🎂

Hi friends! Today is Madeleine's 19th birthday! We had a party with family for her yesterday. I made a chocolate cake with pink buttercream icing.😘

I have a finish to share with you. I stitched up a gift for our Jacob's girlfriend, Claire's birthday.

This is a freebie pattern from Luli you can find RIGHT HERE I stitched this two over two with DMC 818. I used a nice script I found and added their names. I stitched the names one over one with DMC 3713. This is 32ct lambswool linen. I still have to find a nice frame for this. I have a few days yet.

I have begun stitching up the next AotH pattern, which is Swan Lake. I find this one sooooooo pretty. And it does not even have pink!😲

I finished reading Jane and the Barque of Frailty by Stephanie Barron. I have yet to be disappointed by one book in this series. Stephanie is a very good author. She writes so very well, you believe it is Jane who wrote these books. I could not figure this mystery out. It kept me guessing all the way until the very end.
In her latest spellbinding escapade, Jane Austen arrives in London to watch over the printing of her first novel, and finds herself embroiled in a crime that could end more than her career. For it is up to Jane to tease a murderer out of the ton, lest she—and her country—suffer a dastardly demise.…

On the heels of completing Sense and Sensibility, Jane heads to Sloane Street for a monthlong visit with her brother Henry and his wife, Eliza. Hobnobbing with the Fashionable Great at the height of the Season, Jane is well aware of their secrets and peccadilloes. But even she is surprised when the intimate correspondence between a Russian princess and a prominent Tory minister is published in the papers for all to see. More shocking, the disgraced beauty is soon found with her throat slit on Lord Castlereagh’s very doorstep.

Everyone who’s anyone in high society is certain the spurned princess committed the violence upon herself. But Jane is unconvinced. Nor does she believe the minister guilty of so grisly and public a crime. Jane, however, is willing to let someone else investigate—until a quirk of fate thrusts her and Eliza into the heart of the case…as prime suspects!

Striking a bargain with the authorities, Jane secures seven days to save herself and Eliza from hanging. But as her quest to unmask a killer takes her from the halls of government to the drawing rooms of London’s most celebrated courtesan, only one thing is sure: her failure will not only cut short her life. It could lead to England’s downfall. A compulsively readable, uncommonly elegant novel of historical suspense, Jane and the Barque of Frailty once again proves Jane Austen a sleuth to be reckoned with.

In case you did not know, I am having a Nora Corbett pattern giveaway. You can get in on the giveaway RIGHT HERE

And finally, guess what?! Little Henry who many of you have been rooting for, has made progress with Murphy. Yes, it is true!! Now it is not much progress, but it is progress. I have not discussed Murphy on this blog a whole lot. How shall I describe his personality? He is almost 14 years old now. He is quite set in his ways. He is extremely attached to me. Wherever I am, Murphy is. As in he must come into the bathroom with me.😐 I love Murphy. I do, but not in the way I love Henry or even Mabel. I just cannot help it. He cannot be fully trusted. If I want to trim his nails or brush him out, he must be muzzled. I have never had a dog like that. I know you must expect all things when you rescue a dog. And so here we are. Every day things, he is perfect. Brian says he could care less about the whole world as long as he has mama. Murphy is a grumpy, old man. There you go. That sums it up. He likes love, but not too, too much. So our cuddling and extra loving needs to be with our tiny 6 pound Henry.😚 Now there is a poodle who was born to cuddle. He looooves it! And that was my point! Good grief. I got off track here.

I was making buttercream frosting for Madeleine's birthday cake and looked down and surprise, surprise! Henry did it! He got into Murphy's bed and Murphy finally stayed and allowed Henry to stay.

Not exactly cuddling, but they are together in one bed. Notice Murphy is NOT looking?😉Maybe if he does not look, it is not really happening.

Stitching and praying,
Vickie

Our Hearts Are Healing In Poodletown

Hi friends! I hope all is well in your little world? If all is not, and you should like me to pray for you, I am more than happy to do so. I am doing this for several of you friends.💕 Just let me know by private email.

I have made progress on Forever Be My Always.

I have a giveaway going on for a Nora Corbett pattern.Click HERE to sign up for it. 

Thank you for stopping by today. I am so glad you did.😊

Stitching and praying,
Vickie

Precious, precious Mabel

Nora Corbett Giveaway

Hi friends! I am still stitching away on Forever Be My Always. No update picture today.

In Spring our friend Carol had a giveaway for a chart called Gathering Eggs. It is a chart taken from a magazine by Nora Corbett. I know, because I have the same chart, and I too planned to give it away. I am doing that now.

Our friend Jo was the winner of this chart from Carol. Would you perhaps like to stitch this along with Jo? Or did you enter that giveaway, and would you like another chance now? If you would like this chart, please understand these are two pattern pages taken from an older magazine. I will fold these to fit in a business size envelope to save on postage. This giveaway is open to all of my followers. Please leave me a comment telling me you would like the chart. This giveaway will end on Friday August 4th.

The audio book I just finished listening to was The Mapmaker's Children by Sarah McCoy. I liked this book. I really, really liked the historical fiction half of it. The half about abolitionist Sarah Brown.The modern fiction half, eh, kind of.
When Sarah Brown, daughter of abolitionist John Brown, realizes that her artistic talents may be able to help save the lives of slaves fleeing north, she becomes one of the Underground Railroad’s leading mapmakers, taking her cues from the slave code quilts and hiding her maps within her paintings. She boldly embraces this calling after being told the shocking news that she can’t bear children, but as the country steers toward bloody civil war, Sarah faces difficult sacrifices that could put all she loves in peril.

Eden, a modern woman desperate to conceive a child with her husband, moves to an old house in the suburbs and discovers a porcelain head hidden in the root cellar—the remains of an Underground Railroad doll with an extraordinary past of secret messages, danger and deliverance.

Ingeniously plotted to a riveting end, Sarah and Eden’s woven lives connect the past to the present, forcing each of them to define courage, family, love, and legacy in a new way.

Thank you for your wonderful friendship in my time of sorrow over our Mabel. I appreciate you all.

I hope you have a stitchtastic weekend my friends!

"What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps one in a continual state of inelegance."—Jane Austen

Stitching and praying,
Vickie

Three and half years ago, when we rescued Henry.

🐩

Hi friends! Here is an updated picture of where I am at on Forever Be My Always by Emma Congdon.

We had a nice birthday celebration for Emerson yesterday. He actually turns 21 on Thursday. Thank you for your birthday wishes for him.😊

The Baker's Daughter, by Sarah McCoy  is a novel I listened to last week. It was good, but I had a hard time getting into Reba, one of the two main characters. 
In this New York Times bestseller, two women in different eras face similar life-altering decisions, the politics of exclusion, the terrible choices we face in wartime, and the redemptive power of love.
In 1945, Elsie Schmidt is a naive teenager, as eager for her first sip of champagne as she is for her first kiss. She and her family have been protected from the worst of the terror and desperation overtaking her country by a high-ranking Nazi who wishes to marry her. So when an escaped Jewish boy arrives on Elsie’s doorstep on Christmas Eve, Elsie understands that opening the door would put all she loves in danger.

Sixty years later, in El Paso, Texas, Reba Adams is trying to file a feel-good Christmas piece for the local magazine, and she sits down with the owner of Elsie's German Bakery for what she expects will be an easy interview. But Reba finds herself returning to the bakery again and again, anxious to find the heart of the story—a story that resonates with her own turbulent past. For Elsie, Reba’s questions are a stinging reminder of that last bleak year of World War II.

As the two women's lives become intertwined, both are forced to confront the uncomfortable truths of the past and seek out the courage to forgive.

I see beautiful sunsets like these a few times a week out my kitchen window while I sit and stitch in the evening. I just love pink in the sky.❤️

Thank you, thank you, thank you for you dear words of comfort and compassion. I am so blessed to have friends such as you! How nice of you to take a moment and leave me a word, after little Mabel's passing. I read each and every one of those comments and they all touched my heart so very much. We are healing and crying less. Sure, we still wish we had our precious girl, but she suffers no more. Henry seems to be over his depression. God bless his little heart. He is trying to become buddies with Murphy. Since Murphy was adopted by us at 12 years old and is now almost 14 years old, he is very used to being a lone dog. We will see if little Henry can make a buddy out of Murph yet!😉

Stitching and praying,
Vickie

puppy Mabel

Happy Birthday

Hi friends. I want to thank you with my whole heart. You have reached out and shown me true friendship. I have been comforted by your sweet messages. Thank you. Thank you for caring. It means a lot. It makes a difference. I feel the love. It brings joy, yes joy to my heart knowing so many of you cared about little Mabel. And my heart needs that. I know so very many of you know just what this feels like, losing a dear, beloved pet. That broken, crumpled heart feeling. Thank you once again for your kindness.

I finished Happy Birthday, pattern #6 in the Anniversaries of the Heart series. This sampler is dedicated to my paternal grandparents. My Grandpa died when I was only 6 months old. My Grandma died right after I turned one year old. Here is their wedding picture. Isn't this fantastic?

The upper third of my Happy Birthday had to be altered. When stitching this entire sampler series one over one on 25ct linen, some alterations are necessary to fit names and dates. So I created a different border to go across the top of the pattern. I am happy with how the names and dates fit. 😊

(One over one on 25ct cream Dublin linen)

I used all DMC on this. I changed the pinks and the purple, in the same way I did on Pink Hill Manor. I also changed the brown of the house to 3864. I changed the grey of the roof to 318.

And the really obvious change?! HA! Out with the birds, in with the poodles! I put in two Mabels in Pink Hill Manor. I put in two Henrys in Happy Birthday. How do you like that?!? Personally, I LOVE it!💕

 That is my father's sampler you can just see above this one, his parent's sampler.❤️

Okay, tied with my favorite Maisie Dobb books, is this book for best book I read this year. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford is sooooo good! You should read it. There. That is all I need to say.
In the opening pages of Jamie Ford’s stunning debut novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Henry Lee comes upon a crowd gathered outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle’s Japantown. It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has made an incredible discovery: the belongings of Japanese families, left when they were rounded up and sent to internment camps during World War II. As Henry looks on, the owner opens a Japanese parasol.

This simple act takes old Henry Lee back to the 1940s, at the height of the war, when young Henry’s world is a jumble of confusion and excitement, and to his father, who is obsessed with the war in China and having Henry grow up American. While “scholarshipping” at the exclusive Rainier Elementary, where the white kids ignore him, Henry meets Keiko Okabe, a young Japanese American student. Amid the chaos of blackouts, curfews, and FBI raids, Henry and Keiko forge a bond of friendship–and innocent love–that transcends the long-standing prejudices of their Old World ancestors. And after Keiko and her family are swept up in the evacuations to the internment camps, she and Henry are left only with the hope that the war will end, and that their promise to each other will be kept.

Forty years later, Henry Lee is certain that the parasol belonged to Keiko. In the hotel’s dark dusty basement he begins looking for signs of the Okabe family’s belongings and for a long-lost object whose value he cannot begin to measure. Now a widower, Henry is still trying to find his voice–words that might explain the actions of his nationalistic father; words that might bridge the gap between him and his modern, Chinese American son; words that might help him confront the choices he made many years ago.

Set during one of the most conflicted and volatile times in American history, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is an extraordinary story of commitment and enduring hope. In Henry and Keiko, Jamie Ford has created an unforgettable duo whose story teaches us of the power of forgiveness and the human heart.

 I am now finally back to stitching on the big anniversary gift I am making for Brian, Forever Be My Always by Emma Congdon.

I hope you have a restful weekend my friends. We will be celebrating Emerson's 21st birthday with family on Sunday afternoon.

Stitching and praying,
Vickie

Our Mabel

Oh friends. Our Mabel is gone. She died very early this morning with all five of us around her, here at home. She is so very loved.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 Thank you for your love and support and prayers. God bless you all.

Crying and praying,
Vickie

Mabel

Hi friends! I would like to show you my July displays. Not the best close ups, I know. Sorry.

I am close to done with AotH Happy Birthday. I did not take a picture. I will share the finish next time.

We took Mabel to the vet first thing this morning. She has diabetes, pancreatitis, and liver problems. This all came on suddenly. As in within the last half week she began vomiting, diarrhea, laying around listlessly. She has been losing weight. That is why we took her in to see the vet last week. Then all of this happened. We did not know what was happening inside of her.  She is in the vet clinic all day today and tomorrow, on IV fluids and she is getting insulin now. She is on antibiotics and pain pills too. Our poor, sweet girl. My pretty princess.

She has lost so much weight so very rapidly. At her chubbiest this year from the steroids, she was 15 lbs. She is now 10.8 lbs. The veterinarian was honest with us and said she has a 50/50 chance of living. Oh Mabel.

Friends, I know she is just a dog. But she is my poodle. I love her very, very much. If you pray for pets, would you pray for Mabel? We thank you.

Stitching and praying,
Vickie

Sweet Summer Gift

Hi friends! I was able to go to the 4th of July parade. Our parade is at 7 in the evening, and it was cool that night and I did not get a headache either!😄

I received the most sweet surprise in the mail from our friend Stasi. Stasi had a piece of her stitchery that she wanted to give a good home. She offered this to anyone who wanted to make it up into something.  I entered this giveaway as it is cute and PINK! Well  our friend RJ won the giveaway. I congratulated RJ and that was that. Not so! Sweet RJ told Stasi she would like her to give it to me since she knows I love pink and RJ is now gone on a 2 month long trip.  THANK YOU RJ! THANK YOU STASI! Here is the piece. I have made it into a pin pillow.

I am working on Happy Birthday, the  next chart in chronological order for AotH. As you know, the DMC suggested is not always matching up to the pattern cover pictures. So over the long weekend I stitched up the house. I had a bad feeling about the color. I should have stopped. Yes, SHOULD have. I told myself it will be okay. I don't know why!! It just kept eating away at me. Here is how it DID look. I took a picture of it next to the pattern picture for you. My stitched house is on the left. Pattern on the right.

NOT THE SAME. NOPE. So.... I stared at that completed house for two days. And then ripped out all that recommended off brown/612 and put in 3864. I used this in Pink Hill Manor with these same pinks that are being used here again. It looks good there, it looks good here. Take a look. Here is the new, improved house.

I am now working on those trees! Oh lazy daisy stitches don't go quick for me.😵

A few of you recommended All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doer to me so I put myself on the waiting list of Over Drive, our digital library. I borrow all my audio books from my library.😊 I like free!😉 This was an excellent book. I was very surprised by what I thought was an abrupt ending. Maybe I was too immersed in the story while stitching? I actually went back to the first five minutes of the story and listened to it again for the sake of clarity.
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE
From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, the beautiful, stunningly ambitious instant New York Times bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.

Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.

In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge.

Doerr’s “stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors” (San Francisco Chronicle) are dazzling. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, he illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, a National Book Award finalist, All the Light We Cannot See is a magnificent, deeply moving novel from a writer “whose sentences never fail to thrill” (Los Angeles Times).

I do hope you have a wonderful weekend whatever you are doing my friends! Thank you for stopping by and leaving me such nice notes of encouragement.

Stitching and praying,
Vickie

Miss Mabel sunbathing