Saturday, May 29, 2010

The Graduate and Her Mom...

Another milestone, another memory...my baby graduated from high school last night. I am so proud of her!



We had beautiful weather for the occasion; the graduation mass and ceremony lasted just over two hours. Then they were off to the local community center for an all night party. I volunteered until 2am; my DH worked the graveyard shift from 2am until 5am! The graduate is still sleeping, the rest of us are moving at a slow pace today.

Hopefully I will have some stitchy pictures for you later today or tomorrow. Enjoy your weekend!

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Lazy Sunday Afternoon

It is unseasonably warm here in Minnesota today with temps in the 80's and muggy! I expect we'll have some thunderstorms move through later today; the sky is overcast and it just kind of looks like we're in for a good storm. Good reason to stay inside and stitch!

It's been a delightful weekend thus far. On Friday night after work, I went to my daughter's last regular season lacrosse game. It was a beautiful evening to watch a lacrosse game and they won! Section playoffs start next week. After the lacrosse game I headed over to Joan's house for some stitching with the Friday night gang.

Saturday morning was spent running errands. Since my husband was cleaning the garage, my son was working and my daughter was spending the afternoon with friends, I was free to do my own thing. If you were me, what would you do? Ummm, more stitching of course! The gang got together at Joan's house again and we stitched until 10pm or so.

Which brings me to today. Too hot and sticky to do anything outside. I'll keep the laundry going and make a good dinner for my family today, but in-between time, I think I'll stitch. :)

Not too much to share with you on the stitching front. After finishing BBD Summer Basket I decided I better get busy stitching on my blocks for "A Token of Friendship" from With My Needle. There are six of us who have been working on this projects; we are each stitching two blocks for ourselves and then two blocks for each of the other six stitchers. Here are the two blocks that I stitched for Joan followed by the first block that I stitched for Jill. I gave Jill her second block before taking a photo of it. I'm now working on Chris' blocks; one of them is done. I'll post a picture of hers in another post. We need to have all of our blocks done by August and then we're going to try to do the assembly together!


I also need to send THANK YOU's to Kathy A and PJ (no blog.) Recently, both of these ladies gifted me with beaded scissor fobs. Kathy A sent one as a thank you for stitching on her Neighborhood (remember the neighborhood round robins?) PJ sent one as a thank you for sharing a pattern with her. (Note to PJ -- I can't find your email address, could you email me with it please?) Anyway, aren't these fobs beautiful? Kathy send the one with the topaz colored beads; I like the key charm at the end. PJ sent the one with red, white, and blue colored beads with the angel charm at the end. Aren't they beautiful?



Before I go, I'm going to share some pictures of my flower beds. We've been busy cleaning up around the yard in preparation for our daughter's graduation party which will be in two weeks. Here is the shady area under our deck; the flowers in this garden mostly bloom in the spring.


Are you familiar with the plant called "Jack in the Pulpit?" My mother transplanted this from her wild flower garden.


I noticed that a lupine is growing amidst the ferns:

Last summer, we put a new flower bed in around the gas meter; we needed to do something to make this side of the house look better. The flowers in this bed are blooming like gangbusters!




Here's another bed that we just planted this weekend; this one will be beautiful when the plants mature and the flowers start blooming!

A smaller bed in the front yard:

And finally, take a look at these beautiful irises. They are actually in our neighbor's yard, but we have the best view of them!


Here's to wishing you a great Sunday filled with lots of stitching!

Monday, May 17, 2010

Summer Basket Finished

Back from Orlando -- thank you for your suggestions regarding needlework shops. As it turned out, I didn't have a speck of free time. Maybe next time I am in Orlando I will be able to check out the needlework shops!


I brought back a nasty cold and have been feeling a wee bit under the weather. Since I've been kind of "laying low" I've had more time for stitching and managed to finish Summer Basket by Blackbird Designs.




Summer Basket
Blackbird Designs
30 ct WDW Baby's Breath
GAST and WDW threads



Thanks too for the needle feedback. I think I'm going to invest in a bulk package of Bohins!

Kathy A - thank you for the beautiful scissor fob that you sent. I will get a proper thank you sent off to you in the next day or two.

Until next time - thank you for your visit.

Saturday, May 08, 2010

More Blackbird Designs

Hello Friends! Thought I'd stop in for a minute and show you a picture of my latest project. I'm working on Summer Basket from Blackbird Designs (Loose Feathers #38). I've had it in my stash for a little while and started it at the BBD retreat two weeks ago (or is it three?) Anyway, the linen is WDW Baby's Breath, kind of a soft pink, and the fibers are mostly GAST with one WDW - the colors remind me of Spring!




Mother Nature is quite mixed up and we are experiencing winter, not spring weather here in Minnesota. After no snow in March or April, today it snows! My DD had a lacrosse game today and baby it was cold and windy with rain and snow mixed...brrrr.....hopefully this return to winter will be short-lived.


I have a couple of questions for you:

1) Which brand of needles do you like to stitch with? Piecemakers, John James, Bohnin, other? I guess I usually stitch with Piecemakers or Bohnin. On Tuesday night I was stitching with some #28 needles from John James and I broke two of them. Very frustrating!

2) Does anyone know if there is a needlework store in the Orlando that is worth a visit? I will be in Orlando next week; not sure if I will have any free time, but if I do.....

3) I'm looking for a copy of the BBD Loose Feathers #1 called Spring's Promise. Anyone interested in selling or loaning their copy?

Thank you for stopping by to visit. To all the mothers out there, I wish you an enjoyable and relaxing Mother's Day tomorrow!

Sunday, May 02, 2010

More Framing

Before attending the BBD Spring Fling retreat, I had some of my BBD finishes framed. I wanted to include them in the "show and tell" display. As it turned out, I only took two of them with, but I will share all three of them with you here.



Quaker Garden
Blackbird Designs Loose Feathers #19
Recommended linen and fibers



Special Delivery
Blackbird Designs
GAST fibers
32 ct Lakeside Linen Strawflower


Evergreen
Blackbird Designs - Loose Feathers #17
GAST & WDW fibers
30 ct R&R Iced Cappuccino


Finally, some answers to your questions --


Margaret asked why there was no house in the 4th Anniversaries of the Heart block. Don't worry, there will be; the house just hadn't been stitched yet on the piece that Alma shared with us.


Kim asked why there was a big gap between blocks 2 and 3. There are going to be some bonus charts later this year and one of the bonus charts will go in that spot.


One last photo before I go...here's a close up of the sachet that I stitched.



Hope you had a nice weekend! I'm off to my stitching chair now...

Saturday, May 01, 2010

Spring Fling Part III

Sorry, I kind of disappeared and left you hanging. Didn't mean to do that, but you know how life gets in the way, right?

I think I was about to share with you some photos of the project we worked on during our Blackbird retreat weekend. The first project was a small sachet that we stitched and finished. We stitched an initial on it. Then we could embellish it with some rick rack and/or buttons. Here's a picture of some of the finished sachets. We all started with the same materials, but you can see that each sachet is finished a little bit differently! Cute!





The main project we worked on is this stitching box. We painted, sanded, distressed, and waxed the box until we got the right effect. Then we lined three of the sections with some coordinating fabric designed by Blackbird Designs for Moda. Finally, we stitched a little pincushion to fit in the fourth compartment. I stitched both front and back of my pincushion...the back has my initial "C" on it. I still need to stitch the piece that will be mounted on the front of my box, but if you visit Joan's blog, you will see that hers is already finished.




(Joan's box is on the left; mine is on the right.)


Here is the finished project that Barb and Alma brought with them:





There are many, many more pictures on Barb's and Alma's blog too.


For today, I'll leave you with a final picture of Barb and Alma, with our host, Deb, the owner of Stitchville. Deb did such a nice job with this retreat and I look forward to attending the next one!



Thanks for stopping by! Enjoy what is left of your weekend!