Spring!

Oh I love spring! This incredible flowering cherry tree is a block away from my office, and my co-workers and I have been commenting on how gorgeous the tree is. So today, I took my camera at lunch and shot some photos....isn't this gorgeous?

Out like a lamb....

I was gently reminded by Von yesterday that I haven't made a new post here in too many days. She is right. She also gently reminded me that I have been missed in blogland. Ahh, thank you. That made me feel good....it's good for the soul to have good friends!!!

It's been two weeks since my last post mainly because I had not made any great progress on any of my projects that I could talk about, and life has been relatively bland the last two weeks. What does one talk about when life is good, but routine? So, I offer up this picture of the sunrise outside my kitchen window last week...March came in like a lion (with bitter wind and snow) and is now behaving very lamblike!!!

Good things coming in my life:
*This Friday I meet up with Von, Thea and 3 other Victoria Sampler cyberstitchers in Bellevue for a weekend of fun, visiting and stitching!
*My parents will be home from snowbirding in Arizona on Sunday.
*Amy's 24th birthday is the Sunday after that.
*I start a two week vacation from work on the next Friday.
*The next Sunday is Easter, Resurrection Day, and our family get-together.
*We leave for 8 days at Disneyland/California the Friday after that.

So maybe this next month I will actually have something interesting to talk about!! LOL!

Another Finish!

I have finished stitching the 2002 Shepherd's Bush ornament!!! Actually, I finished it on Sunday evening, but haven't been home long enough before tonight to get it scanned and posted. AND, I have actually started the 2003 ornament too. Not much progress yet, but at least I have started! I have really enjoyed doing several small projects and having the satisfaction of getting them done!!!

I have also discovered an online stitching magazine called The Gift of Stitching, you might want to check it out!!! I am enjoying the articles, and even better, I don't have to go to the store to pick it up!! Click on the link on the sidebar if you are interested in checking it out!

I am looking forward to receiving some smocking patterns that I ordered online. I can hardly wait to start smocking on the little dresses I got for Alana. I hope that they come soon! I really need to pull out my practice swatch and do a few smocking stitches before I start! It's been 22 years since I have done any smocking, when my oldest daughter (Alana's Mom) was a toddler! It's been a long time!!!

I always have the best intentions...

but Saturdays always seem to get away from me. I was going to stay home and stitch all day, but as you can guess, I have yet to pick up my needle and it is time to fix dinner!! I feel like I got lots accomplished, just not what I had planned!! We got our tickets bought and hotel paid for to go to Disneyland on April 21st!!! Now we are really getting excited!

This week's weather was really awful. One of the young men at work reminded us of the nursery rhyme for March, "in like a lion, out like a lamb" We have certainly had our share of Lion's weather this week. It even snowed a couple days...very unusual for March. This is the first time since 1995 that it has snowed in March!

I have made some small progress on the Shepherd's Bush ornament, I was able to put in some stitches on Thursday evening. I think I may have caught up with Von unless she has stitched today!!! I picked up the newest issue of Sew Beautiful at Barnes and Noble last night as it has some darling smocking patterns in it. I think I will actually use these patterns, so it qualified as a legitimate magazine purchase!!! (see entry from last week regarding magazines).

Well, we get to keep Alana overnight tonight, that will be lots of fun! It's her daddy's (Max) birthday today, so we will watch her while the older "kids" go out and celebrate!! Happy Birthday Max!

Wet and Wild Wednesday

We have had a wild day weather wise today. Buckets of rain and a hard wind. Winter's last gasp, I suppose, just to make sure we know that spring officially is still 2 weeks away. Amazingly, the flowering plums held onto most of their lovely pink blossoms, so the storm didn't totally chase away spring! I mentioned in my last entry that I would post a picture of my yard after the fine landscapers had finished their work. It looks bare with no leaves on anything, but oh so neat and pretty.



I came home for lunch today, and Alli was giving Alana a bath in the sink. The look on her face as she was lowered into the water was hilarious! I wish my camera had been turned on. A mixture of pure disbelief and "what are you doing". So I grabbed my camera and took a few pix. She even got her hair blow dried when she was done!


So this evening I get to stitch. Von has actually gotten ahead of me in the Shepherd's Bush stitch along we are doing, but I hope to get caught up tonight. Wishful thinking? Probably!!!

A very productive day!

After sleeping in this morning till 8 AM, I was up and out of the house by 10 and travelled up to Puyallup for the Sewing and Stitching Expo!! Me and about every other lady who lives in a 50 mile radius. Goodness there were a LOT of people there. I just browsed through the vendors, with my eyes searching for stitching things! There were only about 4 booths with stitching items, but I found some real treasures. In Martha Pullen's booth, they had a large selection of children's clothes already sewed, with banding for smocking already pleated. I was so delighted! I had been wanting to do some smocking for Alana, but didn't want to do it all from scratch. So now I just need to find a couple patterns I like. I found a very sweet bishops dress in blue, and a darling white dress.

I also picked up a Flower Frame Kit ( Stoney Creek), Surf and Sand b y Northern Pine Designs, and several patterns by a lady I had never heard of before, Mary Vandenberg of Elegant Needle Designs. The pictures on the patterns do not do them justice, they had them all made up, and they are gorgeous. I chose 6 that I liked the best. The shop owner said this was a friend of hers, very talented, but she had had a stroke and is no longer able to design. It's very sad, because she is very talented! Regretfully, Lorri Birmingham was not in attendance this year. I had looked forward to snagging some of her kits.

I also framed up Honeysuckle Rose into my clock. I am very pleased with it!

Then I came home and worked in the yard for several hours. We hired a couple guys to come do the winter clean up and spread bark on all the beds, so I did some fine tuning, and John mowed the lawn. It sure looks nice, hopefully the bark will keep the weeds down!

Then this evening, I struggled for a few hours getting my son-in-law's laptop hooked up to the router so that I could use it for email in other rooms of the house when the family was playing games. What a chore, but after several calls to the internet support people, I finally had success.

I will try and get some pictures of the yard tomorrow to post.

SPRING is in the air! It was shirt sleeve weather today!

An Early Spring!

The flowering plum trees have bloomed! I am so thrilled...its a whole 2 weeks early this year. It is always a wonderful promise that spring is actually on its way. I love spring, it is my favorite time of year! This picture is just outside my office at the credit union, so I really can enjoy looking at all that pink most of the day!!!

I am almost finished with Honeysuckle Rose (Again, thank you Anne!). I had planned on finishing it up before I posted a picture, but decided to go ahead and post it now since it is nearly done. I just have some of the light green to finish up and some gold in the center of the flowers. It calls for gold beads, but since it is for a clock center, I am afraid the beads might get in the way of the hands. I also need to figure out some sort of "Buttonhole" in the center of the design for the clock works to come through the fabric. I probably will just end up with some sort of Kloster block square in the same color thread as the fabric. I can hardly wait to get it all together!

I have decided not to make a goal list for March, as I cannot count on how much stitching time I will really end up with in any given month. But I hope to design some more on "My Child's Heart" and get at least one more of the Shepherd's Bush Christmas ornaments finished. So, is two items a list? LOL! I really should put a few more stitches into Victoria Sampler's A is for Angel, since I joined the support group that Thea has set up for the Alphabet Samplers! That little list will be more than plenty for me to do!!!

Every week I read the SBQ question, but never have the time to go back and forth to copy and paste and make a note, etc. But I think I will try it this week.

Today's SBQ was suggested by Cheryl and is:What cross-stitch magazines or other publications (as opposed to blogs) do you read on a regular basis? What do you like about them?What do you not like? What would your perfect publication include?

My answer: back in the old days I subscribed to nearly every stitching magazine that was made, but rarely stitched much from the magazine. My favorite used to be Cross Stitch and Country Crafts, and I still have every single issue in my collection. These days, I don't subscribe to any stitching magazines, tho I collect and use a lot the Just Cross Stitch Ornament issues. If I happen to be in Barnes and Noble, I will look at all the magazines and only buy one if I happen to see one that has a pattern that I am fairly sure I will stitch someday. But it is still fun to browse!
So my requirements are that it MUST have a pattern I want to stitch, and perhaps some great articles. My perfect publication would be a whole magazine of patterns that are irresistible!