Pray Speak Quietly...

This is a line said by Vincent Price in the movie The Fall of the House of Usher. I thought it was neat, and useful for all those times when you need to remind people to shut up.

I've actually designed two borders for this. The one you see, appropriate for Don't Wake the Baby needs, and one with rows of bats (the same as in the first design) on top and bottom and a scroll/tassel motif on the sides. I'll be stitching a section of the bats border later, but wanted to go ahead and post the pattern.

Both patterns are now available in my Etsy store!

Hanging around again...

Between Easter and my birthday and my sister giving birth on a clinic floor things have been pretty crazy. I usually don't enjoy just sitting and watching TV shows but between the fatigue and stress I've been happy to sit back and watch a season of Jonathan Creek. 

You know what's sad about the modern age? You can't really have shows like MacGuyver or Jonathan Creek or those kinds of detective shows. It's all forensics and "Oh you can't tell it wasn't suicide because the angle of the shot to the head was wrong." The science ruins the story. It's all down to adapting Agatha Christie stories or other period things.

Anyway. This piece includes one of the ancestral mottoes. Dum spiro spero, which basically means "While I breathe I hope." It is generally attributed to Cicero, and who knows, he might have said it. He said a lot of good things, but he was also a sell-out coward. 

I include also the cutest brother + sister picture ever. My new niece was born April 20th and her name is Geneva (mostly called Evie) Lindsay. This makes ten nieces and nephews for me. My dad is hoping for one more so that he'll have had more grandchildren than his mother. He's silly like that.

Sunny Baby

Well, given that there are only three months left until the birth of my 10th niece/nephew I am an in full "make things for new niece..." mode. I finally got some plain white onesies in 0 - 3 and 3 - 6 month sizes.

I knew I wanted to do this pattern for the niece from the moment I saw it. It is by the talented Cate Anevski and you can find it on her website along with other free patterns. Now, given that I'm doing this on a onesie, stretchy knit fabric, I can't do the dotted line stitches. It works on some onesies better than others but these are particularly plush and springy so it's a no go.

It's turning out well so far though. There will be a total of four shades of yellow and orange in the sunburst parts and I didn't finish the face because I'd gotten to the end of that thread and don't want to do the knots for the dots until after I've washed it. So may as well do that last bit of the mouth then. I hate started new threads, especially when it's for some tiny piece and when I'll have to do another tiny piece later.

On the Frida front I got my favorite stitch book out the library for ideas on how to fill the skirt and some decorative stitches that I'll never have memorized. I really need to go ahead and dye the background but it's one of those tasks that make me feel lazy and procrastinating.

Babies and Garden Pests: Are they really so different?

Though I had done some embroidery before my sister became pregnant with her first baby it was that event which really propelled me into regular embroidery and from there into cross-stitch and blackwork.

My sister is my best friend, and has been since I was seventeen years old. She is five years older than me or I'm sure we would have been best friends even sooner than that. Of my eight nieces and nephews (this time next year it will be ten!), her son Benjamin (often called Bunny) is the only one I see regularly. I don't want kids myself and I've never been a baby-person, but the Bunny is the light of my life. He is two years old, and the happiest toddler I've known (knock on wood). He recognizes me and gives me unsolicited kisses, and I appreciate that.

Before he was born I embroidered a number of white onesies for him and just kept doing it as he grew. Now I've got three pieces that just kept being forgotten until he grew out of them, but luckily my sister is pregnant again so these, along with the smaller sizes, will be passed on to the new baby. I feel a little guilty since two of them are the best I've done, but Bunny got two sweaters I knit just for him and the new baby is unlikely to get a new sweater from me (sorry honey, hand-me-downs will be the name of the game for your whole life).

Here you find my favorite original embroidery pattern to date, a green and brown snail sliming along. I love the way the slime trail turned out with the two close shades of green and two stitch styles. What I will eventually add is a thicker line of darker brown next to the light brown of the shell, as it is too thin compared to the body. Otherwise, I love it! If I make another copy on regular fabric I will probably use metallic thread for the lighter green of the slime trail.