As promised, a few more samplers

Greetings...

Here are a few more samplers to share with you.  Some are really oldies, others are not.  Excuse me for not crediting all the designers, a few I can't remember anymore.  Again, sorry for the flash bounces.

Mary Slatter 1792 (the one with the glued on faces)

Katherine Jones, by The Exemplarery.  I love the ribbon surrounding it.

Martha Smith, a real oldie from Scarlet Letter.

Freelove Hazard.   The name cracks me up, sounds like a hippy chick from the 60's!  Scarlet Letter.

M. Pollard, an Ackworth Sampler.  Scarlet Letter.

The Dragonfly Sampler, love the verse!    I think The Essamplaire.  The wings of the dragonfly (lower left) are stitched in silver thread.  I remember having to buy an entire price packet of metallic threads at Hobby Lobby just to get what I needed.

This goes way, way back, as evidenced by the l981 at the bottom.  I can't remember where it came from, but it is a Newburyport, Mass. sampler, maybe Mary Starkey or Sharkey was her name.  Maybe somebody else can remember.

Lois Minshall, Threads of Gold, I think.  I made this as a Mothers Day gift.

Maria Theresa Wilkinson, Scarlet Letter.  Love the verse about the "silly butterfly"

I hope you enjoyed looking, I enjoyed sharing them with you.  I still have more... but need to get some things finished.  We just missed another round of nasty storms...hope you all are safe.

Hugs,
Melinda

More oldies but goodies

As I don't have any new finishes to show you, I thought I'd post a few more oldies but goodies from my collection.  Sorry about all the flash bounces, I don't know how to turn my flash off!
 
First, Ann Hair 1762 from Scarlet Letter.  I know, the frame is ugly, but it is all I could find at the time.
All the over one verse...oh, my, I thought I'd never get through it.

Sarah E Pope, I think it was an old Sheepish pattern.

Polly Coffin, I think an old JoAnne Harvey pattern.  Mistake on the Boston band row :(

Hannah Atkins, from the old Historic Samplers book by Pat Ryan.  I went a little overboard with the aging,,,

Mary Ann Hutton, Scarlet Letter.  I need to unframe (is that a word?) it and remove my initials and year.  A simple sampler but quite striking, and very unusual in that is has the Christmas carol.

I hope you have enjoyed looking at these.  If I haven't bored you too much, I'll post some more tomorrow.

Hugs,
Melinda

Kitten Update and some garden photos

Hello, everybody, on this dreadfully hot and dry day here at Merry Wind Farm!  I know from reading all my blogger friends' posts that most of you are going through the same thing!  We have had a couple of showers, but the ground is so hard and baked that it doesn't make any difference.  I read in this morning's paper that this is the worst drought since 1956, the year I was born!

On to the kitten update!  Remember  these five little cuties that were all spoken for?

Well, for one reason or another, everybody weaseled out.  So guess what, (I am really nuts), they are all staying here to live!  They are all so sweet and adorable, and by now we have fallen in love with them. They are so defenseless that they can't go out to live in the barn after being raised indoors!  There are raccoons and coyotes out there!  So, what am I to do (being the animal lover that I am)?  I always used to say, what's one more?  So, I guess, what's five more?!?!?!  Here they all are on their new kitty condo.

And here are two of the "grown up" cats, ignoring them :)

Remember a few months ago I posted this picture of what was to be my new garden?

This is what it looks like now.  Boy, what a year to put in another garden!  It sure is a good thing that we have a good well,  every day is water, water, water.  The bird house is from Curry's Antiques.  I thought it was just a decoration, but a house wren is nesting in there...what an enormous house for such a little bird!

Here are two pictures of the rest of the garden.  Don't be fooled, outside of the garden fence everything is brown and dried!

Thanks for visiting!!  Back to hooking and stitching next time...
Hugs,
Melinda

Too hot to do anything but stitch and blog!

Hello, today was a sweltering 103!  And, it was also the annual Dayton International Air Show, which is quite a big, nationally known show (we are, after all, the birthplace of aviation).  I don't know how those folks managed it, I could barely stand to walk to the mailbox.  I hate summer, I have decided.  Thankfully, there is supposed to be a break tomorrow.  And I just heard on the news that there are still tens of thousands without power in the east.

Enough complaining from me, and on to some pictures.  I finished this cute little Coverlet Birds design from Tanya of The Scarlett House.  I aged it a bit and made a cupboard tuck out of it.  I tweaked the mantle ...again...deciding there just wasn't enough interesting stuff to look at.  So here it is.  The rug is one I hooked from a Kris Miller of Spruce Ridge Studios pattern.

You'd think the horses would stay in their bank barn, which is a cool 84 degrees, with their fans blowing on them.  But no, here are two of them nibbling about on dead grass....  I didn't enhance the photo so that you can see how bad it really is.

I am stitching along with Kelley from Kentucky on Hannah Lancaster.  She is a lot of fun to stitch...I am doing mine on 32 count lambswool.  Here is my progress.

I'm also coming along on Margaret Leadbitter.  I'll stitch the temple last, as that looks like the most fun.

And, so he's not left out...the third horse, Pipsy.  The two mares are always together, and he is left out.
Anna, the chestnut mare in back in the previous picture, thinks she is quite the head mare and works diligently to keep Blossom safe from that nasty, scary gelding!!!

Stay cool and safe.

Hugs,

Melinda