This is something which has long irked me.

The idea that art is a framed pic on the wall, craft is something little old ladies do and artisans ... mmmmmmm thats trickier.

OK, art is everything, a crafter needs more skills than a pure artist...in order to express themselves in their chosen piece they may have to draw on many different skills, and take a long time learning to be able to.

I become somewhat cross when people refer to craft as if its a second class citizen…

 This is a great place for photo editing. Picmonkey.com. You can easily drag a photo from your desktop and start getting creative. There is lots of features available beyond your basic editing. Check it out.

My latest whimsical piece is now finished,  and it is a shame that it is so dark and rainy.  Not ideal weather to take a good clear photo so I will have to wait and up load it when the weather is better.

I am working on a small embroidery kit, its a stamped cross stitch and let me say this the stamping for the stitches are so off I don't feel too bad.  I am working the Senility kit, the other kit isn't stamped so maybe that one next.

I bought a few kits to get myself back to embroidery and cross stitch…

Today I rescued this lovely framed cross stitch from a local thrift store for the low price of $3.00, When I first looked up at it I thought wow nice frame, I could use a wooden frame than once I had it in my hands I could see the picture was cross stitched.

I find it sad to see hours and hours of fine…

Over the years I have tried my hand at cross stitch, usually a small project with a few simply flowers and a few words then a few weeks ago I bought a few knitting magazines from Ebay and the seller tossed in a cross stitch magazine and I was mesmerized by the patterns/designs within the pages, one designer's pattern (Joan Elliot) caught my attention and I thought the name was familiar and while organizing my stash of yarn, fabric and threads etc. I came across a book by the same…

Have a wonderful Easter with all your families,  I am still in Illinois taking care of my friend so I am 2000 miles away from home, but will celebrate with my friend.  Have done so much stitchin and knitting and crocheting that I have finished alot of projects so that feels good, just putting the finishing touches on the shawl I am working on.

I have now managed to pick up a variety of variegated threads for my latest wall hanging -  this is the progress so far with blanket stitch on the large leaves and then couched metallic yarns for the tendrils.  The smaller leaves are hand dyed and machine embroidered tissue paper which has then been treated with 'Parvol' a hardening agent.…

No use having God and persecute, exclude and ignore people. Share, be correctdecisions, sleep…

Yesterday I finished my first Christmas present for the year! It is a wedding sampler based on the pattern "Seasonal Samplings" from Hillside Samplings in East Aurora , NY.  This was particularly fun because it included a few different stitches in addition to cross--continental, satin, smyrna cross, rhodes, and eyelet.  Because I chose to use DMC threads, I found that the smyrna cross in the summer block didn't stand out well enough, so I added gold beads for the flower centers instead. I…