Heart and Home In Stitches!

Hello everyone!!! Did you miss me? Did anyone notice I was gone, I wonder?! Well, let me tell you, I had a long two weeks without my blogging friends!  Here's hoping that our computer's technical difficulties have been fixed for good - but I don't have a good feeling about it! It's been a real headache getting this post together, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. How strange that I, the formerly anti-computer and technology challenged rebel realize how much I was itching to get back to blogging! It's  just not any fun being away from you guys for such a long time,  I have really missed all of you! It's good to be back!

 I want to show you what I found when I was digging around in my sewing/craft room. I was looking for cheesecloth to use for the wings I was making for daughter #2's Tinkerbell costume. I know I have some in there somewhere....still haven't found it. But I did rediscover this little crewel embroidery project that I started awhile ago. (I get the prize for longest procrastinator - when I say "awhile ago" I actually mean 20 years ago. I started working on these two lovebirds way back when Mr. HandH and I got married!)

Do any of you embroider? My mom was a wonderful seamstress, and she liked to keep her hands busy. She was always working on one project after another, and she especially enjoyed doing crewel work and embroidery. She made so many beautiful pillows, bellpulls, holiday linens, and large embroidered pictures throughout the years, and taught me how to do simple stitches when I was very young. We would work on projects together in the evenings. I remember back in high school embroidering my favorite pair of jeans with little designs all over the back pockets. At one point I had stitched my jeans right to the knee of the ones I was wearing!  While I had been working I rested the fabric on my leg, and I hadn't noticed that I had stitched right through my pants!  I had to cut away all the work I had done, boy was I angry, and I felt so stupid! I never did that again. ( I wish I still had those jeans, my girls would love them!) Lately it seems that the art of crewel work and embroidery has become less popular, you don't see too many kits at the craft stores anymore. But I always thought it was a nice way to spend some time, and to create something pretty by hand.

Anyway, I took advantage of my down time away from all of you and thought I'd to try to finish these two llittle birds.  And I did! It only took me a few hours. Twenty years and a few hours!! What had I been waiting for, I wonder?

At long last it's done, and now I'm looking for a nice frame to put it in. So there's still that part to do. But I wanted to show you the before, anyway, and I'm inspired and detetermined to finish it completely for next week's DIY day. Or for the one 20 years from now.....

Also, I want to say a big thank you to all of you for your kind thoughts before Mr. HandH's surgery. It went well  and he is healing nicely. He's back to work, but still using crutches. He really hates it and wants to break out of his brace and go running and biking. But doctor's orders are to stay off his leg for a while longer- to be patient and let nature do it's work for a bit, before he goes out and tempts fate again. Not easy for him at all. At this point I am ready to take the sawzall to his  mountain bike....but that is another story!!

I'm linking to DIY Day at A Soft Place to Land. Thanks Kimba!

Until next time

XO

Heidi