Plumeria a/k/a Frangipani ... and Stitching too!

Our Plumeria is blooming! Our Plumeria is blooming! I'm sooooooooo thrilled! My father-in-law gave us this as a baby last year (about a foot tall), and I've pretty much babied it all last year and all winter -- in and out the door when it turned cold. I thought I had killed it last winter when the leaves turned yellow and dried out and fell off. But I kept watering and talking to it and repotted it, and now here it's blooming. Only problem -- well, not a problem exactly -- is it just doesn't remember it's supposed to have 5 petals and not 4! Hmmm ... oh well, we love it anyhow! There are several more buds on it (6-7), and so we'll see how many petals they have! When my daughter got married 6 years ago, she took us all to Hawaii (awesome!), and we loved it. Didn't get to spend a lot of time there, but it was Heaven on Earth! Most all the hotels in Hawaii that I saw were open on the bottom, and when we first walked into the hotel where we were staying a Plumeria petal fell on my head ... kind of a gentle "Welcome to Hawaii" ... I'll never forget that! And the smell of the flowers in Hawaii is incredible. Sigh ... someday maybe I'll get to go back! Anyhow, here's a picture Chris took last evening of the flower opened up.

We have a new design -- Let Freedom Sing! You can see it on our website (www.ladybuglane.com), but I'm also posting the picture here. I had the BEST time designing this. I love our American Flag, and I wanted to do something that showed it a little differently. So ... the design has 10 areas which are explained and diagrammed, and I do hope it all makes sense. I used regular cross-stitch, back stitch, algerian eyelets, square rhodes stitch, double herringbone, rice stitch, broad diagonal cross stitch with beads, and satin stitch. We used some pretty little star buttons from Just Another Button Company, and small Crimson Crayon beads from Wichelt/Mill Hill. The fabric is a pretty blue hand-dyed Jobelan (28 ct.) from Wichelt in "Bluebell", and the fibers used were Crescent Colours, Weeks Dye Works and a little Kreinik blending filament to add sparkle to the stars in the blue field. The little birds and our baby ladybug (included) are just singing ... singing ... singing -- all for the joy of Freedom! We hope you like it cuz we sure do.

Well ... time to go stitch on yet another new design. Have a wonderful day and keep on stitching!!!

Jennifer

P.S. For some dumb reason I can't figure out how to post two separate pictures. sigh .... I'll upload it in a 2nd post. Sorry 'bout that!