A SAL Finish and a Recipe

Gentle Readers and Dear Friends thank you all so much for the great comments - I think it has been decided - I'm gonna call him Peanut the Christmas Squirrel -  sitting on the letter "S" - That totally made the morning!!  Now, to market him to the masses and make a bazillion buckaroos!!!  :)

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Last night I finished up the wonderful Mystery SAL that Carol R was having over at iStitch.  

Here is my version....

I used HDF silk - Oxblood and Blueberry Soup 

stitched on a mystery piece of 32ct Sand coloured linen

It was a great piece to work on.  Thank you so much carol for putting it all together and keeping us motivated and stitching!!!

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I also posted at Blacksheep bakes the recipe for the Holiday Gingerbread I baked up this weekend.  I included the frosting recipe I used, but don't feel constrained to it and use whatever or none if you wish!!  You can click HERE to get there.

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That's about it for today sports fans.  I must thank everyone again for stopping by, also to my New Followers and my Old Followers....  I am thinking I need to have a Gift-a-Way for the Holidays!!!  Stop by again soon!

Take care,

edgar

Carol's Mystery SAL - Part 7

Gentle Readers and Dear Friends it is a cool morning here in the city... I am so grateful that the weather is holding in the cool zones - and will hold that way for a few more days.  I have become so accustomed to being chilly/cool that when the temps start to go up, like they did over the weekend, I just start to swelter.  I just can not take the heat or hot weather  - or warmish weather either.

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I finished up the 7th part of the ongoing SAL that Carol is having over at iStitch - here is a snap of my piece as it stands at the moment....

I am using HDF Silks - the main colour is Oxblood - I am adding in bits of "Blueberry Soup" and for this section it was the little harebell flowers that are blue - since they are a type of bluebell, I thought it was appropriate.  Only one more section and this Mystery will be finished.  I love doing mystery SAL's they keep stitching so interesting and as a group project they can't be beat!!

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There you go sports fans - Thank you for your kind comments and emails!!  Do stop by again.

Take care,

edgar

Two Kitties, Two Stitches and some Wings!!!!!

Gentle Readers and Dear Friends we are now in the throws of our "summer weather."  Last week we had a couple of days of warm weather and this week we are into our third day of "heat."  Now, heat is relative and here in SF when the temps rise into the upper 70's low 80's it is defined as "hot" weather - Tomorrow and every day until Sunday the high temps will begin to drop 6+ degrees a day and we should get a sprinkle of rain or two at the end of the four days.  That's about it for the Summer type of anything - and I am not going to complain!!

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I mentioned yesterday that we are taking care of a couple f kitties - so I thought you might like to see Nikita and Chauncey - they are very sweet kitties.

They used to be very skittish when we first met them a few years ago - but now they both come running for rubs and scratches and some play time.

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I finished up Part 5 of the Mystery SAL Sampler that Carol is running - Here is where mine stands as of last night..

and , I also worked a bit on the Mary Beale Sampler.....

My flash was way too hot and I tired to compensate with a colour fix and so I got this craptastic snaperoo.  You get the idea.

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Last night Rico brought home some delicious wings - lemon/pepper and Hickory Smoked BBQ!!  From a place called "Wing Stop."  He was introduced to this place by a coworker - thanks Prisma!!

.......so, we stopped on the way home at the Safeway and picked up some Loaded Skins and cole slaw - the beer we already had - and it was one terrific dinner!!!!!  I do love me some Japanese beer!
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That's about it for today sports fans - thanks for stopping by!!  Do come again!

Take care,

edgar

A Very Nice Weekend

Gentle Readers and Dear Friends we had such a nice weekend - nothing traumatic, nothing crazy - just smooth sailing and two lovely days of bright warm weather.  Out here our Fall season in the city are usually warm and beautiful and the past two days have lived up to that!! In fact we cooked a couple of steaks on the grill and sat by the "cement pond" (pool) for a long time yesterday afternoon........  

The pool heater is broken so the water temps are in the low 60's so no swimming - but the breeze was warm a delicious and the sun was shinning!!  It is supposed to be nice for the next couple of days so I see more "pool" sitting in our future!!

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I have some stitching stuff to share - on Saturday after a quick and quite tasty challah/bacon/schmear and a cup of coffee at Noah's we headed over to Alameda and to my LNS "Needle in a Haystack."

I know I have posted some snaps of the inside before but here are some I took on Saturday....

Just as you walk in the front door is a great Hallowe'en tree with lots of cute ornaments!!!

Then there are all the lovely colours.....

 and the gorgeous silks.....

and more silks...

and all the racks of great stash.....   

I was very good and only worked from a list of things I wanted/needed/wanted -  so my stash acquisition was on the small side!!  Isn't the Peach cute - she has to check everything out that hits the floor!!   I have two projects in mind that I want to do so that was my focus.  Both are Christmas themed pieces - the first is -

 - from the Blackbird Designs Joyeux Noel Book they released last year or the year before - "Tis the Season" - a great red bird piece I have wanted to do for along time.  I finally picked up the 36ct LL "Pear" linen for it - it has a green cast that I think will make the Belle Soie Silks really pop.  I had all the silks in my stash except for the Vanilla one so I also picked that up.  The second project is - 

This Christmas Alphabet - I have had this chart for a few years and just never got a piece of linen I liked for actually stitching it up on - it is an odd size 15" x 15' and the chart calls for "Natural" - whatever that means - the picture of the piece on the front looks blue to me!!  So I picked up a piece of 36 ct LL Meadow Rue that I think will look nice.  I had a hard time deciding on this as one of the colours is a sort of off ecru and bled into most of the pale beige linens I was pulling - this has enough contrast to make even the ecru stand out.  I am doing this in the recommended DMC as that is the only reference for floss.  I may switch it all to HDF silks, but for now I have the DMC kitted up.  Have a month to make a final decision.
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I did some actual stitching also this weekend - I finished up part 4 of Carol's mystery sampler -

I added little touches of Blueberry Soup and changed the heart to be a bit more open.   This great little piece is really coming along!!  I also worked some on "Shores" - here is how it stands now...

I was very happy to get the rocks finished and get started on the little house.

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I think I will leave off on that for today.  I still have some other snaps and a baked goodie to talk about, but I'll chat about that tomorrow.  Thanks for stopping by, do come again!!

Take care,

edgar

A SAL Snap and Some More Weekend Snaps

Gentle Readers and Dear Friends thank you so very much for the kind comments about yesterdays post.  Lil Smokie may think he is the cutest little trick around but those teeth of his are sharp as needles.  

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I finished up the next part in Carol's lovely Mystery Sampler SAL - and here is a snap of my piece....

As you can see I am making my own little changes as I stitch along.  I also changed out the elongated stitches I used in the top square for the flowers.  They just never hit me right and so I just yanked them out last night and stitched these in their place - I'll live with it like it is for a while.  I also added some stitches to the heart in the most current square.

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I wanted to share some of the Snaps from the weekend farmers Market.  We decided to stop back by the Grove/Divisadrero Streets Farmers Market.  From the few tents/booths they started with they are now up to about 30 - I love it when a market grows and more people support local production....  now the snappers...

all these great tomatoes where just gorgeous!!  That's Rico's hand getting us some of the cherry tomatoes...

and there where piles of eggplants

with the Fall here there was also lots and lots of grapes

this booth had the tomatoes and tomtillos mixed for a great picture

I just liked the way they set this booth up

our flower lady had tons of beautiful sunflowers - we picked up a couple of bunches and they are beautiful!!

 I love marigolds and these where some beauties.

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I also baked up a cake on Sunday -the recipe I picked up over at "The English Kitchen" 

for Sticky Marmalade Cake -I'll get the recipe up tomorrow.

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There you go sports fans - another day and other post.  Thanks again for stopping by, do come again!

Take care,

edgar