A surprise!

Well Sam and Samantha have invited guests.  There are now 4 of the little devils having a grand time in my garden.  I hope they find a new place to play very soon!  But I know it is doubtful.  Thank you all for your comments and suggestions.

To celebrate the 1 year anniversary of my blog I have decided to have a Give-a-way!  To enter you just add a comment here.  I will put all the names in a hat and have my grandson Alex draw out a name.  The winner will received the charts for Quaker Virtues Honesty and Wisdom.

Thank you all for your wonderful comments.  It means a lot to me.  I forgot to mention that the drawing will be on Sunday, June 6.

The Squirrels from H*ll !!!

Once upon a time there was a lady who loved to feed the birds and watch them play.  She kept her feeders nice and clean and there was always lots of seed for the birds to eat.  One day she was looking out at her garden and noticed that there were no birds around the feeders.  She went out to see what was wrong and alas the feeders were completely empty.  How can this be she thought.  I just filled them up last evening.  She went to get more seed and filled them nice and full so she could watch the birds. A little later she went once more to the window and still there were no birds but then she saw a movement.  There in one of the feeders sat a small gray squirrel eating all the seed. She tried to sh-h-ssh him away but he just looked at her as if she had said nothing at all.  Again she tried to sh-h-ssh him away but he continued to ignore her.  She went to get something to scare him away when a second squirrel joined the first and they began to play around the feeder and eat all the seed. With each attempt to scare them away their reactions got worse and worse until they were baring teeth and threatening to bite.   In spite of her efforts she could not get the squirrels to leave.  So finally she lowered one of the feeders close to the ground for them and has now adopted Sam and Samantha--the squirrels from H*ll.  :)

Here are a few more photos of my garden.  My lilacs are fully blooming and smell so wonderful.  I just love them.  My roses are also blooming and look great.  I have been spending much time outside these last few weeks and it has been very hard work.  But the result is so worth it.

Roses from daughter and pictures of finished samplers.

These are the two dozen Roses that my daughter and son-in-law gave me for Mothers Day.  Aren't they beautiful?  They came in the most beautiful vase and look and smell wonderful. They came over on Mother's Day and my wonderful, beautiful and sweet daughter handed me this beautiful vase of roses with a very touching card. When I read the card tears just came forward, so thank you my wonderful beautiful dear Jeannette, love you so much. My son Harold called me from Houston also to wish me a happy Mothers Day, it was so nice to talk to him and hear some news about my other two grandchildren, love you son, and I feel very blessed to have two wonderful children, God bless you both.

I also wanted to share with you the link to Carol S's photos. She has done some wonderful pieces and I enjoyed looking at them very much. Hope you do also.
http://community.webshots.com/user/samplerfarmer

This next photo is Deb's Evil Serpent.  Deb did a wonderful job stitching this and I love the way she framed it. Thank you Deb for being so kind and sharing a picture of your finished piece, love the frame.

And finally Patti D sent me photos of her And They Sinned. She did a wonderful job on it. It is stitched on 32 ct Belfast linen using the called for GAST Threads.  She ommitted the green at the bottom of the design. Thank you Patti for sharing and letting me post pictures of your finished ATS, what a beautiful job you did, and I love the frame you picked.

The frame was done at Fancimats in Littleton, CO.

Thank you all for sharing these photos with me. I love sharing all your finishes and wips on my blog. It is so rewarding to see people actually stitching the pieces that I designed.

I would also like to thank all the wonderful people for their nice comments, they mean alot to me.

Blessing to all, Vilma

MY WIP AND STASH

This is the latest photo of AAWFAA.  My progress is slow because I have been spending so much time working in my garden.  But I thought you might enjoy seeing an update.

 I don't usually show the back sides but someone was asking about it so I thought I would share that also.  I always try to keep my backs looking neat but sometimes it is easier than other times.
















I also thought I would share with you some photos of my latest stash,  I am a scissor fanatic and I should have never checked with Madstitcher  but I did and found these beautiful scissors on her website and had to have them, are they not beautiful!! The top two are a matte pewter look.  They are called Middle Ages and the matte Storks. They are very sharp and really feel nice in the hand.   I love the black ones, they are the flying witch, the black sheep, the smiling cat and the wide eyed owl and she also has a white sheep scissor but did not have any in stock, so she is ordering me one, I just love those sheep scissors. The big black one, is a very old scissor I had for years, I found it at a garage sale when we lived in TN and love it, I am always looking for old scissors.















































I am thrilled that Kathy is now the USA distributor for Gigi R designs.  I have some of the Letter Samplers since I am collecting the initials of my husband, children and grandchildren and also mine to stitch one of these days, I am waiting for Gigi to release the "H". Kathy says it should be ready in the next week or so.

I would like to wish everyone a Happy Mother's Day.  Blessings to each of you who are mothers or have been role models for children.  I think this is the most important role we have as women today. and we should celebrate and honor those who have undertaken this job whether through biology or not.

Hope everyone is enjoying the wonderful weather and stitching away, well I am off to the nursery to find some plants I need.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to all the Mother's.

Blessings, Vilma

FUN AND WORKING

Since the club house is still closed and it will not open till the middle of May, we decided to get Grant a little pool and set it up in the back yard, even though it was a little cool for swimming, Grant was having a great time.

So while my husband and I were working hard in the yard, pulling weeds, planting, setting mulch and trimming, we still did our best to keep our eyes on Grant. Later his parents picked him up and we kept on working on the yard, by the time it was 7:30 pm we came into the house dirty, sweaty and tired. We took a bath and had a late dinner and we were so tired that we went straight to bed, but it felt good to fall asleep tired after a hard days work.

Blessings, Vilma