You're correct! I was so burned out from college, I didn't read anything for about a year, and when I was first trying again, it felt a lot harder, but the more I did it, the better I got. The reading brain is a muscle and works better the more you exercise it!
Black embroidery text on white canvas. Text reads: i love ishmael “merman hellville” fakename. love a narrator who opens his book like “hi. i hate working. do you ever get depressed? i’m in a great mood right now and it is NOT a manic state. anyway, i’ve googled 10,000 whale facts. fact one: the whale is a horse and he loves me.”
Working on my tribute to the best thing I ever read on the internet. Now I have to figure out what kind of cross-stitch border I’ll do…
A cross stitch of a small drawing from a medieval illuminated manuscript. A light tan dog is riding on the back of a brown rabbit who is on its hind legs looking behind him. The dog is carrying a black lance and a red shield with a white design on it. The rabbit looks surprised and the dog looks mad.
The medieval manuscript that the cross stitch was taken from. The dog riding the rabbit with the red shield and lance from the previous description is fighting a white rabbit holding a blue shield with a white design and a grey lance riding an orange snail with the face of a bearded balding man with grey hair. They’re fighting on a wavy line with black gothic manuscript text above them.
My niece is studying the Middle Ages so I had to give her a cross stitch.
The ecard gives you access to Libby (audiobooks & ebooks) and Hoopla (ebooks, movies, and tv shows) and is GREAT. And if you're a Mass. resident who already has access to Libby through Minuteman, you can still link your Boston Public Library ecard too and have access to SO MUCH STUFF.
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I started attending our library board meetings (as the only non-board member, which was awkward at first!) and I feel the same way. It was good to be reminded that people who care passionately about it books and the community are all around us when we stop to look.
Beautiful!
Thanks for this!
Thank you!
I love that movie!
Thank you!
Cross stitch pattern all in black on a white fabric background. It shows all in silhouette: Alice on the right and the white rabbit holding a pocket watch on the left from Alice in Wonderland. They are surrounded by a rectangular border of mushrooms and vines and leaves, with the caterpillar sitting on a mushroom that towers over the rabbit, smoking his hookah, on the left, and the Cheshire Cat grinning above Alice in the vines. Below Alice and the rabbit is the ground, with grass sticking up, and then tree roots extending down across the bottom, with the white silhouette of a dragonfly in the roots on either side.
I found this Alice in Wonderland cross stitch pattern at a thrift shop, but according to the internet, it was originally from Bothy Threads. Since only the pattern itself was for sale, I didn't get to use the cool ombre fabric that seems to come with the kit. I still like how it turned out.
(Part 5) the abundance of our hearts.’ Since that cannot be, let me express the thought which is uppermost in my mind by penning down the thought formed and thought-conveying words. It is Sunday afternoon. The shadows are already lengthening and the evening twilight is approaching. I can but think of the unbroken scenes (?) of Sabbath evenings which I have passed in such happy communion with you. They have been to me, Caddie, a bliss, a joy unspeakable, and a panorama of the past half year passes before me, each more prominent picture recalling numberless incidents, scenes, and words that have been spoken, and my memory delights to call them from his storehouse. Now they have lead me from fear anxiety and doubt up to the perfect peace of a love that is limitless with you as its object and, and a faith in you so sincere as to remove all mountains of doubt and trouble. And our future like a bright vision floats before me, with its wealth of sympathy, appreciation, charity and love. Like two mountain brooks which rush into each other’s embrace and losing and forgetting themselves in each other flow on with increased dignity and power,
(Part 6) may us two live for the other and pass on to the ocean of eternity with added zeal and increased dignity and power to move the mill wheels of time and to accomplish whatever it may befall us to do. I, Caddie, life has seemed to me so much more ‘real’ and ‘earnest’ since you promised me your love. The world may call it sentiment, nonsense. I don’t care what. It is a part of my life. Do you like to have me write in this way. I am almost afraid you do not. I bet (?) that you do not color our future with as roseate a hue as I do. For I believe you do but I know you shrink before the notoriety of even a written page. “Such things are to be felt, such words are to be spoken or rather whispered, when alone in a silent place,” you say. But Caddie, my darling, my love, my thought is today only of you and it seems to overleaf the hills and valleys which separate us and to commune with you. I had a pleasant tramp in the woods yesterday about which I will write you soon. Today is not for such. I have not yet had a letter from you. Of course, cannot expect one before Tuesday morning at least. I suppose you will write me today, much as I are doing so now. Accept renewals of my love and always believe me to be sincerely and affectionately yours to love, cherish, and adore, Warren
(Part 1) Bartlett Centre, N.H. July 22, 1877 Dearest Caddie: It is a beautiful Sabbath day. The sun shines bright and clear but his rays of warmth are neutralized by gentle breezes which fan away the heat. The sky is of a beautiful blue and dotted all about with thin light clouds of everchanging shape which cast sombre shadows on the mountain tops and deepen their leafy greenness. The birds twitter from the tree tops. The face of nature is wreathed with smiles. Doubtless you too are enjoying a glorious day in Woburn. Nature, however, is so much more sublime and majestic here! I believe that I could not have located a much lovelier spot to obtain fine views. Coming here of a cloudy afternoon my first impressions were not so pleasant, but when, after the clouds had drifted away last evening, just before dusk, and we took a jaunt down the road and turning as we ascended a rise in the road,
(Part 2) saw for the first time the house-capped peak of Mt. Washington with the other patriot ranges extending from it to the North and then just to the East the immense blue mass of the Carter Dome and its companion Wildcat! I think it is! These all standing out in bold relief against the azure, and then the ranges of lesser mountains to the West reaching way up the Saco valley and there on Mt. Carrigain turning and coming down the other side of the valley until the odd shaped cone of Moat Mt. is reached at whose base and between which and Kearsarge the village of No. Conway lies. As my eye took it all in, I wished—yes I did—that you were with me here to enjoy it, for the prospect is really a delightful one. And I do think of you very much. Thoughts of business (?) occasionally come over me like pitiful starts. Reading occupies a good deal of my time. But I find myself often in a dream-like revery and most thoughts of you and of ourselves hover about and fill my imagination and fancy, and find abi-
(Part 3) -ding place of seriousness. For our’s is a living faith, and your love, although pleasing in itself, is so much more than a mere delight, a pastime to me. Love without a defined purpose, without a relation to lifework is a plaything. May ours be more, much more than that. I have been reading today the New Testament. I have read it while lying on my back or leaning on my elbow under the shade of trees. I enjoy much lying around in that way and also now writing to you as I pose myself in a position exactly similar to that taken by small boys when sliding down hill. It doesn’t contribute much to plain writing, but then I don’t consider that my chirography can be made much worse in any way. My profession frequently necessitates fast writing and so I have got into these careless ways. Don’t think that I can’t find time to give to you in writing. It isn’t often that I write so good a hand as this. Why, I spent two hours in writing to you the other night and I was rather tired too when I began. But then I was rewarded for it by such happy
(Part 4) dreams! I dreamt that we were soon to be married and much else like it!! But you want to know, I suppose, about my reading the New Testament. Well, I read the whole of Matthew and Mark. I found in those gospels many things that I did not know were there, and many phrases differently worded from what I had supposed them. I found as I read, that I was not in an especially devotional mood and the narration did not seem to awake it in me. I intend to read the whole of the New Testament before I return. I am still reading Romola and am getting more and more interested in it. George Eliot seems to me to describe character wonderfully in that book and I do not see how she would acquire such a knowledge of Florentine manners and life as to write so familiarly and apparently so intelligently about them. In reading the Gospel of Matthew this morning, I was struck by a passage which I thought then I would make the text of my letter to you this afternoon. It is this, out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. I do so wish you were here that we might sit and talk together 'out of
I meant to share this on Valentine's Day and forgot. My great-great grandfather wrote this love letter to my great-great grandmother while they were courting and I really love it. The transcribed words for the letter can be found in the alt text and the last two photos/rest of letter are in replies.
Thank you!
A cross stitch village scene in bright colors. White and gray buildings with purple and gray roofs and black windows are on either side of a stone bridge spanning a blue and white river. In the foreground, three brown boats cluster together on the river. A person is carrying baskets over the bridge. Green, yellow, and pink trees surround the buildings and appear in the background, and red, pink, orange and yellow bushes flank the bridge and the buildings on the left. In the background, the river winds away with a late afternoon sun surrounded by white and yellow clouds above. On the left side are black Chinese letters running vertically and then a red square with white Chinese letters. (I’m not sure what the letter say, they were part of the pattern).
Finally finished my cross stitch WIP today, with the least-fun backstitching I’ve ever had to do. (It’s a bit too wrinkly but my sister stole my iron.)
A Princess Bride cross stitch. Two white doves hold a pink ribbon over the word “Mawwiage. Underneath that is a very poor representation of Buttercup and Wesley holding hands with Kelly and Andrew on either side surrounded by pink hearts. Below that is “is what bwings us togethah today” and below that is October 7, 2012 with a bell on either side.
A small sampler I did years ago to celebrate the marriage of two friends. Cross stitching people is NOT my strong point but I did my best 🫠. #cross-stitch
I am also a member of the hot mess club--I taught myself cross stitch at age 7 or 8 and never learned the "proper" way to do it, I guess.
Needle minder on a cross stitch WIP (showing a green tree by a village). Needle minder is a black cat with a knife in its mouth.
After watching the cross stitch community on here, I suffered from extreme needle minder envy and had to get my own. She’s from Adventure Needlework on Etsy and I love her.
Cross stitch baby bib with the circular green alien (?) with its tongue sticking out from the cover of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, holding a pink baby rattle with the words “don’t panic” below.
I made this for my niece in 2014, before I truly understood what panic was!
Also online recipes. I used to get so many great recipes online and AI has crept in so much that I’ve gone back to cookbooks.
Thank you so much for the link!!!
Oh dang, I definitely bought from Etsy thinking the seller was the pattern designer. (I bought the pattern a few years ago, before Etsy went so far downhill, but it was definitely starting then.)
I have a LOTR pattern by this designer and I've been itching to get at it--I'm delighted they turn out so well!
Cross stitch of a piece of the scroll painting Along the River During the Qingming Festival by Chinese artist Zhang Zeduan. It shows a bridge spanning a tree-lined river with boats on it and people walking across the bridge and around the village beyond.
My pandemic cross stitch project, where I learned I could happily cross stitch 10 hours a day (I do not recommend this for back health). Only took me 14 months!
I’m so glad!!!
Part of my current WIP cross stitch. Sooo close to being done…
One of my favorite pieces I ever did, this was based heavily on a bee cross stitch someone else created and patterns from a blackwork book from my library. The text is from Cheaper by the Dozen, when the father was trying to teach his kids Morse code via terrible puns.
