Weekend Wanderings!

We had another beautiful weekend, but it was hot. We stayed home most of saturday and waited till the late afternoon, before we hit the Wickford Art Show. It is the oldest running art show in New England. There was a lot of beautiful paintings and unique art, as well as photographers. The artists are lined up on the sidewalks, on both sides of the two main roads, so a lot of walking and art to take in.

One booth that caught my eye and drew me in was a photograph of rocks with a red heart rock in the center. The work was by Patrick Zephyr and he truly captures the essence of the scene and evokes the emotions of his photographs. The heart photo can be seen HERE. I bought a card with the heart photo, that was in my budget;) I am inspired to try some photos with the rocks and beach items, I have collected.

Here is the end portion of Main Street in Wickford. We also stopped in the shops along the way, but most are specialty items and geared for tourists.

Sunday we visited my SIL and enjoyed her beach. I got to try my little sit on kayak, which I realize is only good for playing on, not to do any distance. Of course, Bean had a good time, he was able to go off leash and run along the beach and enjoy some time in the water.

I hope everyone had a nice weekend, as well.

Antiqued Cross Stitches

I finally got around to antiquing my pieces. The first one I stained and realized when it came out of the dryer, that it had crease marks. So, I wet it a bit and ironed it out, so it is a bit better now. I wish I could get a picture to show how nice it looks in person. Really prim and it looks nice in that frame, but maybe a mat to go with it? It is just stuck in there for the photo, I still need to read up on how to frame properly and then I will frame it permanently.



The second one, is one I designed myself. I sprayed and ironed before I antiqued it. Works much better that way;)
I stuck it in this frame for now to take a photo, but I need to find one that fits it better. If I had more room, a dark mat would really set it off.

I can't wait to finish them and display them on my wall. I decided to get pc stitch so I can make my own and I am working on a mermaid piece. The program does not work as well as I would like, maybe I am missing something. But, I expected a nice clear color drawing to come out as a clear pattern. It gave me way too many colors and if you reduce them, you get horrid colors, so I forced to hand color it all again and redo the pattern itself to be clearer and more prim.

Finished Cross Stitch?

I finished my reproduction piece, though I did add and change things a bit;)
The original people were done in embroidery, so I had to make a similar version in cross stitch.
Since I worked from a picture, I was unsure of the size and my letters are not exactly the way I would do them, if I was to do it with a graph. The next one, I will graph out first. Sometimes when I stitch, I do change things if I don't like the way the shape is.

So what do you think? Should I leave it as is?
I will be staining it, before I frame it. I will use walnut ink to age it.

Grateful Heart Cross Stitch

I finished my cross stitch and really had fun working on it.
The booklet it came from is a gift from Melissa, to get me started with patterns, since I had none.

I changed a few things and used some of my over dyed floss. I love how it came out on the saying, the shades are much more prim in person. Now I need to antique it, then I can figure out how I want to frame it. Today I started a smaller one that I am making, as I go along. It is from an antique sampler and I thought it would be fun to do the lower half and the cockeyed stitching she did, lol. It fits my style perfectly;)

New England Seaport Painting

I used to tole paint a lot and thought I would share one of my older pieces with you.
I made this for my husband to hang his mugs on, but then realized the pegs were too big.
Maybe I will redo the pegs with my antique nails. We still need to finish our cellar some day and it has walls, but a cement floor.
My dream would be to design it like the old captains quarters, but I will be happy to just finish it off;)
I am not the best painter in the world, but I do like this piece. It has been knocked down, one too many times and the last time it broke, so my husband reglued it, and I hung it back on the wall for now.

This is from an old painting book I had. I took two of the pictures and changed them around to fit the chalkboard.