New Loose Feathers pattern

Barb and I have been on a roll! We just took the newest Loose Feathers pattern to the printer yesterday. Sarah’s House is the second of the 2012 series of four Loose Feather booklets which revolve around antique samplers. 

The antique sampler which inspired the booklet is pictured above.  We found this piece on e-bay (our favorite place to get in trouble) and fell in love with it immediately. Any sampler with a house always captures our attention. The young girl who stitched this piece only signed it with her first name. If you look under the front steps you will see she used two colors of floss to stitch in her name.

The reproduction offered in the pattern is a bit different from the original. I did stitch my daughter's name on my sampler. Although, now I wish I would have used two colors of floss as Sarah did! I guess I forgot to look at the original sampler before I got out my needle and thread.

Bee Update:
 In beekeeping class we were told to provide water for the bees. The girls get thirsty during hot dry days. I dutifully carried a small bird bath out to the hives and placed it close so the bees wouldn't have to go far for water. Much to my surprise I found they never used it. I continued to fill it full of clean water daily.....but I only saw one or two bees drinking from it. 

 Two days ago, while watering my flowers out front I noted the birdbath by my front door was abuzz with the gals....about 100 of them. I was surprised that they flew over the house for water when I had some right out back adjacent to their hives. After more study I found you can't put the water closer than 10 feet from the hive. 

 Foraging bees let the others know where to find flowers and water. They do a dance that communicates distance and location in relationship to the sun. They have no way to communicate something in close proximity. Who knew? I try to make things easy and find I've made them fly over the house. Now all the gals are out front to greet any guests that might venture to the front door.

Guess I should get a sign that says: 
Beeware! 

Until later,

Alma