Pheasant in the desert

We rolled in last night.  View out our back patio at the edge of a golf course this morning.  My CHS Frederick matches Moab.  Now to dress the kids and go get the hubs hot on the 4x4!

Off we go!

First of several days of our road trip.  Here is to beginnings!

Lead into Gold (A Finish)

It's been months since I had the satisfaction of a finish, but yesterday I finally put the last stitches into my version of Ink Circles' "Alchemical Romance"!  You can click the photos for larger versions...

 It's a sampler of alchemical symbols--what scientists used in the medieval times, before the periodic table and the foundations of chemistry were worked out.  With my background in geochemistry and history, I had to stitch this.

I used HDF silk in Primitive Black, Examplar Lark's Tounge, and a mystery gold color on 36 ct Picture This Plus "Ancient".  See those old books in the background?  Maybe not so well, here's a closer look:

Those gorgeous covers were my inspiration for the color palette I used.  The books-- "Die Opale"-- were published in 1907 by a great great uncle of mine or somesuch.  Or so I'm told.  I can't read them because they are written in old German.   

Sharp-eyed viewers will notice that I changed the pattern a little bit, in addition to the charted colors.  The original pattern has another symbol for gold in the center-- but I noticed after going over the pattern that there was no symbol for "lead" included.  So, because it's always the old story that the alchemists were trying to turn lead into gold (and would not succeed, of course), I tracked down the old symbol for lead and plunked it in the center instead.  In my opinion I think it gives the overall sampler more of a focus point this way as well. 

But this was a fun stitch.  Something like this that has a lot of small "finishes" packed into it was great for the busy last few months; even though not much stitching was actually getting done I got to feel somewhat accomplished fairly regularly.  :) 

And as reward I get to start something else, hee hee!  You saw it at the end of the last post--another Ink Circles, this time "Mother Maya".  Yay!

Sagebrush air

Yeee-haw!

I am officially on vacation as of the end of the day today, but because all my deadlines are met, I'm going to play a little and update this neglected blog. 
Last week was our annual bow-fishing campling expedition to Vantage, Washington, on the banks of the Columbia River.  Beautiful.  I have missed that sagebrush air. 

There was some stitching done, but I forgot to take a picture because frankly there was a better view to be had.

I was able to complete a few more motifs on my Alchemical Romance while out there, which means I have ONE more motif left!  I am sure that will be done this weekend.  THEN, this will be my reward:

Anybody recognize that little corner of the pattern peeking out?  It's not like I don't have any other neglected projects to work on, but I think this might be a fantastic start for our road trip next week.   Andiamo!