A Young Hare

I may never finish this piece - especially if I spend the infrequent 'leisure' minutes available with blogging rather than stitching! There are 77,910 stitches in this piece (although I have stitched some pieces with more stitches, I've not really spent the time I would wish with this one). My resolution: be more disciplined with any free time I have!

This cross-stitch piece is patterned after the artist Albrecht Durer's watercolor (1502) - "A Young Hare."

Pueblo

Luther Standing Bear
Oglala Sioux

"The American Indian is of the soil, whether it be the region of forests, plains, pueblos, or mesas. He fits into the landscape, for the land that fashioned the continent also fashioned the man for his surroundings. He once grew as naturally as the wild sunflowers, he belonged just as the buffalo belonged..."

Sandpipers

Poet Elizabeth Bishop:

"All my life I have lived and behaved very much like the sandpiper - just running down the edges of different countries and continents, 'looking for something"."

Red Boots and Sunflowers

A VERY early piece that just seemed to be a cheery piece of stitching. Not complicated but fun.

The actual origin of the cowboy boot is impossible to pinpoint, as horsemen have been protecting their feet since the fifth century, in the times of Attila the Hun and his band of warriors. Yet somehow, when the world sees a cowboy boot on display, they immediatly think of the American Cowboy. The cowboy boot is as American as apple pie.

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"It was just some cowboy boots..."

http://wacobelle.org/clarkcrouch.htm

Spring at the West Gate

I think this piece had a thousand different thread colors (well - that may be an exaggeration - but there were MANY different colors). This piece was given to my husband's brother and wife and as is obvious, the snapshot was flood-damaged.

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A Prayer in Spring

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfil.

~ Robert Frost

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The Love of Stitching

" A stitch in time would have confused Einstein."

The Pumpkin Patch

Each Fall our Church has a Pumpkin Patch set up on the lawn - complete with scarecrows, story-telling time (the school children will come at scheduled times to be regaled with stories by a marvelous Scarecrow - former teacher - who has been doing this as long as and before we have lived in Seguin).

Thousands of people visit the Pumpkin Patch during this time. A couple of years ago we were eating barbecue at what we jokingly refer to as the Belmont Social Club (just a great barbecue place that doesn't look like any kind of club). Anyway - when we were there with some friends, a couple came into the cafe wearing the FUMC Pumpkin Patch tee-shirts and mentioned that they lived in London, England and just happened to be driving down Austin Street when they saw the hundreds of pumpkins and folks all over the place, having such a great time - and they had to stop! This Pumpkin Patch has been great for the community!