Back to the Real World

I've been on vacation all week...it was lovely, but of course, not long enough. Tomorrow is back to work and the real world....

I took Lizzie and one of her friends camping (trailer) for 3 days, during the intense heat we were having! Miserable! Thank goodness for swimming pools! Of course I forgot my camera, so I can't even share a picture, but here is one from last year of the same place. The swimming pools are up the hill behind the big trees in the center of the picture. After a day at home, Lizzie and I took off for Everett to spend time with my sister...and I left Lizzie there while I went on up to Victoria to see Thea for the day. I had a lovely day visiting with Thea...and even was able to say hello to Lisa and Cathy and Richard. We had a great visit and lunch over looking the Sydney marina. Thea took me into downtown Victoria to visit The Button & Needlework Boutique, and I found several things I couldn't resist... four small patterns by The Drawn Thread, the Rejoice Tree ornament by M Designs, and A Rose for Every Season by Patricia Ann Designs, plus some buttons and charms. Lots of new things to encourage stitching!

The ferry ride back to the mainland was absolutely gorgeous...the sun was setting, the mountain (Mt. Baker, Washington) was out in all it's glory, and it was so beautiful! I love being in the San Juans Islands, I just wish it were closer so that I could do it more often! I even was able to do some stitching on the ferry, making the day absolutely perfect!! They even serve good coffee on the ferry (Tulley's)...which for us in the Pacific Northwest is a requirement!!! LOL!

Blog Anniversary

I realized this week that my blog is now officially one year old! I began it the third week of July, 2005. It is amazing how quickly this year has flown by. I celebrated my beginning last July with a picture of the daisies in my garden...so here is a picture of the daisies this year!!
It is blistering hot today. 98 degrees in the shade with high humidity. Not that we are alone with the hot temperatures, just that we are so unused to it. I broke down today and took the car in to get the AC recharged...couldn't stand the heat any longer. I am taking Lizzie and friend camping tomorrow for three days. We have a camping resort about 60 miles from here that we really like to go to...I hope it cools off a bit, but at least there is a large pool to keep cool in. Then on Wednesday, Lizzie and I will drive up to Everett to stay overnight with my sister Karen...Lizzie will spend Thursday there with Alisha (almost cousin), while I go on up to Victoria to visit with Thea. I planning on spending one day there and then coming back to Karen's before we come home Friday. I guess I forgot to say I have a week of vacation this week! I am really looking foward to some time to "play" during the good weather.

John started working on the shed again this week, and we have three walls now...it is 8' by 10', but with the walls it sure looks smaller! I am really looking forward to getting that much stuff out of my garage!!! It's getting hard to get in and out of the car!

In the world of stitching, I am working on another original design of mine...I like this one, it is flowing out very easily onto the fabric, and is called "Beyond the Garden Gate". It is fun when the design comes so easy.

Forgotten Treasure

I spied this treasure in the back of the top of my closet the other day, and realized it needed to come out and see the light of day again. I started this piece on July 4, 1976, while our country was celebrating it's Bicentennial...I remember watching the fireworks on TV as I was house sitting for friends in Spokane, and stitching away on the outlines of the states. I thought it was an appropriate way to celebrate the United States at the time. It took me nearly 4 years of off and on work to finish and hung on the wall for many years until after one of our moves it was relegated to the closet. It had gotten quite dirty in all its years (nearly 30!!) and so it spent about 2 full days soaking in Oxyclean. It looks pretty good again now as it hangs by pins unframed in my office. I designed it. All of it. Every last stitch. I don't think I will ever be that ambitious again!! LOL! I have to admit that about 30 of the blackwork patterns were from books I had at the time, but coming up with the other 20 was my invention. It was pretty hard to get something to fit in the tiny little states like Rhode Island and Connecticut!!! But now, after all this time, I am proud of it again. It will soon have a frame worthy of all the hard work!I traced the map onto the fabric with a fabric transfer sheet, using a map from the road atlas!! It is stitched on hardanger 22, creme colored, black DMC and some kind of gold thread outlining the states...not sure I could tell you what kind of gold thread, probably doesn't exist anymore anyway!!!

Western Washington was cooking like an oven today, it got over 100 degrees, which is torture for us here with the humidity and all...my thermometer still says 90 degrees, and it is after 9 PM. So unusual here...it usually cools off drastically in the evenings...it is supposed to be worse tomorrow. It's a little hard to see in this picture but we had a brilliant orange sunset tonight...absolutely gorgeous!!!

Ornament finished

I finished up the 2005 Shepherd's Bush Christmas ornament this week...I think it turned out cute, but it took me a long time to stitch. There are a lot of color changes, many for just a few stitches, so it worked up slowly. Warning to those who have not yet stitched this...some Weeks colors are called out in the pattern...which if you don't have and need to buy...are for only 3 or 4 stitches!!! Don't buy the whole skein, substitute some DMC. I should have taken more time to study this pattern before I bought all the threads!!! Glad it's finished, now I can wait until the 2006 JCS ornaments magazine comes out to do the next one!

I'm wishing!

Last April at the Northwest Stitcher's gathering (see post of April 2, 2006) that we had in Bellevue, Von and I stayed a little later and did some shopping in Bellevue. We found a wonderful place called The Container Store, and we spent quite a bit of time in there shopping and wishing. Von agreed to come help me set up my stitching room when such a room becomes available in my house!!! Last week I received a flyer in the mail from the Container Store, and this is one of the pictures of "what you too can do in your own home" type of pictures. I love this. I had envisioned these exact same shelves in an alcove of one of the upstairs bedrooms...course, it would be mainly needlework supplies, and not scrapping. But since I am accumulating a ton of scrapping supplies too, I can guess that one of these days I will need a second space like this one for those supplies too!