Mom's Macrame Necklace . . .

After sharing my discovery of my mother's macrame book on the used book shelf at the public library for $1. I thought I would share a picture of my mother's macrame necklace. My mother got the pattern for this necklace from Dona Meilach's Macrame book. She wore it quite a bit at one time and made a number of other pieces of macrame. This is the only one that I currently have. It was last worn by a friend of mine at a 1970's party.

I have purchased some more embroidery books recently including The Encyclopedia of Embroidery Techniques by Pauline Brown, The Royal School of Needlework Embroidery Techniques by Sally Saunders, and A Maryland Sampling by Gloria Seaman Allen.

I also received my autumn exchange package with a needle roll, fabric, various fibers and an weighted bag for the arm of a chair. I will have to check and see if my exchange made it to its new home. I love all of the fall colors and signed up for some other Halloween and Fall themed exchanges. Pictures will be coming soon. The leaves are even starting to change color but the temperatures are more like summer than fall.

September Flowers

I thought I would share some pictures of the flowers in my garden at the end of the season. The bees and other insects are quite happy that we have so many flowers. This bright green insect shown on the yellow chrysanthemum is harmless, but one of the furry bumble bees bit me on my leg while I was clearing weeds out of the garden. The swelling around the bite took a week to come down. The Firecracker climbing rose is one of the prettier end of season blooms.

I have been stitching too but I don't have any finished things to share right now. I am knitting my second sock, working on parts 5 and 6 of Chatelaine's Elizabethan Sweet Bag and I finished another row of over one stitching on Anne Depauw. I should have some things to share later in the week.

Recently, I purchased some new books. I found a copy of Macrame: Creative Design in Knotting by Dona Meilach on the Friends of the Library used book shelf for $1.00. It has the Berry Knot necklace my mother made in the 1970s on page 150. I still have my mother's necklace. I also bought Bead Embroidery: The Complete Guide by Jane Davis at JoAnn's fabrics. It contains different methods of attaching beads to fabric, beaded fringe patterns and beads incorporated into surface embroidery and pulled thread embroidery stitches.

2000 visits and pictures of stitching . . .

Some time this week the stat counter registered visit number 2000 to my blog. It is fun to know that I have readers and that some of you come back more than once. I also think it is interesting to see where my visitors are from, the map shows visitor locations from the end of June on.

A stitching blog should sometimes have pictures of stitching. Here is the front and back of a pincushion that I made for an exchange. It is a Whimsey & Wit design from their Charming Elegance Series. I planned to make a biscornu but quickly realized that it would be enormous so I made a stuffed square instead. It is stitched on tobacco linen with chestnut weeks dye works.

I am reading People of the Abyss by Jack London. I am familiar with his animal and adventure stories but I did not realize that he was a socialist or that he wrote social history. His descriptions of life on the East End of London at the beginning of the 20th Century are chilling. I enjoyed his description of the Coronation Parade -- all of the military and ethnic groups that were part of the British Empire at that time are represented.

News . . .

I have been in Florida for two weeks at a training class for work. I visited St. Augustine while I was there and visited the Fort Matanzas National Monument and the Garden of the Oldest House. The Chapel door at the Fort is shown in the picture, it has an interesting pattern on it.

While there I did some reading and some stitching and a little bit of knitting. I have been back since Thursday night and have gone through all of the mail, celebrated my daughter's birthday, attempted to get caught up at work, and in the yard work. I plan on doing some stitching tonight and may have some results to share tomorrow or the day after.