It’s true you know. Old hobbies never die. They just lie dormant until they are poked and prodded back into active life again. For the last few years my hobby has become knitting, but in the before-time I did needlework of varying kinds. Now my embroidery passion is again coursing through my veins and itching to fly out through my fingers. More about why a little later in this post.

My first needle-y hobby was crewel work. [Crewel has most of the same stitches as embroidery but is done with yarn instead of floss.] Mostly I just bought small kits and did them for family members. This one I brought back from my mom’s house and I think it was one of the first ones I ever did. I think it was a kit by Sunset.

Bless mom’s heart. She had it framed and hanging on the wall.

This piece was also framed and hanging on her wall. A Christmas gift.

Whatever possessed me to take on such a big needlework project (20” x 15”) I can’t imagine!  The pansies were done in 1975 and this epic was worked in 1978. I was on a crewel roll!

Here are a few close-ups.

Maybe I got overwhelmed with that project, I don’t know, but I moved from crewel on to counted cross-stitch and stuck with it for many years. Mostly samplers.

This one I modified the real pattern of the cats to portray each of the cats we had had up to that time, so each one with a name embroidered underneath it has custom markings and coat color.

Why I chose this one I’m not quite sure but it was fun to work on.

I also liked to do flowers ...

None of these were ever framed. They just never seemed to fit into the decor of whatever house we were living in with the exception of “Home Sweet Home” at the very beginning of this post. That one, I’m sure you’ll agree, fits in most anywhere.

What followed was a big gap in my creativity with any kind of needle. The hobby then became dogs. Breeding dogs ... showing dogs ... collecting dogs. A truly all-consuming hobby.

Then knitting arrived on the scene and all the unfinished or never begun needlework projects got shoved further back in the closet.

About three or four months ago I started to get the urge again and bought a very small “Learn to Embroider” kit at Michaels just to remind me of the stitches and see if I really would enjoy doing it again. I did, but the design was boring and I really couldn’t see myself hanging anything on my wall that said “Believe in Yourself.”

What really jump-started this old-but-found-again passion is the fault of two blogging sisters. Becky (of the heirloom iris) blogged about some quilt squares her sister had embroidered for the new grandbaby’s quilt. They were absolutely adorable and beautifully stitched! Then most recently she blogged again about her sister’s prowess with a needle in the form of these gorgeous teapot tea towels. I was totally hooked.

Tea towels! Now those I could use or give as useful gifts and how fun to create! With the help and advice of Becky’s sister Jan who pointed me in all the right directions, I purchased some iron-on transfer patterns on eBay and some flour sack cotton towels. Now I can hardly wait for them to arrive so I can get started!

I’ll be posting more on them when they arrive, but they are all designs of the vintage variety from the 1940’s and 50’s. And oh, by the way, If you think you might be a future recipient of some hand-embroidered tea towels and you really don’t think you’d want them, you’d better let me know.

The rain woke me up this morning at 4:00 a.m. It was a nice sound but I never did get back to sleep. It’s dark and gloomy out and for a while this morning it was hard to tell it was morning. The grass has greened up a bit and the forsythia hedge has taken on a golden glow, which means it’s thinking about blooming. The daffodils and day lilies are up by a few inches, some of my heirloom iris have sprouted little green flags (hurray!), and Rick spotted the first bear of the season just the other day. 

Spring has sprung here in New Jersey, but ever so slowly.

Can you tell I’ve been spending a lot of time with my Rosetta Stone?
{words added} photo: on the beach, Riviera Maya

Yesterday we took advantage of the “warmer” day and did a much needed cleaning up of the front yard. Having trees is a wonderful thing but they do drop a lot of small branches. This is only one of the three wheelbarrowfuls of sticks that we collected. Instead of tossing them in the woods we put them in our kindling box for next year’s fire-starting stash. The way the weather has been going of late we may use some of them up this coming week!

The weather seems confused. It wants to be spring; I truly believe it does. Maybe it just doesn’t remember. Yesterday was in the high 40’s with mixed sun and clouds. A chilly breeze made it feel cooler than it actually was, but when the sun came out strong for a few minutes it felt nice and warm. Warm enough to shed our jackets while we worked.

The trees seem to think spring is imminent and have popped their buds. I hope they are not being too hasty as our temperatures are supposed to dip again this week, forcing us to wear scarves and gloves again.

After the yard work we came back inside and I made some Breakfast Bread, better known in our house as “Sylvie Bread.” (Sylvie Lallemand, a friend of ours, runs a cooking school in Provence. She made this bread for breakfast every day when we attended her school.)

A dense whole wheat bread sprinkled with sesame seeds, it’s best toasted under the broiler instead of a toaster and topped with butter and honey. (My breakfast this morning!)

Other happenings over the weekend included walks with the dogs and practicing Bella’s obedience lesson. And, it looks like I will have to start my Spanish lessons back up again since we will be returning to Mexico in early May. This time we will be visiting Rick’s parents who are staying in the old colonial town of San Miguel de Allende for a few months. Can’t wait! If you follow the link you’ll see why I am not leaving my camera at home! Olé!

I don’t know if you’ve noticed the subtle change in the nightly news or not. I know I have. Since the stock market had its first good days last week, things seem to be slowly on the upswing. Instead of being fed a nightly diet of doom and gloom stories, now suddenly happy stories full of hope are emerging. It’s a nice change to hear encouraging news. Were they feeding us only the doom and gloom diet to keep us all in a funk? I’m certain the good things were still happening, it was just that they chose not to report on them. Why?

Did they really want us all sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves, hoarding our money and not contributing to the economy making things even worse? I know sometimes our world news would end with an uplifting story but the rest was pretty hard to watch. After taking all that in I needed an antacid!

It’s amazing how powerful the news media really is. They choose what they want us to hear and see. They shape our perceived image of our country and its economy. I mean I know things are bad, but don’t they just make it worse? I have to wonder sometimes if it’s all just a self-fulfilling prophesy.

I don’t know about you but I like to think there is light at the end of the tunnel and soon we will emerge on the other end.

Livingston Manor Covered Bridge in Rockland, New York