Frames and furniture

Hellooooo! Is everybody having this ridiculous heat? ugh. I have family visiting me in October and I see a few trees trying to change and I yell at them - WAAAAIT!!! I don't want them to be all gone by the time they get here! I still don't like the heat though. Scott has been working pretty hard on house projects. I'm going to start with furniture. We bought the cutest little long-legged table at a junk shop for $15 about a year ago. Scott sanded it - painted it black and aged it.

before

after

he added a cute fox pull - adorable!!

A friend of his asked him to cut some table legs down - he saved the legs and made a little bench to hold his crates of bottles

isn't that cute!?!?!

Now for the framing. Let me start by saying we used to buy all our frames. We would use a coupon or wait for a sale but we could always manage at least one frame at a time. Then we moved to Alaska - the frames were ridiculously expensive and we stopped buying them. I didn't stop stitching though. When we moved to Colorado we didn't start framing again and Scott had no idea how many pieces I had made..... I was showing my friend all my finishes and Scott was shocked. So he started buying frames again but now they were so expensive and they didn't always have what we wanted. Scott started making frames or refurbishing old ones. I'm so proud of his ability!! Now after having said all that I have to say the first frame finish is bought - yep we went and bought a frame. We wont be doing that again soon though because with a 60% off coupon the frame was $100 - ridiculous!! It looks lovely though.

Victoria Sampler Jingle Bells Christmas Tree Farm

I have a few pictures that he has been afraid to frame but now that he only has a few left to frame he decided to give them a try!!The first one is by Patricia Andrle of Counted Illuminations. She is a hard designer to find - she doesn't have an email, blog, website - nothing! She has some fabulous pieces but a lot of the are kind of washed out. So you have to look to see the pretty details, this one is Victorian House stitched on two pieces - which is why Scott was afraid to frame it. I think he did a fantastic job!!

stitched in 08

If you look through the windows you see the second piece - which DID NOT line up so I had to add more stitches to it before he could frame it. The other Patricia Andrle I have is the Christmas House - I think I stitched it 20 years ago. It's not framed yet but I hope it will be soon. I have her Flower Shop to stitch - just got the magazine from ebay!! Scott is making a frame for Blackbird Inn by Little House - I'm excited to post it when he is done!! I'm still working on the needlework shop - it's already cute.

I did engage in some stash enhancement activities.... 2 With Thy Needles and 2 older Prairie Sampler Santas!! YAY!!

 Have you guys seen the new m&m's? Pecan pie

I think they taste burnt. Scott didn't think they were very good either. I did not get the candy corn ones - weird! We tried the new Lays chips - Reuben tastes just like a Reuben!! The Gyro flavor is disgusting - Scott liked it because it tastes just like a gyro - meat and feta but I thought the feta was over-powering yeeeuck. The truffle chips are fantastic - I could eat them until they make me sick. Biscuits and gravy - haven't seen them anywhere - nobody we have asked has seen them either. I love trying the contest flavors - it's fun. Even when the flavors are nasty - last year the mango salsa was disgusting and I love mango salsa - they just didn't get the flavor right.
Now for the wildlife portion of the blog - ha ha

chipmunk

male cardinal feeding his baby- so cute!!

Mo

 Welcome to my newest follower - yay I'm at 29!!  Well I guess that's it for today - hope you have a fun and safe Labor Day weekend!!

Fair

Howdy folks!
We went to the Indiana State Fair!!

We went on opening night because I got in free (student) and I got Scott's ticket online for $2 off. We got to see The Indigo Girls in concert for free! They were awesome!

We ate baaaaad delicious foods

 We saw a woman being loaded onto a stretcher with a plate of these potatoes chips. She just kept on eating them - they are "don't stop eating while being loaded onto a stretcher" good!!!

We looked at the stitching entries! There were a lot of quilts entered but hardly any stitching. I didn't take any pictures of the entries. There was a Glendon Place Tiramisu - very pretty. Makes me want to stitch it!  We rode on the tractor that takes you all over the fairgrounds.

We saw the hot air balloons.

Had a phosphate at the old time pharmacy

It was fun - We have never been to a state fair together - well I've never been to any state fair. 
Scott had to leave on business for a night. When he got to his hotel they had this up

I guess among business men this is a thrilling honor!
They gave him a gift bag - water, apple, trail mix and crackers with peanut butter - and a beer voucher which he got coffee for instead. I didn't want him to feel let down when he got home to no fan fair so I made this

HAHA. I was going to bake cookies but then we would have eaten them and we are trying not to eat cookies. So instead of guest of the day I made him man of the year - quite an honor. Ü
The bunny that was visiting hasn't come back since we mowed but we now have this fabulous guy

Groundhog.  He is so scared of us that I don't think he will stay around here long. He is adorable though. I also have some American Finches coming around - a male and a female!!

They are so pretty!! Yesterday we had a father house finch and his two babies at the feeder - he was feeding a seed to each baby as quickly as he could  - they squawked and flapped  ridiculously! Brats.

the drawer where my stitching goes....

The neighbor house is still being fixed (from the tree falling on it) it's about 10 feet across through the entire house - front to back!! They have cut down so many trees that we can see their house - I don't like it, but I guess they don't want any more tree accidents.
  I am still working on the Gingerbread Needlework shop. It could not be cuter!! I have had a small frog issue - hoping it goes away!!

I don't like the front door on the pattern so I am doing two of the back door instead. I have made a few of the Victoria Samplers houses - not terribly hard but pretty time consuming,

I will take pictures as I go but they look just like the directions in the book haha!
I have a recipe to share with you. I got it from the September 2015 issue of Sunset magazine. It comes with a yakitori chicken recipe that I was going to make but we had delicious BBQ ribs on the grill instead. The salad sounded good when I read it - it so much better than I expected!! You don't put the avocado in until you are ready to serve.
Cucumber Avocado Salad

1/4 cup unseasoned rice vinegar

3/4 teaspoon kosher salt 

1 teaspoon sugar

1 English cucumber (10 oz.), quartered lengthwise and cut into 1/2-in. chunks

1 cup slivered red onion

1 large avocado, cut into 1-in. chunks 
 In a large bowl, whisk together vinegar, salt, and 1 tsp. sugar. Add cucumber and onion; toss to coat.. Let set for 10 minutes - add avocado when ready to serve and mix. 
It is fabulous - we are having it again tomorrow night with the Siracha Salmon from the Skinnytaste cookbook. 
Well kids - I better go look at some homework. Hope you have a wonderful weekend! Thanks for stopping by!

stitchy crafty stuff (edited)

Hallewww
Told you he would take the chair...

Hope everyone is doing well as the summer dies away. I missed the whole thing this year with super study summer school. That class ended July 30th, I took a few days off and then spent the last 3 weeks studying for the entrance exam.There are a several levels that you can achieve but you have to have proficient or above (proficient, advanced or exemplary) to apply to the nursing school. I got "advanced" whew, I think I could have gotten exemplary if I hadn't bombed the math section. So I have 3 days of NO school work before the Fall semester begins. Sociology, communication and Anatomy 2 - here I come.
I have a finish!! It went well - my borders all matched up. It went quick because I sew stitched the houses. All until I got to the last square! The bottom right square was my last one and I was anxious to finish it. I put the tree trunk in as 435 instead of 433 - enough of a difference that I had to redo it. I also missed a section of roof and had to take the chimney off and redo it. Gotta pay attention!!

Orchard Valley Quilting Bee - Little House Needleworks

   I am pretty upset though -the new iron did it..... yep oil or grease or whatever the hell it is. Luckily it only did it on the border. It shouldn't show when framed but I am still ticked.You can see one spot on the above picture - above the RC of orchard. grrrr

This picture just shows one spot - there is another big spot under it. I took the iron back and got a new one - different brand. I emailed them and they said I could pick a different iron from them but I said not a chance - I won't ever buy another Hamilton Beach appliance.
Scott framed two pictures for me. Here is the before picture of the frame

 and after

Blackbird Designs Mystery Sampler

Before

after

Anterselva di Mezzo by Renalto Parolin

Scott holding it so you can see how long it is!!

The pictures don't look as good as they do in person. The Renalto Parolin is 27 inches long - loooong!! The next project Scott and I worked on together - it still needs a hinge but I am impatient!! Scott made a hoop box for me!!

L'arbre aux Oiseaux buy Jardin Prive

I got the idea from Pinterest which led me to the Twisted Stitchers finishing tutorials Scott glued everything - the hoops and the inside and outside of the top. I painted and stitched. Scott will put the hinges on when we go get some.

Scott put a picture in the frame I was laughing about last time - remember?

He put in a fun "old timey" picture of me, my mom and my gram in jail - it's super cute!

I got some cute patterns in the mail - I was going to do them next but I don't have the correct fabric.

I bought the tart pans too. I'm excited to do them. I am going to change the thread a little, only because I don't have exactly what it calls for and I don't want to buy all new threads. I will use colors that are pretty close. Last night I was so tired but I started Victoria Sampler's Gingerbread Needlework Shop. Scott gave it to me for my birthday

 Well I must have been too tired to be stitching because there are two measurements above the directions - the size of the stitching and the size of the fabric. I took the width of the fabric and the height of the stitching to find the center (doing it all on one big piece of fabric) and started the awning. Since I used the stitching height it wasn't in the middle and the awning was way to close to the top

See how close it is to the top- grrrrr This morning I got that much done before it dawned on me that it was wrong. Then I had to figure out why it was wrong - sheesh. I hope that is my only screw up. I almost have the awning done again- in the correct spot.
We are cooking out today - more grilled veggie salsa - YAY!!! So I'm going to go wash veggies. Hope you have a good week! Thanks for stopping by!

just stuff

Well, I have no finishes - no new framing - no changed furniture to show. Why am I here? I have FOOD!! and some other little things to chat about. This may be a short post - noooo, I do not have a fever! First stitching stuff - always first!! I am working away at Little House Needlwworks Orchard Valley Quilting Bee. There are some boring stretches - lots of houses and HAVE YOU SEEN THE BORDER - sheesh. Marly provided me a solution - the 2nd link is to her July 12th post where she posted a link to another blog that has a video of the sewing method of cross stitch. It takes some getting used to and I can only use it on long borders and blocks of color (because it's too much thinking on small parts and I end up taking longer) It is so much faster - or at least it seems like it. There are a few things that you have to watch for. First thing is for some reason one strand always bunches a little so you have to watch that you don't have little loops. Also, I am so focused on stitching fast that I have -1. stitched my thread tail into the stitching and had to backtrack and 2. ended up with so little thread on the needle that I had to backtrack just to be able to anchor.  HA! I like it though and it gets you through the boring parts a little quicker! I am really wanting to make some the the Victoria Sampler pieces -the church and needlework shop so I am trying to get this one done - quick.
Know how my cat is always where I am? Well right now he has squeezed his 20 pound body behind my (considerably larger) body on the chair as I type. I had to scoot forward to not squash him and so my legs are starting to tingle - does he look concerned?

When I get up to switch laundry he will take over the whole chair - chair hog.
About the food - Scott was watching Polkabration (don't ask me why - side effect of pain meds?) and they had pierogies (of course) So we decided we needed to make some. It was fun! I used this recipe from the blog Life As A Strawberry  (love that blog - the recipes look fabulous!!) They are a bit of work but it was fun to do and they were delicious!!

Scott rolling out dough

boiling then frying in butter

fabulous!! 

We froze quite a few of them before boiling - so I have some meals for later!! I had bought a plastic pierogie press at an estate sale but ended up just using a fork to seal the edges- not one popped open!! Next time we might roll the dough a little thinner. Scott used a bisquit cutter to get a uniform size.  mmmmm
We have had a cotton tail bunny hanging around in the backyard.

I know it looks like a jack rabbit but there are none of those in Indiana and they are nocturnal. This guy can eat a pound of vegetation a day - which is good since Scott can't mow yet  - it needs to bring some friends over and help us out!!
I have another obsession - yes, another!! It's Noosa yogurt. The drawbacks are it's expensive and fattening but it is the best creamiest yogurt EVER!! I am not a lemon fan and their lemon is one of my favorites - also pumpkin, coconut, pineapple, tart cherry and now they have cranberry apple which tastes like Fall!!  (I guess it's a short time only but they said that about pumpkin and now it's a regular) Those are my favorites - they have a few other flavors too. Target usually has the most flavors - so they are also a pain in the rear to find. That is the beauty of an obsession - all of the negative things don't matter - you just have. to. have. that. yogurt!!! I did just find a huge new Meijer that had a bunch of the flavors too.

One more food thing - I like to make flavored waters and I started making individual ones!! Scott hates cantaloupe so I made one for me and lime for him - brilliant!! Maybe not brilliant but a good idea haha!

aaaand I'm done - see, shorter than usual! Hope you are all having an wonderful August - WHAT? August? yikes!!! Another  year whizzing right by. Even though June is halfway through the year - August always feels like a tipping point. I am ready for Fall colors and flavors but not raking! I have family visiting in October - so excited!! ok I really am done - Have a lovely day!!