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West Virginia
When I started my retirement travels in 2009, I wanted a way to share it with family and friends as it was happening. Hence, "My Travel Journal". However I realized I wouldn't always be on a trip and wondered what to do with the blog in between times. My daughter pointed out, wisely, that travels can also include trips to the kitchen to try a new recipe, trips to visit family, trips to my neighborhood Starbucks, or a fun day trip with a friend. You're welcome to join me on any of these journeys! I've set up individual pages for each of my major trips (see tabs above).

Also, I have an Etsy shop where my current needlework resides. The last pieces I posted here were in 2013! So if you'd like to see what I have accomplished recently, go to (and I apologize for having to copy and paste):

www.etsy.com/shop/thedollhouseneedle

I recently added an "Italian Word a Day" thingie which shows up at the bottom of every page. You see the word and can click to hear it pronounced. I've been enjoying it and I think my accent is improving as time goes by.

February 22, 2010

The Finished Product

Not much going on here except for a lot of lunches out with friends last week, including one at the new Huntington Prime restaurant and, once again, I was pretty happy with it.  And it was crowded at lunch too, so I hope they can keep the momentum.

But I did finish the vase of flowers petitpoint and am posting a picture of that.  I ended up, after all my travails, pleased with the final result.  As a last attempt to try and get a metallic gold on the handles and trim (which were that sort of brilliant yellow), I stitched the metallic thread over the brilliant yellow.  Back when I first tried the metallic, I was stitching it straight on to the bare gauze and it's a wiry enough thread that it just sort of crimped and didn't look good.  But with the padding of the yellow underneath, I pretty much ended up with the effect I wanted.


I  made the frame too and that turned out to be quite a different experience also.  I guess I had never framed a petitpoint piece before - just made rugs.  And I'm used to framing cross stitch miniatures where I make the frame to the size I want and then cut the fabric to fit the frame precisely.  With petitpoint, the design ends where it ends and so the frame has to be a precisely, basically perfect fit to cover the blank gauze up to the stitching but hopefully not beyond.  So that took several cutting sessions...

And I think I reported about the pumpkin shortage and how that was a problem since I wanted to make pumpkin stuffed ravioli?  Well, I stopped at this tiny little grocery store here in town where I go when I'm looking for a different selection than is available at the big stores and, lo and behold, they had cans of pumpkin!!  So I bought some fresh sage this evening and hope to get busy and make some ravioli with pumpkin.  I think I may find after I've made my first batch that I want to buy a ravioli maker thingie like I've seen here and there cause I think I may find it tricky getting the exact right amount of filling, folding over the dough and getting a good seal, etc.  But we'll see...

And, thinking about making this and using a butter, olive oil and sage "dressing" on it, I've been wondering if I could take like a whole stick of butter, the appropriate amount of oil and sage, cook it all up and then refrigerate it or maybe even freeze it for future use.  Cause to just make one serving won't use up much sage and I get so tired of buying and throwing out fresh herbs.  I think I'll probably at least try it and see what happens.

For tonight though, I'm off to eat a bowl of chili!

2 comments:

Christopher said...

Sounds like you need to get a little window-sill herb garden "greenhouse" going, so you could just pick 4 or 5 sage leaves when you need them... ;)
Beautiful little bit of artwork... I think the metallic thread is perfect. And the frame looks great, too.

Unknown said...

Ooooohhhhh, that sounds go-oo-ood! Let me know how the ravioli turn out.

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