Our Neighborhood of Make Believe

The whys and wherefores of Carol's RR

Thank you all for your kind, kind comments on my house in Carol's Neighbourhood. And a special thank you to Barbara, for taking a such a beautiful picture. You all know the problems I have with posting pictures, so I asked Barbara to take one. And now that I've seen it, I think I might have to ask her every time she receives an RR!
While I'm waiting for my son to -finally!- fall asleep after keeping me up all night, I thought I'd tell you a little about the designs I stitched on Carol's RR.
When I read in Carol's questionnaire that she wanted at least one cat in each of our blocks, I immediately thought of a Sheepish Designs freebie called 'Here, Kitty Kitty'. At first I was afraid (but then I'm always afraid of everything, aren't I?) that it might be a bit cheap to stitch a freebie, but I couldn't get it out of my head. One thing, though: I didn't like the surface of the house, which was meant to be blueish-grey, so I replaced it with a brick surface, inspired by - well, actually, quite shamelessly nicked from - Houses of Hawk Run Hollow house nr. 10. I put in a blue door, because it's my favourite DMC colour.
The trees then, which are taken from The Workbasket's 'Barnyard'. I know Carol likes The Workbasket, and so do I, so that wasn't very difficult. Then I built the fence, stitched the clouds (from 'The Shepherdess' by Homespun Elegance) and the birds (by The Drawn Thread), and put in some dainty flowers (from 'Fluffy Ewes' by Paw Printings). I was worried (yep, yet again) that my garden was more sort of a primitive garden and was too much of a contrast with Carol's beautiful garden, so I went a-ploughing through my charts and found these flowers.
And still there was something lacking, and I couldn't think what. Until I read Carol's post about her night-time visitor and suddenly it hit me: a bear! And I knew exactly which one. After checking in Carol's questionnaire that I wasn't adding something she wouldn't want, I dug up a design by Dixie Darlin', called 'Bear Mountain'. I have to say, this is a special design for me, and it's not just for Carol's benefit that I added the bear. When I was in the States two years ago, I saw a family of black bears (two adults and a baby) in the wild. We took pictures and were even able to film them. When I was at Dixie Darlin's in Pigeon Forge TN, I couldn't resist the Mountain Bear chart, and I'm very happy that I had the perfect excuse to share him.
Well, I'm sorry for this HUGE entry, but I really liked to read why Barbara stitched what she stitched on my RR, and I thought I'd steal her idea...
I would just like to say how much I'm enjoying this RR, and how much I enjoyed stitching this block on Carol's RR. Now on to Su's RR, which I'm looking forward to as well.
Off to the world of dreams.

posted by Annemarie @ 7:37 AM