I know a lot of people spend lots of time on Pinterest. I've had an account for a year or two but never had a whole lot of time to spend on it. I was on there a few weeks ago browsing some cross-stitch boards and I decided to search on "cross stitch ornaments". Oh dear........I had one of those "I've got to HAVE IT" moments when I saw a cuckoo-clock ornament posted. I kept clicking until I got to the source where the photo came from and it was Flamingo Valley's stitching blog.
I hope no one minds I posted this collage of Flamingo Valley's
cuckoo ornaments but I wanted to share how lovely they are!
Unfortunately the blog is in a foreign language (Russian maybe?). She has a huge number of followers so maybe I was the only one not knowing about her blog! Anyway I was using the translator function on the blog trying to figure out who the designer was of the cuckoo clocks. Fortunately someone had asked about that very thing in a comment to her post and the blog owner had responded with the name of some French magazine - De Fil en Aiguille and something about "hors-serie montagne". Well thanks to Babelfish translator and Google searching I found out this was a French stitching magazine that has been out of print a few years and she was referring to a special Alpine-themed edition of the magazine from 2004. I was disappointed to find the magazine was out of print but that didn't stop me...I checked eBay and found nothing then I thought of trying eBay France and voila! I found the magazine listed there. I used Babelfish translator again to format a message to the seller and sent her a photo of the ornament and asked her if that pattern was in the magazine she was selling as I wanted to make sure I was on the right track. She responded with a photo of the pattern that was in the magazine and I put in a pretty good bid to make sure I won the magazine. I was so thrilled to have found it! I 've always had a fondness for cuckoo clocks...my great-aunt had a big antique one from Germany and all of us kids always loved it. The pattern is for a cuckoo clock sampler and has 9 different cuckoo clocks to stitch - I love it! I don't give up when I'm on the trail of something LOL. Thank goodness for the internet - when you can find a 10-yr old edition of a stitching magazine sold by a lady in Brittany, France then all is right with the world! This is an incredible stitching magazine too, it's a shame it is no longer printed as I wouldn't mind buying more editions - lovely patterns in it.
I finished up the piece I was stitching for my mother and I laced it myself because I need to get it back from the framer within 2 weeks. It's only the second piece I've ever laced but I think it came out pretty good and it saves me some money doing the mounting of the piece myself. I modified the pattern a bit - it's charted to say "Sawyer & Finn Riverboat Co." but I wanted the word "Mississippi" in the piece since my hometown is along the mighty Mississippi river. I charted it out and filled in some extra spaces at the ends with little ships wheels. I think it came out pretty good and is at the framer now.
"Mississippi Riverboats" by Little House Needleworks
My lacing job..........
This piece reminds me of the Mark Twain riverboat at Disneyland. No matter how many times I've ridden it I always make my husband ride with me every time we go. I love Disneyland!
By the way the winner of the "Forever Young" pattern was Cindy (no blog). She had emailed me to enter the giveaway and I'll have it mailed it off soon. It's nice to be able to pass along a lovely pattern I'm done with.
