Finally, A Finish I Can Show

Last week, I did finish the cross-stitching on my Pyn Keepe for Edgar's round on HOE but can't show it till assembled, sent and received. But today I finished Sue Donnelly's sampler, Hear the Sea Call. This was a very quick stitch, but packed with all sorts of fun little surprises. The embellishments worked so nicely, bringing the sampler to life. The satin stitches and shell eyelets seemed to fly from the needle [a welcome change from the painstakingly slow 1/4 stitches and counting/recounting on Tracery Dragons]. The lettering was quick and easy, comprised as it was of long stitches and backstitches. I might almost have been writing with pen and ink: that's how quickly the words flowed onto linen. While I didn't really time this project, I think it took no more than five or six hours of stitching since Sunday evening when I first picked it up. I'll have to e-mail Sue and tell her that her souvenir sampler from The Stitcher's Hideway [Sturbridge 2011] pretty much saved my stitching sanity. And, I received a lovely gift from in the mail yesterday from Barb H from Illinois: this Homespun Elegance chart and a veritable treasure trove of Old Brasse buttons. That's the second giveaway I've been lucky enough to win in the past month. Especially when you consider I have gone several years without entering my name in a giveaway and then come up the winner in the first two I enter. Could things be any better? I am going to enjoy all this good karma for as long as it lasts. Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket!