The Guild Show 2022....

 

I Found Some Treasures...

Well, Dear Readers, I was able to make it to the International Guild of Miniature Artisans Show which was held last weekend not too far from my home. And I came away with some Lovely Treasures! Above, you can see a perfectly Gorgeous tiny silver Reindeer and Sleigh! It is made by Pete Acquisto...yes, I could not resist this tiny wonder. But it was not the only lovely treasure I found.

 

 

 

At the very next table I found an amazing ceramic vase

by Van T. Potter (Susan Van Tubbergen)

 with tiny sea turtles climbing around the outside....

and a delicate blue crackle glaze.

 

 

A Tiny pair of shoes by "The Shoe Cobbler" had to come home with me....

 even though I don't know who they will belong to.

Holiday pies.... much better than any I have made...!

by Jan Petrie of Autumn Leaf Studio

 

 

Beautifully bound books.... from The Little Dollhouse Company, 

with fully printed pages (I dare not crack the spines!).

One is a Medieval Herbal,

 another is Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales"

 (Illuminated Huntington Library version), 

and the third is Blake's "Song's of Innocence and Experience",

 again, the illustrated original engraved edition!

 

 

A metal treadle sewing machine...

An old fashioned style resin radiator....

A needlepoint sampler kit by Annelle Ferguson... 

I got a couple of different ones.

A needlepoint kit of the Icon in a local church, 

designed by Phyllis Stafford.

And the Most Amazing Treasure .... 

(and the most expensive!)

a genuine hand knotted miniature Persian carpet, 

made with silk threads on a real loom.

Kaye Savage Browning, 

who founded the KSB Miniatures Collection,

 a museum in Kentucky  was selling these

 and I neglected to write down the name

 of the man who made them. I need to do some research!

This carpet is just too beautiful to believe!

Of course, I also bought many run-of-the-mill little items

 like cloth and laces and small "silver plate" dishes and....

Well, you can guess, Dear Readers, I overspent my Budget! 

But I don't regret a single item!

And in case you wanted to see the stitching update on the latest project....

The Baktiari carpet by Phyllis Stafford...

I am making good progress!

And for those who wondered,

 I did start the stitching in the exact middle of the design....

 but I scooted it over to one side of the gauze

 so I could have a good amount of

 the gauze left over for more stitching!

Yes, Dear Readers, 

I found some Lovely Treasures

 at The Guild Show!

 

There And Back Again....

 

 I've Looked at Clouds....

Yes, Dear Readers, I have been Traveling again, taking the long Journey to the Southwest to see my Family who live out there. As I mentioned last year, it is a long way, requiring three different flights, and this year they stretched over two days because the last leg "puddlehopper" out of Albuquerque had been cancelled. I had to spend the night in a hotel and take the morning flight the next day. And as you can see in the above picture I looked at clouds.... and took lots of pictures, one of my favorite things to do! I was particularly intrigued that the clouds in the above picture are forming only over the land.... not the rivers or the bays! I believe this was flying over Maryland and Chesapeake Bay, but I cannot be sure.

This is the other end of the second flight

 as we are coming in over the Sandia Crest to land in Albuquerque.

The plane approaches and flies rather close over the mountains

 and then drops precipitously into the Rio Grande Valley to land at Albuquerque.

And The following morning the "puddlehopper" prepares to take off for Silver City.

Those mountains are the Sandia Crest that we flew over on arrival.

I will try not to bore you.... 

but there were a lot of clouds over the desert too!

And beautiful sunset views from my Mother's house as well!

Up in the hills at my Dad's house the following day it poured rain...

Thunder and lightning crashing around. 

They have been having a good Monsoon this year.

It didn't rain as much in the valley....

but there were Rainbows.....

It looks fainter and smaller in the photo than it did in person.

We visited a little botanical garden near Mom's house.

The plants are mostly unfamiliar to me.

Everyone kept saying how green everything was because of the rain.

More clouds.....

Another rainbow.... a little harder to see.... but there!

And we took a field trip up into the Gila Wilderness

 which begins just north of Silver City.... 

and covers hundreds of miles of wilderness and mountains and cliffs....

To see the trees....

And the wildflowers....

 

They are a little past their best bloom... 

but beautiful nonetheless.

And rocks!

 

She didn't go far, but Mom had a short walk to see some blossoms...

And Daisy, Mom's dog, got to have a short run in the woods too!

She clearly wonders why we are not going farther.

I was glad I was not the driver... 

this is the view from the passenger seat!

This was on one of the more "civilized" roads.

The visit is never long enough.... 

seems to be done just as you are getting adjusted... 

to the time change, to the dry air... to the big sky.....

suddenly it's time to go back again...

The "puddlehopper" waiting to board...

Clouds over the desert on the way up to Albuquerque...

Flying north along the Rio Grande Valley as we leave Albuquerque...

 

Popcorn clouds flying East over Texas....

Hours later crossing the Mississippi River

 where it snakes towards the Gulf of Mexico...

And much later again,  flying through the clouds 

as we take off from Atlanta on the last leg of the trip home.

 The sun is beginning to set and it will be night when we land.

 

 Well, Dear Readers, you might wonder

 if I got anything of a mini nature done...

And I did bring a couple of little needlepoint kits with me,

 just in case I had time to stitch.

One of Janet Granger's kits, a Cat Tea Cosy, 

which I was able to start working on in the hotel.

And another of her Christmas Stocking Kits... 

which I also worked on at the hotel. 

It is stitched on 40 count silk gauze.

I did make a bit more progress on it while at my Mom's.

I apologize for the blurry photo....

 yes, it was dark out already!

It is a long trip in the Big wide World....

Not much Mini about it!

But I saw my Folks... 

Hugs and Smiles included!

And looked at clouds... from both sides....

There and back again....

It is good to be home!

Stitching Progress....

 

 And More Stitching Projects....

I had Hoped, Dear Readers, that I would have completed the background stitching on the Ladies Tapestry by now, but other things have intervened and slowed the progress to a crawl. The Too hot weather of the past few weeks did not help, but I also worked on other lagging projects, some of them RL and some of them in the mini homes. We got a break from the extreme heat but didn't get the rain we needed until today. At last it is raining! It might rain all night and into tomorrow! Such a relief after the drought we have endured all summer. Suffice it to say, my attention to mini details has been scattered at best, with nothing finished and little to show. At least, that is how it feels to me, but when I look at the past few weeks I have accomplished a few small things! And I have kept at the stitching as much as possible.

Here you can see the background slowly surrounding the Ladies....

It is SO satisfying to see the dark ground

 bring out the colors of the gowns and the blossoms!

And here you can see that I am nearly finished....

Except that I got distracted by the Next stitching project....

Which will be a Doozey!

Can you even see the stitches....?

This is 40 count silk gauze...!

It is a kit I bought several years ago at the IGMA Show in Hartford,

 but quickly discovered that it was beyond my skill level

 so I put it aside.

It is a kit from Phyllis Stafford, IGMA Fellow

 and embroiderer extrordinaire. 

Sadly, she passed away last spring.

I think the pattern is gorgeous....!

But look at the chart!!!

(This is why I put it away so quickly!)

But now I have much more experience with 40 count stitching,

 and stitching from black and white symbol charts too.

I feel bold and adventurous....!

I jumped right in.... determined to get it started at least!

I use my magnifier for this scale work.....

I really wanted to see how it would look,

 with all the colors for this lozenge in play....

only to discover I had made a counting mistake in the yellow threads....

 way back in the beginning....! Way too late to unstitch!

But it is only a tiny one-stitch mistake that

 might never be noticeable once the carpet is complete.

So I will keep on stitching, Dear Readers, 

making good progress on my Projects!