A Little Help From My Friends…

Oh my. My mailbox has been filled with blessings abound. I so appreciate it. Really…you all know how to make a girl feel good. Typically I don’t show mail posts anymore but I just couldn’t resist.

Blog reader Debbie sent goodies…

..and I forgot to take a picture of my favorite thing of the bunch. The light green fabric had silk embroidery on it. I already took it upstairs with the hope of figuring out if I could make it into something. I was thinking maybe a spring pillow. We’ll see.

Blog readers and friends have sent cards…Here is a sampling…

I so appreciate it. Volunteers at the Animal Rescue I work with pooled some money and bought me a Walmart gift card to help with my cancer set back. SO SWEET. I’ve gotten cards from many others including Annie…She always has something with a goat. I just love it. Goats hold fond childhood memories and I love that Annie shares her love of goats. She also sent a gift of money.

I’ll be using that towards the part of treatment that insurance didn’t cover…but Annie did say to buy something for me and I think I have an idea of what that might be. Because I got a package from Sally on the same day…

Oh, my Sally. You know me so well. She sent some reproduction print fabric…These are bigger pieces. I love them. I especially love the face print fabric. My daughter Kelli and I have a long-standing running joke about the fabric. I have loved it and Kelli has not. She would jokingly look through pieces of fabric in my quilts and declare whether she did or didn’t like my quilt according to whether there was “face fabric” in it.

I ALWAYS tried to sneak a scrap of it into my quilts just to tease her. Well, a few years ago I ran out of face print fabric. NO MORE!! It lives on and I’m going to find a great pattern for it. SO FUN!! The teasing will continue.

She also sent scraps. They went directly to the ironing board and are going directly into my Smores quilt. I love adding variety to my scraps. S

Sally was so kind and blew me away. She sent me cross-stitch charts. It’s like she had access to my wish list and filled it. Seriously. So many charts she sent I have physically written down on a wish-to-stitch list.

Here are the first two. I just saw someone on Flosstube stitching Thistle House. I can’t remember who but I thought it was so cute.

I adore all of these. Liberty House on the top left is one I’ve REALLY wanted to stitch. I almost bought the Rabbit with the Tulips chart last Spring but ran out of Spring stitching time. Oh, I love it. I watched a Flosstuber stitch that one too. I have never seen the Give chart from Plum Street Samplers but I love that. Had I seen it before, I likely would have bought it. So pretty.

I love the bunnies with the alphabet. I don’t have many spring-stitched things. This has been on my list to stitch but something else trumped it for my stitching time. Now I have the pattern and that’s a start. I can pretty much say the same thing about the patriotic Liberty pattern. I love it!! I like the Santa Stops Here pattern. I have contemplated buying it even though I’m not a Santa girl. I thought about making the snowman bigger or making two snowmen but never bought it because I didn’t know if I could figure out how to do that. Now I can at least check the chart over and see if there is a way to do it. I already stitched the companion piece to it.

This one is cute…I have seen Flosstubers stitching this one too. I believe it was a stitch-along.

…and then…be still my heart. Sarah Fletcher from Hands Across the Sea was in the pack. I have almost bought this so many times. SO MANY! It’s my favorite of all the Hands Across the Sea patterns. The DMC for it came with it as well. WOW. I’ve never bought a spiral-bound chart from her before and everyone raves about her charts and what an amazing job Hands Across the Sea does. Now I can check it out for myself. You have to know that I would love this because of all the red. I also like the size. LOVE-LOVE!!

Another “be still my heart moment” came when I saw this one. This is another I’ve been contemplating and contemplating. This is Caroline Anelia Trowell. I have so loved this but kept telling myself I had to stitch something else before I could buy this chart. I’m trying to be a good girl. I love the saying on it, “Beauty’s a blossom that soon fades away but virtues’s a flower that will never decay”.

I have wanted to stitch cross-stitch pieces in honor of my grandmothers. Many cross stitchers do it but I never quite could reconcile that. One grandma who I never met, my dad’s mom, I have talked here telling you she came from Sweden. She had passed before I was born.

My other Grandma was not really a nice woman. When my sister, the oldest in the family, was born, she wasn’t allowed to call her Grandma. She had to call her Evylon because she was “too young to be a Grandma”. My mom was abused as a child by her dad and brothers. My Grandma did nothing to step in and help her.

My Grandma was always nice to me but I really only saw her a few times a year. She died the same year my mom did. I was 24. The memories I do have of her she was fussing about her hair…talking about how good-looking or not good-looking someone was. Those kinds of things. She was a very vain woman who easily lied.

Again…she was never directly mean to me and my mom, the wonderful woman that was, NEVER was like that. On our branch of the family tree, the abuse and issues, stopped with my mom’s parents. I am so proud of my mom for that. My mom was fabulous.

In my thoughts of stitching something for my grandmothers, I couldn’t help but think why would I stitch something for this not-so-nice grandma?

When I saw this sampler and the saying on it, I realized these words are the exact words I would like to say to my grandma if I could today. “Beauty’s a blossom that soon fades away but virtues’s a flower that will never decay”.

I love the look of the sampler. I love the sentiment. I love the personal meaning for me.

I opened the book and took a little look at it. The sampler is a reproduction. This is the antique. I love that.

There is also a write-up about the history. I can’t wait to read that.

With my personal thoughts about this, you can see why Sally sending me the chart made me so happy. I think it’s the little nudge that makes me know that my stitching it was meant to be!!

Sally did send two charts that I have but have never stitched. I’m going to check with my daughter Kelli and see if she wants to stitch either one. If she does I will pass them to her but if not, I’ll offer them up as a giveaway on the blog passing on the blessing of Sally’s wonderful gift.

…and after opening Sally’s box. I knew what I was going to get to treat myself with Annie’s encouragement to “buy something for myself”. I’m going to buy the threads to stitch up one of the charts from Sally’s box…or the linen if I don’t have something. What a fun blessing!!

I’ve been taking the charts with me and thinking and thinking about what I want to stitch first. So friends…which chart would you pick? Please leave a comment and let me know.

I can’t thank you all enough for all the wonderful ways you have blessed me. It is so appreciated. It feels so good to have you looking out for me. Many-many words of thankfulness have been raised by me.