Needle Roll Ornament #3 Finished

I finished the third ornament in Memory of my Daddy last night, only one more to go. That will take care of my sister and two brothers.
I think I will send the green one to my Mama instead of keeping it, then I will stitch one for myself and one for DH in Memory of his Dad. That should take care of my family, unless one of them has a special request for another departed family member. Then, of course, I would gladly stitch another. This one will go to my brother in Colorado.

Designer: Sandy In Montana
Stitched on: 32ct. cream linen by Zweigart
using DMC Rayon threads and Mill Hill beads.

In Loving Memory" Ornament #2 Finished

I finished my second "In Loving Memory" needle roll ornament yesterday in honor of my Daddy. I made this one for myself and stitched the shamrocks motif from one of my other designs that I have yet to stitch up. I used the shamrocks in honor of my fathers Irish heritage. The little heart in the center is from an old abalone earing that I cut the post off of and attached with a permanent glue dot.

Designer: Sandy In Montana
Design: "In Loving Memory"
32ct. ivory linen from Zweigart, DMC threads, Delica Beads in #127 Gold Luster,
24" of 1/4" ivory satin ribbon & one old pierced earing.

Apples & Pears & More SNOW!!!!

Yesterday DH & I went out and harvested the rest of the apples and pears that were left on the trees after he got home from work. I wanted to get as much as possible before our latest cold snap hit. And has it, you betcha, it's been snowing off and on all day today and has barely it 30.

Here is part of the harvest, I still have a large canvas bag full of apples.
It looks like I'll be baking apple pies and such over the weekend since it's going to be in the 20's for the highs and down around 10 over night.

Here's one of our apple trees this morning. Good thing we did the harvesting yesterday. The pear tree is on the other side of the antique potato planter behind the apple tree.

This is a view from my back porch around noon. We have about 2" of snow so far, but it's not done yet. This storm came down from Canada, thanks a bunch Canada, please feel free to keep the rest of your snow :) If you click on the picture to make it bigger you can see the falling snowflakes.

Another Original Design Finish !!

I finally finished one of my "Memory of Daddy" ornaments after scrapping the original one I started with a couple months back (didn't like the Carolina Linen I used) and designing a whole new chart. I like the new one much better and will be making the other three in the same way. I may need to work on the finishing a bit more I think, but am pretty well satisfied.

Here is the finished stitching.


Design: "Memory of Daddy" - Ornament
Designer: ME!!
Stitched on 32ct. cream linen by Zweigart using DMC Satin Floss (and lots of Thread Heaven), and Mill Hill beads.
Specialty Stitches: Half Diamond Eyelets, Small Rhodes Hearts, & Rhodes Diamonds. Also used cross stitch and running stitch.
Edge hemmed using the hem stitch (first time I tried this stitch).
Tied with satin ribbon and hanger made from DMC Satin Floss.
The ornament is 3-1/2" tall and 4-1/2" in circumference not counting the hanger which is another 1-1/4".

Autumn's First Snow

It's October, and in true Montana fashion we got our first snow fall of the season. This is what I woke up to this morning.

It's now doing the light snow thing but it's getting a little warmer, almost 40 so it's also starting to melt in some places. Have I ever mentioned, I Hate Snow, but I've lived in northern California (90 miles north of Reno, Nevada) and now Montana since moving with my DH from central California. He's a mountain guy, born and raised in northern California and I was born and raised a central California gal, but I do love Montana and the rural area we live in.

Our Jeep's

We found out from our insurance company that our yellow Jeep aka: Tonka Toy was totaled in an accident back in January several months before we bought it, so, you guessed it, they wouldn't cover the repair cost's.
We did get some cash back from them after the buyback fee, so my DH did all the work and got our Tonka Toy back in to drivable condition with a few upgrades.

Here are some before deer damage, deer damage, & after repairs photo's.

His first photo back in May when DH brought Tonka home.

Taken in August after a Kamakazie Deer popped out in front our Jeep. Not a pretty sight.

After my DH replaced the header, grill, headlights, & bumper. New beefier steel bumper with a winch, he's now on the look out for a suitable grill guard to mount on the bumper. He added a roof rack in July and now has our Hi-Lift jack and a shovel mounted on the side's.
I think he looks great!
That's my Lil' Jeep next to Tonka we got him running on Friday, but he wouldn't start with out DH's help on Sunday so I took him for a drive around town for a bit and now he won't start again this morning. We really don't want to have to scrap him, but also don't want to put a whole lot of money into him either, He's a 1994 and has over 200 thousand miles on him, so DH will have to decide what to do next.