Rainy Sunday Afternoon

The rain is pouring down here in Western Washington. Absolute buckets of water. What a great afternoon to curl up with my stitching, my warm blanket and good movie. I hope that my day works out that way. I worked some on My Child's Heart again last night, and I have just a few stitches left on the silk ribbon embroidery. I am pleased with the way it is turning out.

This morning our granddaughter was dedicated at church. It was a lovely time, and Alana did so well, not a peep out of her the whole morning. We took Max, Amy and Tera (Max's Mom) out for dinner after church, Mexican food. Yummy. Here's a picture of Alana in her dedication dress. This is the same dress that my three daughters wore for their dedications, so now it has a real family, mother-daughter history. When it is not being worn by our babies, I have it displayed on a china doll in my bedroom. I realized I should embroider all their names in white silk along the bottom of the hem now that it has such a history!

Thank You!

I just want to say a quick thank you to all of you who have so graciously offered to share your silk ribbon stash to help me out. I believe I have accumulated the colors I needed, finally, after hitting many stores. Thank you so much for your love and generosity!!! Here you can see a bit of what I did with the ribbon!!!

The Meme of Fours

This sounded kind of fun, so thought I would try it too!

The Meme of Fours
Four Jobs I Have Had in My Life:
1. Records Officer in Credit Union
2. Legal Secretary
3. Secretary for small consulting firm
4. Cashier in dress shop

Four Movies I Could Watch Over and Over Again:
1. You've Got Mail
2. White Christmas
3. Sound of Music
4. Sense and Sensibility

Four Places I Have Lived:
1. Olympia, WA
2. Boise, Idaho
3. Spokane, WA
4. Bellingham, WA
And I'd be stuck if I had to list 5!! This is it!

Four TV Shows I Love to Watch:
1. Criminal Intent
2. Extreme Home Makeovers
3. Crossing Jordan
4. Whose Line is it Anyway?

Four Places I Have Been on Vacation:
1. Maui, Hawaii
2. Oahu, Hawaii
3. Disneyland
4. Yellowstone National Park

Four Websites I Visit Daily:
1. KING5 (news)
2. The Olympian
3. Google
4. my friend's blogs

Four of My Favorite Foods:
1. Burnt Creme
2. Chocolate
3. Prawns
4. Ice Cream

Four Albums I Can't Live Without:
1. Don't listen to much music except radio

Four Places I'd Rather Be:
1. Hawaii
2. San Diego, CA
3. England
4. Florida

Silk Ribbons

My daughter, Amy, and I are stitching a piece called "My Child's Heart" for my granddaughter, Alana, and I have reached the row where I am going to put in some silk ribbon flowers. I sat down and started stitching, and we realized that the ribbons I had were much to vibrant for the muted sampler. So I went on a hunting expedition this week, trying to find silk ribbons in the muted colors I needed. Not much luck, the stores in this town don't seem to care about silk ribbon embroidery. I bought a couple of kits, even, thinking I may be able to pilfer the ribbons for this project. But I am not sure I have enough of what I need. I plan on sitting down today and then we shall see!

I am so proud of my daughter Amy! After being a regular reader here on my blog, she has decided, quite on her own, to start her own blog. So I would like to introduce "Diaper Days" (see the link at the top of the list at the right. Good job Amy! I hope that many of you will drop in and see her. She is craving some child-rearing advice right now I think!!!

I have sat down several times this week to stitch, and it seems that life keeps getting in the way! I am not making progress on anything. Does anyone else find this irritating? Or is it just me? I always have such good intentions!!

Here is a scan of a my partly finished SB ornament in the Just Cross Stitch series. I had hoped it would be happy dance for the week, but maybe next week!!

We have broken the record here in my home town for consecutive days of rain. I have lost count, but I think we are at over 30 now. Maybe I should start stitching some spring designs!!! LOL!

Home Again, Home again...

I am home from San Diego, after an exhausting day of travel. There were several delays, so it took me almost 12 hours to get home. Not fun! But San Diego is a beautiful city. I drove over to Coronado before I went to the airport yesterday, what a gorgeous place. I want to go back there and stay for a few days. It seemed like classic, golden California in Coronado, a place forgotten in time. Lovely, lovely, lovely.

It IS nice to be home again, back to all the rain. 28 straight days now of rain in Western Washington, tho I missed 7 of them. I heard that the Governor has declared a state of emergency, and the weather reports do not indicate any let up in the next few days. I wish I could transplant the San Diego weather up here!!! Flowers are blooming and the sun is shining!

I did make it back to the needlework shop that had closed for the evening. Big disappointment, it was only knitting and needlepoint yarns. I was kicking myself that I had even spent the time going back. Oh well. So I put this trip to rest....training went well, tho I have alot to process and assimilate when I go back to work. I have Monday off, thank goodness. I'm going to need the extra day to recuperate!! And, if I am really lucky, hold my grandbaby and even stitch!!!

Another Success!

I drove for about 35 minutes yesterday to get to another Needlework shop. At least it was a straight shot on the same street as my class is on. It was Needlework Cottage, clear over by the ocean. I could see the water from the front porch. Very pretty area. I picked up the rest of the Weeks and Gentle Arts threads for the SB ornaments, but nothing else. The shop was good size, but 85% was yarns and threads. Great place for knitters.

Then I drove around for over an hour trying to find the remaining shop in town. Very hard to find. I finally stopped at a Starbucks and asked a lady who looked to be about my age. She knew right where it was. Of course, by the time I got there, it was closed for the night. It was right behind a Hooter's ( !) restaurant, so just peeked in the windows to see if it were worth going back for. I haven't decided if I will go back or not. It's a tricky place to get to.

On my way home, I got slightly lost....I knew I was going in the right direction, just couldn't find the street I wanted. I passed a Marie Calendar's, so stopped for dinner. I LOVE Marie Calendar's, we don't have one at home, so I decided to take advantage of it. I had a wonderful Stroganoff dish and cornbread. I did make it home and then admired all my new threads. Such fun!

Mission Accomplished!

I made it to a real live actual needlework shop on my lunch break. First time in about a year since I have been to one. Oh JOY! I went to Stitch-a-Cross on Mission Gorge Rd in San Diego, about 12 minutes from my class, so I was able to go in an hour. It was a little like going back 20 years, as she still had models from things I had stitched 20 years ago...and of course, 99% of the models did not have patterns in the shop. Oh well. I found some Gentle Arts and Weeks threads that are in the SB ornaments...not all of them of course, but grabbed what she had, and also some Watercolours for the Name Trees. A couple of very small Just Nan patterns that will be nice purse projects. The owner told me the shop I tried to get to Monday had closed only a MONTH ago! She also told me of a shop out near the ocean that I will try to get to after work this evening. At least San Diego is fairly easy to get around in.

Oh Phooey!

They have a web page that is still active. They have a huge ad in the local phone book. They even have a map on how to get there. But when I got there, there was only an empty building with a "For Lease" sign in the window.

Another LNS has bit the dust.

I drove around and around with my little Mapquest map trying to find this place, and it isn't even there! I plan on calling the phone number today, just to double check if they have moved. Probably not, but I will try.

San Diego is warm! I love it. The palm trees are exotic. Class is going well, though I went to bed at 9 PM last night because I was so exhausted. I didn't even do any stitching!!!!

More soon!

So, I discovered that I have internet access here at my computer class in San Diego. Hurray!Now I can keep in touch with everyone.

I put a few stitches in SB#2 on the plane. I don't think I like the color, the pink in the angel dress seems much too bright. I may redo it with a blended needle. Can't remember the thread numbers, the pattern is at the hotel.

It is warm here today in SD. Such an odd feeling going from 40 degrees to almost 80 in one day. I have Bird of Paradise flowering outside my hotel window. It feels so strange. The class is going well, nothing too demanding yet. Had lunch with a couple of gals from Glendale. Figured out that there are two Needlework Shops within 10 minutes of here, I hope to get to them soon! I'll keep you posted on how things are going now that I know I can keep in contact.

Break's over, time for class again! More soon!

San Diego Here I Come!

Well, I am off to San Diego tomorrow morning bright and early. I am pretty well packed up except for the last minute things in the morning, and I still need to clean out my purse and repack into my small one. I have a couple new books, and all my current stitching projects packed, so I should be good to go. I even pulled out my blunt nose scissors for the plane. Though I understand that the restriction for small scissors has been lifted, I am not willing to take a chance loosing my good hardanger points.

I had a call from JoCelle in Aberdeen this morning. Cindy Valentine is in the area, and they are meeting up at Shipwreck Beads tomorrow at noon! I was disappointed, as I will be on my way to SD by then. JoCelle seemed very nice on the phone and we had a great conversation. The plan is to meet up in the Seattle area with all the northwest Victoria Sampler Cyberstitchers the last weekend in March. We are hoping that Thea will be joining us too! Nancy B. lives in Redmond(?) and is planning on putting together a good package deal at a resort/hotel she knows about. Should be a fun weekend.

Here is a teaser of My Child's Heart. It is an unpublished design, so can't show the whole thing, but it is a taste!!

I don't know if I will have internet access when I am gone or not, but if I am able to find some, I will post and let everyone know how it is going. I am going for computer training, but not sure if the company offers Internet access or not!!!

Have a great week everyone, and I will talk to you next week!!

A new project started

Von (On the Dry Side) and I are doing a stitch-along together, doing the Shepherd's Bush ornaments from the JCS ornament issues. Von is doing them all on one piece of 32 ct linen, while I am doing mine on eight small pieces of 28 ct linen, which I plan on piecing together into a bell pull. Here is a picture of the first ornament. It worked up pretty quickly, I did it in a couple of evenings while watching TV. I'm going to go back to My Child's Heart for a couple days, then work on the next ornament. It is fun to finish a "project" in a couple days. Most everything I stitch seems to be a major project.

I'm leaving Sunday morning for San Diego for a week, so I hope to get some stitching done in the evenings after class time (computer stuff). I hope I can keep up in class so that I won't have to do much reviewing at night. I'm looking forward to the trip, tho I will miss my family!!!

Speaking of family, Alana is 6.5 weeks old now and grinning regularly at her mom and dad. I can hardly wait to see a grin meant just for Grandma! I can't resist showing off my favorite picture of her!