Stash!

I opened Sisters yesterday as Michelle had an appointment in Terrace, so I have today and tomorrow off. Once I got all my work done, I did some stitching on a small free kit from the British magazine World of Cross Stitch. They are so easy to carry around - little piece of fabric and usually no more than 10 colours if that many. I have one last piece with a deadline (May 31st), but I'm waiting for some floss to arrive before I can start it. Bad planning on my part - I was SO sure I had all the colours. I also want to work a bit on my Patchwork Sampler - I'm sooo close to finishing another square.

Got my SEP (Stash Enhancement Program) parcel from Traditional Stitches yesterday - a small Jeanette Douglas kit (Sweet Tulips) with fabric and floss, some silk ribbon and silk floss and a couple of free charts. As well, Janice added some extra charts I had ordered - Cherries Jubilee, Plum Pudding and Grasshopper Pie from Glendon Place - and the charts are as luscious as the desserts they are supposed to represent. And finally an Eva Rosenstand bellpull kit called Native Costume. It has the flag of Norway at the top and then 8 couples wearing the costumes of different regions of Norway. I plan on making it for my craft partner Cynthia who is very proud of her Norwegian heritage. The design is about 6.25" by 49.25" but there are only 39 colours, so hopefully I can stitch it in good time - either for Christmas or her next birthday. The only difficulty I can see is that the instructions are in 10 languages and finding the English is a bit tricky.

I also got my fabric parcel from Silkweaver - ones I had ordered from their weekly "auction" on their Facebook page. Such gorgeous colours with all the edges neatly stitched.

The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna

Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero we buried.

We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets burning,
By the struggling moonbeam's misty light
And the lanthorn dimly burning.

No useless coffin enclosed his breast,
Not in sheet or in shroud we wound him;
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest
With his martial cloak around him.

Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow;
But we steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

We thought, as we hollow'd his narrow bed
And smooth'd down his lonely pillow,
That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head,
And we far away on the billow!

Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone,
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him --
But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on
In the grave where a Briton has laid him.

But half of our heavy task was done
When the clock struck the hour for retiring;
And we heard the distant and random gun
That the foe was sullenly firing.

Slowley and sadly we laid him down,
From the field of his fame fresh and gory;
We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone,
But we left him alone with his glory.

Charles Wolfe
1791 - 1823