Mystery Sampler time!

It's hot, humid, windy and miserable here in Kansas, so of course our thoughts turn to CHRISTMAS!! Beautiful thoughts of pretty poinsettias, cheerful holly, wintery bird friends, snowy landscapes, and all things holiday make us smile.

We've been working on this project for months, and we're finally ready...and EXCITED...to share it with all of you!

HOLLY & HEARTS MYSTERY SAMPLER

What is a mystery sampler? It's a beautiful needlework that unfolds in 3 parts. And here's the mystery part...you don't get to see a picture of the finished project when you begin! Each part cleverly adjoins the previous part, and it all adds up to a beautiful holiday stitchery. You'll see the completed design as it emerges with fabric and thread!

Our Holly & Hearts Mystery Sampler will be an autumn stitching project, with 3 parts presented in September, October and November. Don't worry...the project isn't huge, but a very satisfying size of 227W x 97H. It's just large enough to fill a perfect spot in your yearly Christmas decor, but manageable enough to finish before you're overtaken with holiday busyness!

We're beginning to take pre-orders from local needlework shops throughout the US and around the world, so ask your favorite retailer to place your order NOW!

Here are some details you'll want to know:

* Design is presented in 3 separate parts, one each in early September, October and November

* Stitch Count is 227W x 97H

* We stitched our model on lovely 28 ct. Doubloon linen. We'll have precuts available that are conveniently cut, serged, labeled and packaged, each with a 3" border on all sides. There is also 32 ct. Doubloon linen available, also precut.

*Aida stitchers, don't despair! We'll also have 14 ct. and 16 ct. Doubloon Aida available. Pieces are also precut, serged, labeled and packaged, each with a 3" border on all sides.

* There is a thread pack available with 12 skeins of beautiful Weeks Dye Works overdyed floss. There are multiples in this design, so we encourage you to purchase the convenient thread pack.

* First shipment in early September includes Part 1 chart with thread key and stitch guide. (Be sure to save these, as they won't be repeated in the next 2 parts.) You can also get fabric and thread packs at this time.

*Second shipment in early October includes Part 2 chart AND a BONUS holiday design. We'll share more about the bonus design in future posts, but it's a really sweet Christmas piece.. perfect for framing, small pillow or box.

*Third shipment in early November includes Part 3 chart and embellishments for the Holly & Hearts Mystery Sampler, as well as the bonus design.

CLUE #1

Inquiring minds want to know...just what does this design look like? We'll never tell...but we will give you some hints. Just like the name implies, our Christmas sampler is chock full of Holly and Hearts. There's a stylized holly border with some lovely satin-y stitches, and more holly inside the design. And speaking of hearts...I think I've counted 12 hearts to make a perfect dozen!

Put on your Sherlock Holmes hat and let the sleuthing begin! Can you spot the holly border and some of the muted hearts in the pic above? And you can probably figure out which corner of the design this might be? And don't forget to check out the beautiful color scheme!

That's all for now, but stay tuned for more Holly & Hearts Mystery Sampler sneak peeks and holiday fun! We hope you enjoy unraveling the holiday mystery, as much as we've had creating it for all of you!

Is this heaven or Santa Fe?

We just returned from a week in lovely Santa Fe, New Mexico, and it was wonderful!  We traveled to the Southwest with 12 of our best pals from church on a mission work team. The climate was blissfully humidity-free and the cool evenings were a real treat. We smiled as we checked our cell phones and commiserated about our friends and family, left behind in Kansas with hideous 100+ degree temps and extreme humidity. Ah....Santa Fe!

I didn't take a lot of pictures, and am counting on our "official" trip photographer to share his files with me for my digital scrapbook, but I snapped a few I wanted to share. Above is the luxurious church van and our trailer as we navigated a tight corner at a stop in Las Vegas...New Mexico, that is!

We spent a week at lovely Zia United Methodist Church...literally! We slept in their main building, and worked there and the adjacent parsonage. Conveniently, our trip coincided with the departure of one pastor and the arrival of another. We didn't know this when the trip was planned months ago, but...God works in mysterious ways. So, we did an "extreme makeover" on the parsonage during the 4 days while it was empty.

We stripped out all the carpet, tack strips and floor trim in preparation for the tile layers, and painted every wall in the place.

We painted and painted some more, we washed windows and mini blinds (Suzanne dedicated an entire day to meticulously washing blinds out on the porch!). We shampooed the sofas and cleaned all the appliances.

That's me above (seated on the toilet!) with my pal, Shelley. I'm trying to figure out how to shove paint (neatly) BEHIND the toilet.

We pulled out a faulty toilet to reveal...ugh...rotten flooring and who knows what else below! That job turned out a little bigger than we expected. I carefully avoided this area. I'm pretty sure my paintbrush couldn't fix this problem. Did I mention that I LOVE to paint?

While part of the crew worked on the extreme makeover (move that bus!), others worked in the main church buildling. 

We worked outside...

and inside.

We worked high (that's my crazy husband up there on the ladder)...

and we worked low? (We were putting new weather stripping stuff under the doors).

Some of our favorite projects (and most visible!) were on the front entrance to Zia UMC. The guys above are re-staining the frame around the stained glass window with the Zia symbol.

Below the window, we snaded and restained the beautiful front doors. The previous stain had been eaten away by the hot Santa Fe sun...what a dramatic difference!

Then they asked us to paint some of the details on the carved doors with red and yellow paint. Yes, I was called in to do this trim work!

Another tricky exterior project was repainting their front letters. After some discussion on how to attempt this job, we meticulously taped off behind the letters (which took hours!)...

then sprayed in the brilliant red paint they had requested (which took mere minutes!).

And when we weren't working, we chatted and got to know our friends a bit better. Check out our luxury accommodations (air mattresses and cots)  in foreground above. And (also above at bottom) our dining facilities located conveniently close!

We cooked most of our own meals, including LARGE breakfasts. Everyone took turns preparing and cleaning up in the nice Zia church kitchen...girls and guys!

We even celebrated 3 birthdays while we were there...June is a popular month! Birthday girls and boys got to be first in the food line, of course.

And who could visit Santa Fe without eating some of their yummy New Mexican food? !Que delicioso!

Zia celebrated our last night with a traditional church pot luck dinner. We left them a list of improvements we had made during the week....

and a surprise thank you on their chalkboard door when we left early the next morning.

So...Santa Fe isn't really "heaven", but we all experienced a bit of heaven as we spent the week together in beautiful New Mexico. We worked hard, ate big, slept (not so well), did daily devotions and laughed....A LOT!!! As everyone crawled into bed you could hear murmuring across the room...

"Good night, Bob"

"Good night, Connie"

"Good night, Robert"

and on and on...in true Walton style!

*Note: if you don't know who or what the Waltons are...you are probably too young to be reading this blog. It was a family television show from the 70s, and every episode ended with the family "good nights".

Get your Jingle on!

What a weekend! We did a lot of work packing the new designs...and we managed to squeeze it a bit of play, too! Here's the crowded Lizzie*Kate office first thing this Monday morning. There's also a car-full of more US Mail boxes, being ably delivered to the airport postal facility by Alan.

And below are the 3 newest members of the Jingle family that are headed your way, via our friends at the US Mail and the friendly UPS man.

I love this batch of Jingle ornaments!  I'm hoping the pile of them will keep me cool this week when our temps finally reach the 90s and "normal" summertime temps. We have been spoiled until this week with an unusually cool spring and early summer.

There will be 12 Jingle ornaments in all. With this release, there are 9 available. Look for the remaining 3 Jingles in early August. Don't forget the FREE graph on our website to combine all 12 Jingles into one big holiday stitchery.

But enough of WORK! We also found time this weekend to see a charming movie at the cheapie second-run theater...love the Palace Theater! If you're looking for a fast-paced action/adventure flick, this isn't the show for you. But if you like delightful English actors and retiree humor, this is really sweet fun.

Our other treat this weekend was putting around a nearby lake with 8 of our best pals on Friday night. After a yummy Italian dinner together, we piled onto the Green's pontoon boat and leisurely rode around the lake, sipping wine, exploring all the nooks and crannies of the lake, and enjoying a spectacular sunset.

Thanks, Captain Eddie and first mate, Connie!

 

Crop of new designs!

There's a "crop of new designs" coming your way next week, so here's a preview!

Are you a list maker? I live by lists, and if they're lost...well, that's a problem for me!  Here's a new twist on the typical To Do List. This list is special, though...it never gets old!

Here's the next design in our Inspiration Boxer series. This is a well-know verse from Hebrews 11. This is the WHOLE photo we shot for the front, including our old family Bible on top left. We had to crop the photo substantially for the cover, so the stitchery will look much bigger!

Speaking of "new crops", we're working on a crop of veggies and flowers in our backyard. Just outside the L*K office, Alan has planted our annual garden. Below are different varieties of tomatoes and peppers. Our garden is off to a really slow start this year because spring was weird, cool and....SNOWY!

Next to the veggies are my favorite crop every summer...SUNFLOWERS!!! I grow the big kind like you see in the floral arrangement...pollenless, of course. We've planted several varieties this year, with different sizes and colors, and I can't wait to see their sunny faces later this summer. They are great to cut and bring inside, and share with friends...but as you can see...they've got a long way to grow!

Happy Weekend!

June is bustin' out all over!

As I click my cell phone calendar from May to June, and flip the page on my old-fashioned wall calendar in my L*K office, I'm reminded of this classic song from the musical "Carousel". I remember the first time I saw the musical Carousel and was surprised to find it was, well, more than a little depressing. But this song has an irrepressible spirit that makes me want to BLOG!

You, faithful readers, may have noticed that I'm not posting as often as my usual routine the past few years. Yes, sometimes life gets in the way of biz and blogging, and that has certainly been the case for me this spring. I've been really involved in moving my mom into a senior living apartment, and it's been quite an experience for us all. Thank goodness for my thoughtful and hard-working brother, John, who's been my companion on this whole adventure (as well as my husband, Alan, and sister-in-law, Donna, who is a gem!!!).  Having never moved a parent before...we didn't know how to do this...but we muddled through and learned!

Above is Mom on her new patio, checking out her Mom's day gift...some new patio furniture. The furniture is being ably assembled by my nephew Michael (just graduated from Wichita High School East!) and my husband, Alan. Hmmm...why are both guys wearing pink?

Thankfully, John anticipated a lot of the steps and necessary activities, and we've progressed through most of the steps. Mom is moved and happily resettled, her house is sold, and we're still working on moving the remaining STUFF from the house that we've been sorting...and resorting...and resorting the past few months.

Here's some of the boxes I moved to my basement, where they will sit, until I find a suitable space for them amongst my STUFF.  (It's a bad pic, but there are some cool things hiding under those newspapers and packing materials.) I've found that's the real problem with this parental belongings. I am already in the process of down-siziing and attempting to simplify my own stash, and I don't really want to accumulate more STUFF.  So, I carefully chose the most sentimental, meaningful things and left the remainders to other eager secondhand shoppers.

Meanwhile, things are clicking along here at Lizzie*Kate and we're getting ready to send more STUFF your way next week.

If June is bustin' out all over, then it must be time for holiday designs....right? We're busy getting the next batch of Jingles Flip-its ready to ship. Our helper, Carmen, has been busy attaching all the charm packs the past couple weeks. Behind the bins of Flip-its are towers of new Boxer kits.

We'll also be shipping a new Halloween design, called Spooky String. It's a companion to other string-y designs...Spring String and Buzzy String...and it's quick, creepy, and fun!

I hereby promise to post AGAIN this week, and give you sneak peeks on the other new goodies coming your way.

HAPPY JUNE!!

Greenville, SC shout out!

We took a quick road trip last weekend to scenic Greenville, SC.  Why Greenville? We were on a (slightly frivolous) mission to visit the new All-American Cottage house tour before it closed!

Maybe you've seen pics of this charming house in the recent Southern Living magazine? It's a joint project between Southern Living mag and This Old House. The house will be featured in both July magazine issues, but the open house is almost over. One thing that makes this house unique, is that it uses 97% building materials made in the good ole USA! That's not typical on most new homes.

This house is considered a "cottage" as in "small size", but we think it's just the perfect size for most folks...even empty nesters like us. The house was charmingly decorated, and appealingly simple. We loved it!!! Check out a few pics below.

Living room above, including a colorful fireplace painting that I adored. 

Adjacent dining room...no formal and informal seating...all in one!

Master bedroom was lovely in beige and gray. Check out the old sewing machines repurposed into flanking bedside tables.

Just a cute hall nook. Loved the bedspring/birdie sculpture thing and the chalkboard above. This photo would make a great Pinterest pin!

Cute kids room upstairs, using my favorite springy green color.

All finished off with a charming back porch and beautiful (real) plants. 

The house tour was worth the trip, since we're considering moving and downsizing. If you want to see more, check out the links below.

http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/20130430/LIFE/130430007/Video-Tour-All-American-Cottage-Hollingsworth-Park-Verdae

https://www.facebook.com/pages/All-American-Cottage-Greenville-SC/164613763689927

While we were in Greenville, we did the tourist thing and checked out as much of the town as possible.

OH MY!  What a fabulous downtown area they have. We dined outdoors repeatedly. It's a treat for us, and rarely just the right temp, wind speed, etc. to do that in our changeable Kansas weather. We tried to eat "local" food, including the ever-popular Southern favorite, pimiento cheese spread....YUM!!! This restaurant kicked it up a bit with some hot peppers.

We also visited the local Confederate Museum, surprisingly tucked into a small house. The exterior didn't hint at the treasure trove of interesting Civil War momentos and memoribilia crammed inside. 

Our eager tour guide, (who swore  he was a relative of Daniel Boone) couldn't let the tour end without letting Alan hold a real Confederate saber....that was a first, for sure.

This was a spur of the minute trip, so we looked up needlework shops when we got there. Thankfully, we found a great shop, Panda's Crossing, in nearby Mauldin. We dropped in to say hi and accidentally found a weekend Stitch Retreat.

The enthusiastic owner, Donna (above left) invited us to stay for dinner, and who doesn't love a good potluck?! YUM!!!

After dinner, we left the gals to stitch the night away, while we returned downtown for more fun on our last night in Greenville.

We had a great time (loved the house and loved Greenville), but it's always good to be home. Just like our famous Kansas gal-pal Dorothy said....there's no place like home!