LATEST PROGRESS ON QUAKER LADY

I wasn't able to write yesterday. I had my yoga class (Iyengar) in the morning, and then in the afternoon I had to get my 2 upstairs bedrooms and bathroom straightened up and cleaned. My two granddaughters and their two dogs—a Golden Retriever and a Shih Tsu) came over last night before dinner to stay until next Tuesday morning. I had to make the house ready for two more dogs. My two cats are relegated to the basement, and Murphy has not taken kindly to the two "intruder" dogs though he likes Henry, the Shih Tsu, when he is over here by himself. It was an interesting evening. The girls are in 3rd and 6th grade so we watched last week's American Idol that we had previously recorded. Would have loved to stitched while we watched, but I was on "dog patrol" to keep the visitor dogs from bothering Murphy. This morning Jess, the older grand daughter, helped me with my makeup. No more lip stick, Grandma, only lip gloss. The two girls are up stairs now actually being kids again playing with the two doll houses we have for them. This is Henry.

I also had to make up bandannas for a gal who is going to host a meet and greet for the Golden Retriever rescue group this weekend. I cut them out on Tuesday night, sewed them on my serger Wednesday morning before yoga and FedExed 31 of them to her yesterday afternoon. I try to find bright cute fabric.

I did work on my Quaker Lady on Tuesday night. My stitching/knitting group that meets here every Tuesday morning helped me pick out the green and red for the contrasting colors on the piece. I wish I had had a white linen but I used a cream color that was in my drawer. It doesn't look as crisp as I would have liked, but I think the bright red and green help. The green is a #12 perle cotton of which I use 1 strand instead of 2 strands of floss. I want to use it up as I am on a kick of trying not to bring more stuff into this house. Now that the dogs have settled down, I hope I can stitch a bit tonight. I decided to leave off the alphabet at the bottom when I saw one like that on line somewhere. Have done enough alphabets to last a life time!

This is one of my reproduction designs for my business Threads Through Time.  It is the Elizabeth Lloyd Harper sampler dated 1812. I tried to take a photo of the original through the glass outside my house—a disaster, but you can see how faded the original is—such a pity. This is a lovely sampler with a large house and several out buildings. I was never able to find out who Elizabeth was and I don't know whether she was born in 1812 or stitched the sampler in that year. I assume maybe her father was in Commerce as she stitched that word above the out building. Now with the internet as a resource I might be able to track her down.

I'm off to make cookies with the granddaughters! Will write when I can between now and Tuesday when they leave for school. --Nancy