Harper is Spicy

My middle child.  Says a lot right there, right? Beautiful, brainy and feisty, Harper has always made our life interesting. I have often thought that she may be my most artistic child. She has an amazing talent as a photographer (I wish she had more time for that pursuit) and luckily for her checkbook, she is also very good at finding oil and gas as a geologist.

Harper and her husband Eric are also talented bow hunters. True hunters. There is a huge challenge in out smarting an animal in his own neighborhood with just a bow and arrow to protect yourself.  Often they come with in just yards of an elk. A massive creature that can weigh upwards of 700 pounds with a spread of antlers of 2-3 feet. Needless to say I do not go with them.

But not last year. Finally it was Harper’s turn. She shot the elk at dusk. She and Eric tracked him until they could no longer see. Being the talented hunter that he is, Eric had placed several flags and markings along the trail, so we were able to continue the hunt the next morning. And find him we did! Harper and I were jumping up and down!

I stitched Harper’s stocking when she was still in high school.  Test is a word that comes to mind when thinking about Harper’s time in high school, I was always being tested.  That’s where the spicy came in. Spicy, yes Harper is definitely spicy. Absolutely love this kid….

So I found the perfect stocking:

This is Liz Godrick Dillon’s Chili Pepper Santa. Spicy, of course. Stitching this Santa face taught me a lot about face colors. Now I am always in search of the perfect skin colors. If it is too dark it looks like Santa got beat up, too light and he looks washed out. Sometimes the threads may not even be the same kind, same dye lot or from the same manufacturer. I re-stitched this face at least three times.

Again his beard is my favorite beard stitch, outline or stem stitch. You will see that through the years the random stitches look better when they are stitched closer together. Sometimes I literally push them over and it is almost like I stitch on top of each other. Unfortunately the thread that was couched for his collar is no longer available. Rainbow Gallery has some that will probably work well though.

Often using overdyed threads, I like to use slanted satin stitches for holly leaves and random straight stitches for pine needles. Makes it look so realistic.  The conchos are real.  I love little “found” things to add to canvases. These came from ebay, I am betting that you could google up some similar.

Okay, now to catch you up….

The yaks are here!!!…. and settling in.

To start off there are 12 of them. We are learning lots about them, first off they eat a lot, 3 bales of hay a day, but then all the grass is covered with snow. They have a pecking order, kinda look like buffalo with a horse tail and are very tame.

Will let you know how they progress…….