~*Friday Finishes*~

Hello Dear Friends! I have a couple of fabulous finishes to share with you today!

Imagine my surprise when one of them came to me via snail mail... with lovely wrapping & beautiful card. I was ~ and still am ~ in complete awe over the generosity & fine craftsmanship. Patti made this one for ME! LUCKY ME! It is MINE! All MINE! :) (Can you hear my giggles of GLEE & JOY?) She stitched up the freebie ~*Blessings*~ & made it into a DARLING key fob... complete with an antique key. It is finely stitched with one strand of my favorite color ~ deep, olde red ~ and backed with a lovely reproduction print. Along with the pinkeep, she also gifted me a lil' pile of olde keys. I'm always asking her where she finds them 'cause the shops around here are either WAY~HIGH priced... or just don't have any. Patti has such a great eye for beauty. If you haven't visited her blog, please do. She takes the most striking photographs & makes the most beautiful creations. The card she sent with my gift is one she made with one of her photographs of her work... so very pretty!

Patti, I cannot thank you enough for this sweet gift! :)



Another beautiful finish to share... This one is from Connie (no blog or online album), a stitcher friend that I had the joy of meeting in person last year at the Eureka Springs Hook~in. Connie stitched up ~*Spring's Tweets*~... a pattern available for purchase. LOVELY! She stitched on 10 count Natural Heathefield with 3 strands of the recommended DMC. Liking her pillows larger enough to decorate a chair, she will either stitch over one on 10 count or over 2 on 18 or 20 count fabric. What a great idea! I LOVE IT!



She backed her pillow with an upholstery fabric that resembles painter's cloth. The colors of the upholstery fabric are a great match for the fibers used for her stitching. She also added a patch with her initials, the date, and a few vintage buttons. For filling, she added a mix of wood shavings, sawdust, cloves, and some crushed walnut shells for weight. I'll bet it smells as YUMMY as it is beautiful!



Thank you Connie for stitching & sharing!

As for me, I've continued to work on my rug & sampler... along with my many other WIPs... but Tony and I started another project too...

Well, truth be told, HE has done most of the work so far...



I have always wanted a greenhouse! We found one at a reasonable price... so this was the time to get it. It is a pre~fab house and will finish to 10 by 12 feet. We are going to add some personal touches to make it more charming & prim. To start with that, we decided to place it in the backyard with the door centered between two old hedge posts left from a days~gone~by fence. The large tree in the upper right corner of the photograph is one of my favorites, a flowering crab apple. The weedy looking stuff behind the house is what is left from my sweet annie last year. Guess I need to get that under control & cleaned up, huh? All the tires you ask? Well, those are surrounding the go kart track. The hubby has his favorites here too! :)

All the snow from last weekend is gone. Good Bye Winter... hello longer days of Spring!



Wishing you all warm smiles,

Betty