My fowl, bonvine and porcine friends!

We did it again! We braved 100 degree temps to visit the county fair! Hey, what's a fair without stiflying temps and the accompanying odors?!

We made the most important stop first and ate at the Cheney Methodist Church kitchen! There's no AC, but  the giant water cooler (extra points to those who know what this is!) and fans kept the air moving. And nothing was getting in the way of us getting our chicken and noodles, taco salad, watermelon and PIE!!

Even on the last evening of the fair, those talented cooks had 12 kinds of pie for us to select. What a difficult choice, but my friend Marlys was really happy with her coconut meringue!

Then on to the animal barns where we admired the award winning cows. Several of my fellow fair-goers were 4Hers in their childhood, so they told wonderful (and sometimes terrifying) stories of showing their cows. Marlys loves to tell about her artful cow tail styling...yes, they rat and coiff the cow tails. Imagine sitting at the rear end of a giant cow practicing your hairstyle techniques!

This goat was super motivated to get to his neighbor's hay. Check out the goat babies laying side by side on the ground below.

It was so hot that evening, the poor pigs were in distress. Lots were wearing the latest fair fashions - water soaked towels. Every farm kid knows that pigs can't sweat! As we walked through the hog barn, I kept thinking about that famous pig "Arnold" from the Green Acres TV show. Boy, Arnold never squealed as loud as some of these 4H pigs!

Speaking of cosmetology, wonder how long this chicken worked on her hairdo? This brings to mind one of my favorite songs from Grease..."Beauty School Dropout"!

Finally, we whizzed through the project barns, but a whole table full of SNOW people caught my eye! I'm not sure what the assignment was, but there were a bunch of wooden snow people. And this little gal was a snow LADY!  Hmmmm...maybe she heard about our upcoming snow girl designs. Love her little braids!

Several bottles of water later, we headed for the cars and the trip back to civilization...I mean, town. Walking to the cars, we passed the outside grandstand show, which was absolutely packed. We couldn't believe our eyes...it was a combine demolition derby. Helmet wearing cowboys were maneuvering their modified combines deftly around the arena, playing bumper combines! And clearly, everyone who paid to get in (not us!) was having a great, sweaty time!

Name the Snow Gals CONTEST!!

I've been working like CRAZY on the next set of Flip-its these past two weeks. I finished the designs on the computer last week and settled in for some serious model stitching this week. My ambitious goal was to stitch one design every day, and (surprisingly) I'm almost on target.  The fact that my upper back is in a total kink and my neck almost unable to turn will testify to this extreme productivity. Why does doing something I love (stitching long hours) make my neck so UNhappy?!

But...it's totally worth it! I have 6 little Flip-it snow GALS mostly finished, and I'm off to my LNS today to pick out some frames. By the time the frames arrive, I'll have the stitching finished and the buttons attached.

Below you can see the last (and least finished) model I'm stitching. The color palette is the same as last year's 6 Fat Men, so the guys and gals will coordinate!

There's just one problem looming in the near future of this snow Flip-it series. What to call it? That's where I need your help! My husband and I threw around a bunch of name ideas and on my previous post I referred to them as the "6 Fluffy Gals". We've had lots of other possible names...6 Flaky Girls, 6 Flaky Fems, 6 etc., etc. The only I know for sure...they will NOT be called "6 Fat Women". As in "Does this snow make me look fat?"

Here's what we're going to do...the next week (until Sunday, July 22) you can submit your favorite names. Multiple names may be included. We'll choose our 5 favorites (with help from our friends) and post those to the L*K blog. Then for the next week or so, you can VOTE for your favorite snowy title! We'll give prizes to everyone who makes the "top 5" list and more goodies to the big winner!

GIVEAWAY PRIZES

Complete set of 6 new snow girl Flip-its & other surprise L*K goodies

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS
How to Enter: Leave a comment on this page and tell us your name for the set of 6 snow girl "Flip-its". Your name should tell us (somehow) that they are snow WOMEN, not snow MEN. The "6" is optional to include in the name.

Required: You MUST include your email address in the comment form. I'll need it to contact you should you win.

Deadline to submit names: Sunday, July 22 at 11:59 PM Central Time

The Fine Print: No purchase necessary to enter. All entries received after the giveaway closing day and time will not be considered. Winners will be notified via email and will have 48 hours to confirm receipt of the email. Giveaways will be mailed to the winners' homes.

SNOW on my mind!

It's over 100 degrees...ALL WEEK! So what to do? THINK SNOW!!!


My desk is covered with snow sayings, snowy sketches and I'm even listening to snowy music. I'm doing more than escaping the heat...I'm busy designing the next Flip-it series, which has a SNOW theme. 


Last year I did the 6 Fat Men Flip-its and those chubby guys were popular. They're still going strong - just ordered more snowflake charms this week.  But now it's the GIRL'S turn! This year's group of 6 weight-challenged snow ladies will (tentatively) be called "6 Fluffy Gals".

I'm having a "ball" working on the flaky ladies. How do you tell a snow girl from a snowman? It's all about the accessories. That brings to mind a great saying from one of my favorite movies "Steel Magnolias". The Clairee character (played by Olympia Dukakis) quips "the only thing that separates us from the animals is our ability to accessorize!".

Amidst a crazy pile of sketches, 6 designs are slowly emerging on the computer. I'm using the same color palette as last year's SNOW series, so they will coordinate! The designs will all work separately, or you can combine them using some FREE motifs to link them together.

Whatever the weather outside...these SNOW gals just wanna have fun!!

Very Scary Part One!!!

Finally, the MYSTERY begins to unfold! Part 1 shipped to shops everywhere last week, and if your local needlework shop doesn't have it yet, be patient...it will "mysteriously" arrive soon! Here's the cover below.

What? NO PHOTO of the finished stitchery? Of course not...that's the MYSTERY part! Just a little teaser photo of this first portion of the 3-part sampler to keep the mystery (and your needles) going!

Part 1 includes the pattern for the top part of the whole sampler, thread guide, and detailed specialty stitch guide. Be sure to keep the thread and stitch guides, because they won't be repeated in Parts 2 and 3. At the bottom part of Part 1, there is a little boxed section that will be repeated in Part 2, so you can hook everything together - really easy!

All 3 parts of the Very Scary Mystery Sampler also include a BONUS design. Here's a little pic of the Haunted bonus (included with Part 1). Our finisher Mona made a darling spooky pillow, layered in some WDW wool, and finished it all off with a bow. We'll be sponsoring a "Bonus Design Finishing Contest" later on this blog, so get your creative juices flowing.

Stay tuned for our next post...I'm sensing some explosive photos, because we have lots of July 4th activities planned. HAPPY JULY 4th, everyone!

Mystery Day!

FINALLY, the big day is HERE! Part I of our Very Scary Mystery Sampler is shipping to shops all over the world TODAY. And...we're not doing the work! WOO-HOO!  Those busy bees at Norden Crafts, our fabulous distributor, are handling all the distribution on this special joint project. If we're not doing the shipping, why is our office still such a mess? Hmmmmmmm...

While the family and employees at Norden were busy processing yards and yards of beautiful hand-dyed linens...

Alan and I spent the weekend at Lake of the Ozarks in nearby Missouri. Here was the view out our bedroom window! Look out Dorothy...we're not in Kansas anymore!

The workers at Norden Crafts were circling the thread table again and again to assemble thousands of thread packs. Katy tells me they walked almost 13 miles while circling the table and grabbing threads...now that is VERY SCARY!

We were so excited to spend time with our daughter Sarah, husband Jeff, and Jeff's parents Kim and Mark, at their beautiful home in the Ozarks. Did I mention it is ON THE LAKE? You take this impressively long (my aching knee!) set of steps from their back door and land at the dock on the lake. 

Alas, we weren't able to help the Chicago gang at Norden as they packaged all of these chartpaks into boxes for eager customers everywhere. But wait...we've been working on this project for months. It seems like years since we began, and my desk is still covered with Part 2 and Part 3 preparations. And, we did make about 250 of these chartpaks twice - see June 18 post about the disappearing samplers!

Thanks again to Mark and Kim for hosting us at their beautiful house! Sorry, Mark was off to work the last morning when we took this photo. After saying our fond goodbyes, we began the 6 hour drive back to Kansas. We were sad, but we had hundreds of Mystery Sampler embellishment packs (great car project) to keep us company.

Sadly, we returned to the Land of Oz and it was 105 degrees! No wonder that famous farm girl Dorothy Gale donned the sparkly red shoes, clicked her heels and left the state!

NEW!!!

Yes, there are other NEW things at L*K besides the big summer Mystery Sampler Club! We just shipped new things to shops last week, so they should be in stock for you to shop now.

#154 Wouldn't Life Be Great?
A friend shared this great saying with me and I couldn't wait to graph and stitch it...it is fun, sweet and sentimental all wrapped up together.

S103 Do What Your Wife Said! Snippet
Yes, it's now available in "stitched" form so you can stitch it, frame it and hang it on the wall! Just point and nod whenever appropriate. The adage is timeless, but you can stitch this in a couple hours. Thanks to Patty for sharing this very appropriate saying with me!

B39 Sweet Simple Things Boxer
This is a lovely saying, originally attributed to Helen Keller. We graphed it with some beautiful soft colors and sweet motifs, and added rosy pink flower buttons. Kit includes 30 ct. natural linen, pink flower buttons and BONUS pin pillow design with raspberry bead embellishments. Sweet and simple!

K59 A Little Liberty Kit

This little square design is a companion to A Little Love and A Little Easter Kits, but has a great summery, patriotic design. Kit includes 30 ct. natural, linen, pattern and teensy red beads. Yea for the red, white and blue!

One more thing...for all of you who kindly responded to the previous post regarding UPS and the "disappearing samplers"...we have filed a claim, photographed and saved the damaged box, and all that. We have replaced and reshipped the MIA Very Scary Part I chartpaks. 

For all the boxes we ship out of here every week, we understand that sometimes "stuff happens". UPS is looking for the stuff in the mysterious place that contents of broken packages land...can you imagine? Meanwhile, our UPS man still cheerily opens the L*K door every afternoon around 3 PM, endures the barking granddog, picks up boxes and breezily says "y'all have a great day!" 

Mystery of the disappearing samplers!

The fun thing about reading a great mystery is...you never know how the plot will twist and turn...right? Well, we've just experienced an unexpected "plot twist" ourselves, in our BIG summer project "Mystery Sampler Club".

Last week was our deadline to ship Part I to our distributor, and we blogged about our production line, etc. We shipped several 40 to 50 pounds boxes two days in a row, and we were excited to have them out the door and on the road to shops and stitchers everywhere.

Then 2 days later we get a call from Katy at Norden and she is a little surprised at the condition of the first box that arrived. To make a long MYSTERIOUS story short...the box weighed 56 pounds when it left L*K, and lost almost 20 pounds on the 2 day trip to Chicago. Yikes...the PLOT THICKENS!!

Inquiring minds want to know...could it be cross stitch corporate espionage? Or..the more likely scenario...UPS severely damaged the box, lost 1/3 of the contents, didn't bother to replace them, retaped the box and merrily sent it on it's way...hoping we wouldn't notice?! Twould have been nice if UPS had slapped on one of those friendly labels the USPS uses when something arrived in MYSTERIOUSLY altered condition. 

OR...are the UPS drivers and dockworkers happily distracted while stitching Part I of the Mystery Sampler Club? This MYSTERY may never be solved!!

 

Since we're in such a MYSTERY funk this morning, here' s another sneak peak pic I snapped while I was working on the sampler. You can see the stitchery and the computer printout I was using for my pattern.

If you're still reading, here's one more MYSTERY for you! Every year Alan and I do a couple bicycle rides for charitable causes. Last Saturday we braved rain and wind to complete the 100K Bishop's Bike Challenge. It's a fundraiser for Open Door, a local comprehensive homeless ministry. We rode through the county, stopping at numerous small towns for snacks and drinks...and bathrooms! We began in drizzly 68 degree weather and finished in some very humid 88 degree sunshine. Below is pic of the "official socks" we received in our ride packet. 

The MYSTERY is...why is this our idea of having fun? Could it be the hours spent with our best riding buddies, the beautiful Kansas scenery, or the serious snacking required to ride for hours? I think it's the great stories we have to tell afterwards! One of us begins..."Remember the time...." and then we're all doubled over in laughter!

Notice the beautiful green cornfield in the background. It's corny in Kansas and it's only June.  I'm the one in the back in the slime lime green shirt!