's the illustration of it that Steven created and gave me for Christmas. I based my cross-stitch on this.

And here's the final result! I'll be framing it soon, and will post more photos when that's done. Hopefully the sun will come out again before too long and I can get some nicer shots in natural light.

I originally started working this piece as a Valentine's Day gift for Steven, so happy belated Valentine's Day, honey!

Cross-stitched buttons

Woo hoo! It's time to reveal the gift I mailed to my friend BP earlier this week. For a while I have been admiring the embroidered buttons that I've seen around on Flickr and on various blogs, so I thought this would be a perfect time to figure out how to make them.

BP is a big fan of Glee (a "Gleek"), so first I drew and stitched up a little Glee logo design. In this photo, you can see the purple "disappearing ink" that I used to draw the outline of the button form:

Next, I stitched a running stitch around the edge:

Then I pulled the stitches to gather the material around the button form:

And here's the final result!

I glued a magnet on the back:

I made two other button companions to go with the Glee button. "ASAM" is a word coined by our friend Maureen's amazing nephew -- it's a common-sense spelling of "awesome," of course!

And since BP and her husband are a couple of pool hall junkies, I included this billiard ball:

Here's the trio together:

And here they are in their little tin. (I don't mind mentioning that I had to consume ALL of the "cocoa nibs enrobed in dark chocolate" that were previously in this tin in order to free it up for these magnets. The life of a cross-stitcher really is full of sacrifice.)

Enjoy, B!