As soon as I finished the Irish Blessing Sampler, I started one for my nephew who is getting married on December 15. Not a lot of time to get something done but since I have done it for his brother and his sister, I feel I should continue the trend.

This design is taken from 101 Best Loved Designs from Cross Stitch and Country Crafts. These are all designs taken from their magazine (in this case the May/June 1986 issue) which I loved. I probably have the magazine filed away somewhere which would tell me the designer but the book does not (I hate that!) In any case, I had a sampler all picked out and while searching for an alphabet to finish Irish Blessing, I stumbled on this one an it grabbed me...you know how that goes. It is really fairly simple with only 6 colors of thread plus perle cotton. I will substitute beads for the french knots since I think that will pretty it up (and I abhor french knots). In any case, I am posting a picture of the sampler in the book, my progress to date (which isn't too bad considering I didn't start it until Saturday evening an I worked all day Sunday and Monday!)and a closeup of the rose in the bottom right corner.

In other news, it is raining, raining, raining!! As of about 15 minutes ago, we have gotten over 3.5" in the last 24 hours and it didn't start raining here until about 2 yesterday afternoon...needless to day, we now are under a flood watch. Northern Kentucky has been under a severe drought short more than half of our normal rainfall for the year so we sure need it AND I am glad it isn't snow! The earliest I can remember snow here in the 20+ years we've lived in Kentucky is October 13 and we have had snow several times for Halloween.

OK, enough chatting, back to stitching since I don't have to be at work until late this afternoon!!