2008 Finishes...But first...

Good Morning! I ran around my house like a crazy woman yesterday looking for things I had finished last year. Some I have framed, others I haven't but I thought I would show you a few this morning. But first...I had to get sonny off to school and wake up so I turned on the TV this morning to catch the weather and news when the picture went black. Ok, no problem, there's always the internet, I turned on the computer and couldn't get to a webpage. Ok, now there's a problem! Luckily the phone still worked! I called Verizon and after literally 5 minutes of automated messages and trying to troubleshoot with a robotic voice who couldn't answer my questions (and wanted me to log on to get more troubleshoot information) I got a human voice! He wanted me to find where the battery pack was plugged into the wall. Do I look like an electrician? He told me to follow the beeping sound. Hm...nothing beeping but my blood pressure!? "Look for the flashing lights", he says.....no flashing lights but there is smoke coming out of my ears! Finally I see a place FOR a light that says power. Ok, no power to the battery, the lights are dawning. "You must have had a power outage or power surge", he says. Nope, none of the clocks are flashing, but I do have a Tazmainian Devil for a pet running around here. I keep picturing our house in flames some day like the Griswald house from Christmas Vacation (I think that was the movie). No kidding, Thomas chews on electrical cords, though this one is 3 feet off the floor. Nah, that wouldn't stop him! haha Anyway, the power is now back on after a few jiggles to the power cord in the socket. Great, the TV works, but the internet is still out. Next to find the reset button on the back of the wireless router...but it's dark in that corner. OK, found a flashlight....but the batteries are dead. What is it with batteries today? I feel like I'm in another movie...Batteries Not Included! The second flashlight is dead too. Good thing we didn't have a real power outage!! Finally, one that works! The reset button is pressed for 10 seconds, it takes another 30 seconds to power back up and voila! I have internet! Life is good again! I've spent so much time on the phone with this fellow I feel like I've known him all my life, I even know the name of his wife and kiddies! Maybe I should invite him over for dinner? Nah, I have a webpage to work on...so here goes!

I made this little beauty for DH for his Birthday in January. It is a blackwork chessboard. It was my first attempt at blackwork, and although I enjoyed it tremendously I think I'll pass on blackwork for a while. Here is a close up picture of some of the blocks. I found this in an Anchor book teaching blackwork designs. The fun thing about this is that I didn't put a wire on the back, I cut a large piece of felt so it doesn't scratch the table!

Next are some Carriage House Samplings pieces I did. They are done on 40 ct fabric so are quite small....but I love them!

These last three were my favorites to work on. The face is from the stitching studio "Mouth of the flower". I have the companion piece to work up "Family of Birds" one of these days!

Next is a heart design from Wiehenburg and I should have gotten this one framed for Valentine's day...what was I thinking? Oh well, there's always next year. And last is a Quaker Sampler from Midnight Stitching. I've forgotten the names for both of these, but I'm sure you can find them on their sites. Ok, that's all for today that's fit to print so I'm off to download the next page of the Christmas Quaker and see if I can get caught up on that. See you later! (I hope)