Thursday, August 2, 2012

Christmas ornie--O Holy Night



O Holy Night ornie

designed by Feathers in the Nest
copyright 2012

There are so many ornies out for Christmas but I designed this one just this morning to share if you would like add one or start on Christmas ornies early. Patriotic colors give it an Americana flair.
Colors of choice
linen of choice
This is Mr. Darcy's favorite Christmas carol as so the inspiration this morning. :)

Take care and enjoy what's left of Thursday.
I slept WAY too late and fixing to go junkin' for the afternoon.
Hopefully later tonight I can stitch some, and definitely for the weekend at some point.
If you would like to share you finish, email me at jennifer.dalenberg@yahoo.com and I will share your interpretation and finish here on the blog!

With love,
Jennifer

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Sweet Meggie---new sampler inspired by The Thornbirds

  There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And, dying, it rises above its own agony to out-carol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the price of great pain... or so says the legend  ~~~~

Father Ralph to little Meggie, The Thornbirds---Wickipedia

I love this book. In fact it is my favorite classic for reasons that reasonate beyond my own childhood. In the early 80's when the movie came out on TV, I was so happy to watch the entire series nightly.
Several times, I have gone to the library to rent the entire 8 hour saga and once, I stayed up all night to look at the movie all in complete format.

By inspiration of this novel, I have designed a few of my thoughts on the Celtic theme of Sweet Meggie and Father Ralph.



Sweet Meggie
designed by Feathers in the Nest
copyright 2012

inspired by The Thornbirds novel

colors of choice
linen of choice

The larger heart is mixed in blue and red, and the 2 gold crosses represent the torn relationship between Father Ralph's  love for God and his love for Meggie which conflicted and was a choice throughout the movie, so very hard for Father Ralph to articulate.

“There are no ambitions noble enough to justify breaking someone's heart. ” from The Thornbirds novel by Colleen McCullough ---sampler verse condensed from this quote.

Along with this quote are a few of my other favorites:

Ralph, our God has given us freewill. And with that freewill comes the burden of choice.
 It is time, far past time that you took up that burden, because until you do, you cannot go on~~~the Archbishop in the Thornbirds to Father Ralph

This is the best review of the novel that I have read in a long time. There are many, many central themes to this book which I think we all can relate to in one way or another. If you would click here to read a blogger's summary, I think this writer really had some interesting takes on the novel.



Rachel Ward is a great actress in this movie. The book has many themes in it including relationships to God, to a life partner, to mother/daughter connections and many more.


And little Meggie grew up, but the relationship of love never left her for Father Ralph. In fact, it just deepened as they both changed courses in their lives and when their paths crossed over the 60 year period.


I hope you enjoy my ramblings and thoughts for Tuesday.

Till later,
Jennifer

Sunday, July 29, 2012

The Eyes Have It

This week flew by quite fast but it always does when spending it with a very close friend. Went on a trip this weekend and in the process am being trained with a new gun.....yup it's pink. LOL  I'm serious but what a gun! I would post pics but I don't want any political groups aiming at my blog for gun ownership. :)

 My first lesson of target practice at an indoor shooting range, with my new gun with an advanced instructor is this:


Yep, my instructor asked me to shoot to aim for the head and my first and third shots were between the eyes!  Shocked him!  Yup. The afternoon was quite fun and I did pretty doggone good. Then he had me aim for the center of the chest and I did that pretty doggone good too. I shocked myself.

Of course, my self-defense, advanced-training instructor is here:


and ALL his targets were right in the center. This man can shoot.

And in between this, we grilled out, watched a good movie and laughed alot.

I didn't take my magnifier light so even with my prescription glasses, I was slow but did get some progress on the sampler by BBD.


I hope to work on this some more tonight WITH my magnifier light, wrinkles and all, at least to finish the Quaker star motif. The Mulberry overdyed fiber is so pretty!

Abbie enjoyed the ride in the car and was the perfect "lady" until we went through drive-in's for food. OMG she turned into a BIG dog then. She didn't like the employees through the window.
Quite embarrassing, but she is now out like a light on a quilt asleep from her trip.

Speaking of the perfect lady.......I move on to........


In the reading arena, my Kindle goes from Jane Austen books to Ana and Christian's love story in the trilogy of Fifty Shades.  I have never read a book like this before, Fifty Shades of Grey and it definitely is for MATURE audiences but it's actually got a good background love story to it. It started out very slow but by halfway the romance was better, the storyline actually had a plot and then Wham. The end.
The ending was dissapointing and a cliffhanger. Sad.
So, I wasn't going to read the second one above but I caved and got Fifty Shades Darker. Will start on this one soon and I hope it has text to speech feature on it so I can stitch at the same time.
Will I read all three of the books?  I don't know. We'll see. I've heard such conflicting reviews but mostly the second one is a bit sweeter so I'll give it a try.

I'm also reading a Mr. Darcy book and going from Christian Grey (main character in Fifty Shades) to Mr. Darcy in another era is like turning the light switch on and off. :P

With my Kindle, I read more books (rated PG or less) LOL along with stitching at the same time with using the text to speech feature. Although a little monotone, it's great and easy on the eyes.


Just remember the eyes have it.

 Either aim with 'em or read with 'em, stitch with 'em, or sleep with 'em but...................the eyes are an important accessory. I'm thankful mine are still working well with help.

Hope your weekend was insightful!

Talk later,
Jennifer