Finally framed :)

This is not a new finish - I finished stitching this over a year ago but I finally got it framed and hung. I'm quite happy with it. This is "Wild Roses" from Carriage House Samplings. The model stitcher at my LNS modified the original pattern slightly to spell out "Bless the Beasts and the Children" along the sides and adding a bit more at the bottom to match the top of the piece. Customers were able to obtain her changes as long as we bought the CHS chart along with it. One more thing off the framing pile and onto the walls!

Hope you all had a good weekend. I spent most of mine doing "spring cleaning" with DH. That might sound odd to some of you but here once the worst of summer is gone, we feel reborn like other parts of the country do in the spring. Everything gets so dirty during summer with the ceiling fans going constantly and the house shut up. I still feel like I have dust in my nose from all the dusting but it's a good feeling to have everything ship-shape. Also, I have family coming to visit this week and that was added incentive to get it done. Maybe they need to visit more often so I'll be inspired to clean!

Stitched a little tonite on my fall exchange but can't share any pics of it yet. When I picked up my framed piece at the LNS a few days ago I picked up the newest Prairie Schooler charts, the latest Loose Feathers chart that was waiting for me, and "The Daughters of Longbourne" by the Stitching Parlor. That's going to be part of the new neighborhood I'm planning. It's a wonderful chart and as luck would have it, a stitcher that was at the shop for "open stitching" and she was working on hers which was about 80% done - it was just beautiful! I'm still trying to figure out the easiest way to plan this neighborhood by mixing together pieces from several different patterns. I was hoping to get some stitching software that would let me scan in the patterns I want to use, then cut and paste pieces of those into a new design, however, I don't think most of the software I've seen really does that, or at least not well. Seems like the software packages available are designed more for scanning in photographs and then turning those into cross-stitch. That's not really what I want to do. So I may have to do my designing the old-fashioned way and just start cutting and taping graph paper etc together.

Cheerio for now........