Happy Memorial Day!

One of the things I love about living in a house (as opposed to a teensy apartment) is having enough space for holiday decorations. Here's how we brought Memorial Day into our space this year:

Sassy didn't want to be left out of the festivities, so he hopped up into the window for this shot:

Happy Memorial Day to you and yours!

Crafting the craft room

I have been having a really tough time pulling my craft projects together in the last couple of weeks. In addition to being really busy with other things, I had let my office/craft room get totally out of control. Today I decided to whip it into shape. Here's a before picture. Scary!

But we're really fortunate to have a big closet with lots of shelves in this room, so it was a piece of cake to start corralling all our gear:

My beloved label maker was a huge help:

And here's how the room looks now:

My girlfriend and fellow Beaconite Alison gave me this gorgeous fish hanging after a trip she took years ago to China:

Just look at that needlework! I hung this right by my sewing table because it will be a real source of inspiration for me while I work.

And these watercolors went right over my desk:

Steven painted them when he was in college, and then gave them to me years ago when we were first dating. They're my favorite thing to look at in my pretty new room!

Herbs!

I don't have the best track record in the world when it comes to growing things. But little by little, I'm trying to cultivate my green thumb. I bought some basil and cilantro seeds recently, and I'm so excited that they have started to bud!

Here's a little bunch of basil that's coming in:

And just look at this adorable little cilantro. Doesn't it look like he's stretching his arms out to say hi?

Now if we can just keep the deer from snacking on them, maybe we'll have enough for some pesto and salsa later this summer!

More springtime blossoms and a new friend

The last couple of weeks have been a bit hectic on this end, and I have sorely missed having the time to pull together any craft projects. Hopefully I'll be able to start something fun tomorrow that I can finish up on the train this week.

But the time hasn't been wasted, as we have gotten lots of work done in the yard. Last weekend I got this lovely shot of one of our lilac trees:

And when I was digging around in the mulch pile, I made a new friend! Allow me to introduce Seymour:

I was lucky enough to capture his little tongue in this one:

I pointed him toward the woods and he took off:

Here's to another lovely weekend day tomorrow!

Sassy's summer style

I've included photos of my amazing cat Sassy on previous posts (here and here), but I fear I have so far failed to make a proper introduction. Let's remedy that today, shall we?

Sassy is six years old, and from the look of him, we believe he's a Maine Coon mix of some kind (he was originally found as a kitten in a barn in Pennsylvania, I believe). Weighing in at about 15 pounds, Sassy is actually on the smaller size as Maine Coons go. His real name is actually Sasquatch, after his huge paws.

In the cooler weather, Sassy prefers to wear his hair nice and long, like in this shot from Thanksgiving day last year:

But each year as the weather gets warmer, I take him in for a nice cool summer haircut. Today was a big day at our house because it was grooming day for Sassy. We had him groomed by the lovely folks over at D'Tails Grooming Salon, just a few minutes away from us in Beacon.

Isn't he handsome? You know, in a freakishly naked, Dr. Suess-character-looking kind of way. Each year I miss his pretty coat when we have him groomed, but I'm always glad that he's not sweltering when the warm weather comes. And since we're country folk now, this makes for easier tick detection, too!

Happy Mother's Day!

This mother's day, I am really fortunate to have two very wonderful moms to celebrate with: my mother-in-law Lisa, and my sister-in-law Sue.

Today I'm giving each of them some cross-stitched button magnets for their mother's day gifts. I had so much fun coming up with magnet designs that make me think of them and reflect some things they like.

My mother-in-law Lisa is about as addicted to playing solitaire on the computer as I am to messing around with my blog! This was the first design I made for her:

I can't remember all the details, but an imaginary bug features in the story of the night Lisa met my father-in-law, Jack. Over the years of their marriage, Jack has given her some very cute bug-themed mementoes, so I decided that one of her magnets should be a little Japanese beetle. I used this photo as a model:

photo via: www.ces.ncsu.edu

Japanese beetles feasted on our hedges last summer; I hope they leave our leaves alone this year! Even though they're very destructive in our yard, I can't help finding their shiny green and coppery-colored bodies kind of beautiful.

I also made her a flower magnet, using the same fabric that I used in my spring-time give-away back in March:

I was also really excited to put together some designs for my sister-in-law, Sue. Sue writes a terrific blog about fashion and style called The Zhush. I decided that her blog banner was a phenomenal subject for a magnet. Here's her banner:

Isn't all that purple so much fun? Here's the cross-stitch version:

On the Zhush, Sue has a weekly feature called the "Random Chanel Item," where she posts these incredible photos of all kinds of crazy things with Chanel logos on them, from topiary to footballs to cupcakes! Here's where Chanel meets cross-stitch:

And a flower for Sue as well:

And here they are all wrapped up:

I'm so lucky to spend today with these very special ladies and the rest of my husband's family. Happy Mother's Day, everybody!

"I needlepoint so I don't kill people"

As I mentioned in a recent post, I am just crazy about Flickr these days -- it's such a marvelous place to post project photos, hear feedback, and get inspired by the work of other crafters. I was looking through some recent Flickr images in the Cross Stitch Crazy pool, and I came across this piece that made me laugh out loud:

Isn't this fun? I can certainly relate to being a few stitches away from homicide from time to time.

Lucky for us, we can pick this pattern up for just four dollars from the Pop Soup Supplies shop on etsy.com; just click here! Kathryn is the super-talented crafter behind this graph, and I love her shop because she's got such a great variety of items, from this simple design to something as complex and detailed as the Mona Lisa! Check it out!

Rainbow!

I have gotten feedback that my last spider photo startled some readers, so I'm going to make it up to you with a pretty rainbow picture:

Would you believe I snapped this with my cell phone on a speeding train? This was the scene outside my train window in Cold Spring, NY this evening.

Speaking of rainbows, have you seen the cool contest that the lovely folks over at Feeling Stitchy are doing right now, called Rainbow of Stitches? All you have to do is join the contest's Flickr group (do not get me started about how much I love Flickr!), add photos of your original embroidery work to the pool, and tag it with the name of the predominant color in your piece. Voila! You're in the contest. You can enter existing work, and there's no limit to how many pieces you can enter. I've added a few things that I stitched in the past, and I'm going to enter some of the things that I'm working on right now. There are some seriously gorgeous pieces in the pool already -- check it out!

NYT's A Moment in Time

Have you heard of A Moment in Time, a photography event that was organized by The New York Times? People across the world were encouraged to snap a photo today at 15:oo hours (U.T.C) (which turned out to be 11 AM EST) and then upload it to the NYT to create a global photography mosaic of a single moment in time. Since I was out in the yard at 11 AM, I snapped a photo of our lovely lilac tree:

There are already a bunch of cool submissions posted on the NYT Facebook page here. I'll be checking back later on to see the rest!

Weekend of mulch

I haven't done any embroidery in the last couple of days; this weekend was all about the yard. I'm very pleased with our progress! I'm determined to get things in order out there early this year, so I don't have to spend the whole summer in my gardening gloves.

There I am, toiling behind the big mulch pile:

And here's how the front yard is shaping up:

But my favorite element in our front yard has to be our bird bath, which we put up in the front yard this morning:

This was a housewarming gift from our fabulous friend, Jenn. Isn't it darling? I can't wait to catch some of our cute little birds splashing around in there!

Shelob II

At the risk of terrifying my readers so much that they never come back here, I have another spider to share with you:

I encountered this old girl on the concrete steps between our basement and our backyard, underneath the Bilco doors. Her torso was smaller than the Shelob who lives on our deck, but her legs were super-long. (Note the use of past-tense here; Shelob II's life ended on the bottom of Steven's New Balance sneaker this afternoon.) I'm sure she was perfectly harmless, but she looked so damn menacing, and was hopping around all over the place when I encountered her, so I wasn't taking any chances. I'd love to find out if she really posed any threat, or if I'm guilty of taking an innocent life today. Any idea what kind of spider she was?