The Third One Is Finished!

Hi friends! I finally finished Jacob's ornament. It was a challenge. It should not have been, but this WEEK was a challenge for me. ugh. I had a nasty headache for 5 days, all because I drank my chai tea latte when it was very warm, instead of just barely warm.(Drinking hot drinks and the sun cause really bad headaches)  I forgot. And I paid for it dearly. The Imitrex did not work, nothing did but time it seems. Anyways, lets look at Jacob's ornament, shall we?

This is the pattern that challenged me. Why? Because I had an excruciating headache and it is hard to focus and create at the same time. :(  So... this pattern can be found in the 2011 JCS Christmas Ornament Issue. It is just part of the pattern. The pattern is called Christmas Pine Pocket by Moss Creek Designs. My version varies a bit from the one in the magazine. I shortened only the pine needles at the very end of the branches. I worked the long stitch one over one on these, instead of  two over two the way the rest of the pine needles are done.

You may recall the stitching I did for the other side.

Of all the three ornament frames that our friend Nienke gifted me with, I will say that this little tree was the most challenging to get the linen pieces to lie flat and nice within! This is the best I can do. I tried for a very, very long time. It is very hard to get BOTH sides perfect. I usually aim for perfection. This time I am accepting a bit less than perfection.

I finished reading Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House by Stephanie Barron. I really liked this book. I have liked every book in this Jane series thus far. :) They keep you guessing!

In her sixth engrossing outing, Jane Austen employs her delicious wit and family ties to the Royal Navy in a case of murder on the high seas. Somewhere in the picturesque British port of Southampton, among a crew of colorful, eccentric, and fiercely individual souls, a killer has come ashore. And only Jane can fathom the depths of his ruthless mind....

Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House
“I will assert that sailors are endowed with greater worth than any set of men in England.”

So muses Jane Austen as she stands in the buffeting wind of Southampton’s quay beside her brother Frank on a raw February morning. Frank, a post captain in the Royal Navy, is without a ship to command, and his best prospect is the Stella Maris, a fast frigate captained by his old friend Tom Seagrave.

“Lucky” Tom — so dubbed for his habit of besting enemy ships — is presently in disgrace, charged with violating the Articles of War. Tom’s first lieutenant, Eustace Chessyre, has accused Seagrave of murder in the death of a French captain after the surrender of his ship.

Though Lucky Tom denies the charge, his dagger was found in the dead man’s chest. Now Seagrave faces court-martial and execution for a crime he swears he did not commit.

Frank, deeply grieved, is certain his friend will hang. But Jane reasons that either Seagrave or Chessyre is lying — and that she and Frank have a duty to discover the truth.

The search for the captain’s honor carries them into the troubled heart of Seagrave’s family, through some of the seaport’s worst sinkholes, and at long last to Wool House, the barred brick structure that serves as gaol for French prisoners of war.

Risking contagion or worse, Jane agrees to nurse the murdered French captain’s imprisoned crew — and elicits a debonair surgeon’s account of the Stella Maris’s battle that appears to clear Tom Seagrave of all guilt.

When Eustace Chessyre is found murdered, the entire affair takes on the appearance of an insidious plot against Seagrave, who is charged with the crime. Could any of his naval colleagues wish him dead? In an era of turbulent intrigue and contested amour, could it be a case of cherchez la femme ... or a veiled political foe at work? And what of the sealed orders under which Seagrave embarked that fateful night in the Stella Maris? Death knocks again at Jane’s own door before the final knots in the killer’s net are completely untangled.

Always surprising, Jane and the Prisoner of Wool House is an intelligent and intriguing mystery that introduces Jane and her readers to “the naval set” — and charts a true course through the amateur sleuth’s most troubled waters yet.

I am working on a bit of secret Christmas stitching right now. I will share with you gifts I received next time.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend my friends!

Stitching and praying,
Vickie