fall flowers

Fall is my favorite season. Thanksgiving (a.k.a. pumpkin pie) is right around the corner, I can wear boots to my heart's content, and the weather is cool and breezy. It is perfect for snuggling on the couch  with a fluffy blanket while watching A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and drinking hot cocoa with cinnamon.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them came out a little bit ago, so I made Queenie's apple streudel, with powdered sugar and walnuts. (And sorry for the bad quality photos :))

I love the warm orangey colors and sharp crimson color of flowers during fall, and how cozy and cheerful everything seems.

Hansel and Gretel

Lately I've been experimenting with whitework, redwork, and blackwork. I found a pattern created by Aimee Ray in Doodle Stiching and copied it, making a few changes. I used a maroon for most everything and coral (which looks peach in this picture) for a few of the details.

 To make certain details more precise, I used 2 or 3 ply, but for the lazy daisy stitches and the border I used the original 6 ply.

Hansel and Gretel and the trees are embroidered using the Back Stitch. A few minute details on their clothes, as shown in the picture above, are coral french knots, and the grass tufts are straight stitches. The leaves and the corners of the borders are lazy daisy stitches, and the border is a running stitch.

This can be used as a pleasant wall hanging, a pretty pillow cover, or hung in a frame on the wall. 

Hope you can get ideas/inspiration from my depiction of Hansel and Gretel!

-Avamae 

#hanselandgretel #doodlestitching #inspirationembroidery

my favorite authors

I LOVE reading. Without books...there would be nothing to do before going to bed, or while eating a couple (hundred) chocolate chips, or...it just would be pretty lousy. 

I've mentioned a few of my favorite books/series, but I haven't suggested any authors, so - here goes.

#1: Charles Dickens

He is my all-time favorite author. Why? Great Expectations. A Tale of Two Cities. Little Dorrit. Nicholas Nickleby. A Christmas Carol. Oliver Twist. The Pickwick Papers. (Great Expectations is AWESOME, I would TOTALLY recommend listening to it on tape.) If you read about his life, by the way, you may realize that many characters in his books are created from actual people and actual experiences, like Fanny from Little Dorrit!

#2: Jane Austen

Yeah, we all knew she would pop up sometime. My favorite book of hers is Sense and Sensibility, but I always have enjoyed reading Emma, Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice, and Mansfield Park. (I started reading Northanger Abbey but got tired for the story to move along, sooooo...) It is interesting, by the way, that Jane Austen tended to write about lives of wealthier people, and mixed in the lives of poorer people, whereas Charles Dickens often wrote about a person in a financial strait who usually rises (Little Dorrit, Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, etc.)

#3: Lemony Snicket

At this point you probably wonder WHAT IN THE WORLD I'm thinking. Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Lemony Snicket? However, I absolutely LOVE his style of writing! He really captures the action of the moment, doesn't slow things down with details (cough, cough, Charles Dickens, cough, cough, Jane Austen) and paints a picture in your mind of the scene. I love a Series of Unfortunate Events and All the Wrong Questions (both series)

Lemony Snicket is a pseudonym, the author's real name being Daniel Handler. He decided to use the name of the narrator as a pen name (hence the name Lemony Snicket). If you read the Series of Unfortunate Events, you will see what I mean when I list him as Author Number Three!

#4: C.S. Lewis

This amazing author has written a variety of books, from the realm of theology to the realm of fantasy, the most famous being the Chronicles of Narnia and the Screwtape Letters. However, I must address a book that very well could have made C.S. Lewis jump from Author Number Four to Author Number One:

Till We Have Faces

This is the most AMAZING book ever, based of off the famous myth about Cupid and Psyche, narrated by Psyche's sister. It is a total MUST-READ! If you don't go home and order this book from the library immediately after reading this post, I WILL KNOW! 

Hope ya'll liked this post. Read Till We Have Faces. Love reading.

-Avamae

#TillWeHaveFaces

#Lovereading

#LemonySnicket

#GreatExpectations

embroidery types

I know embroidery is not for everyone. However, not everybody knows that there is more to embroidery than a few stitches on some fabric. There are all sorts of beautiful types! Here are a few of types (many I have not attempted):

Applique

When I first looked at this particular "category" of embroidery, I thought that it was simply sewing (which, by the way, I used to despise). However, it is actually a combination! 

Note: This is not mine, It is a completely RANDOM example of applique, :D

Whitework

This, to me, is not exactly my FAVORITE type of embroidery. It seems a little boring and uncolorful. But whatever floats your boat!

Note: This is ALSO not my doing! Also, there is such thing as blackwork and redwork.

Stumpwork

Stumpwork is another thing that I do NOT do - not because I don't like it, though, but because it's just too darn HARD! But, if you like a good challenge, this is for you:

Reminds me of applique, a bit. 

#stumpwork #redwork #TOOHARDFORAVAMAE!!!

-Avamae :)

The Mother-Daughter Book Club

These. Are. FABULOUS!!!

They're all about these girls (Jess, Emma, Megan, Cassidy, and Becca) that attend a Mother-Daughter Book Club! (A Mother-Daughter Book Club, if you don't know, is one of those cutsie things that you read about and never actually do, like baking extravagant sugar cookies or sewing expert dresses all day.)

First book:

This is the entire series (and rumor has it that a new one, the Mother-Daughter Book Club Cam, is coming out on May 2 of 2016!

#1. The Mother-Daughter Book Club

#2. Much Ado About Anne

#3. Dear Pen Pal

#4. Pies and Prejudice

#5. Home for the Holidays

#6. Wish You Were Eyre

They're all written by Heather Vogel Fredrick.

-Avamae

#cutsiethings #motherdaughterstuff #wishyouwereeyre

haiku, couplets, odes, oh my!

I'm the dork who loves poetry. I love writing it about as much as most people hate writing it. Recently, I've been exploring the different types of poetry, and have been noticing similarities in the way people write their poetry. (I know, you probably think this is boring.)

For example, William Shakespeare always wrote his sonnets as four quatrains and a couplet! Personally, if I were him, I would throw everyone off and write Sonnet 155 (I did my research - #154 was his last, I think) as a random haiku:

I am Will Shakespeare
I am a poetic guy
I love glaze doughnuts

(Do NOT tell me he did not love glaze doughnuts! I KNOW he did, even if they were invented 200 years after he died!)

ANYway, back to the point. here are some AWESOME forms of poetry!

Haiku: Three lines, the first consisting of five syllables, the second of seven , and the third of five. (They don't have to rhyme.)

Limerick: This limerick goes in reverse
  Unless I'm remiss
  The neat thing is this:
If you start from the bottom-most verse
This limerick's not any worse

(NOT written by me!)

Sonnet: A poem consisting of 14 lines, with a strict rhyme scheme. That I don't want to go into.

And there are so many more! One of my absolute favorite poems is written by Emily Dickinson:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.

The only weird thing is the hyphens. But it's still a REALLY cool poem!

Anyway, I hope you are...somehow...benefited by this post!

-Avamae

#poetextraordianaire

1 celery stick, 1 olive, 1 date, 1 egg

One of my friends just posted on her blog about a code. So I decided I would TOTALLY copy my friend and tell ya'll about MY favorite code!

THE SHOPPING LIST CODE!

I'll give you a sample:

1 hot dog

1 egg

2 lamb chops

1 olive oil spray can!

1 mayonnaise jar

1 yam

1 nutmeg packet

1 applesauce container

1 macaroni box

1 eggplant

1 ice cream cone

1 soup can

1 apple juice

1 vegetable

1 apple

1 marshmallow (I know, who buys ONE marshmallow?!)

1 angel food cake 

1 egg nog jug!

Do you know what it says?

Hello! My name is Avamae!

Each line represents at least one letter. (In this case, all but one.) If it starts with the number 1, then it is only one letter. If it starts with the number 2, then it is two letter, etc.

The actual list is pretty to understand, so you can modify it by switching the spaces, or reversing the letters, or even putting down the word with the letter before the actual letter...(Don't feel bad if you didn't understand that last bit. I barely did myself.)

Maybe this post will benefit you...somehow...in some way...

Until next time!

-Avamae

#I'mstartinganewhashtagthing