Escaping Reality ...

Yep, tomorrow I'm leaving on an airplane bound for Peoria, Arizona to spend some much needed time with some dear friends that also happen to be stitchers. Karen lives in Peoria and is hosting our mini retreat. Ruth, Chris, Sharon (no blog yet) and I are all arriving tomorrow. We'll be spending a couple of days in Peoria .. visiting The Attic and a few other shops and then heading to Flagstaf to spend a couple of days in the mountains doing nothing but stitching and laughing and eating .. oh and a quick trip to the south side of the Grand Canyon. I am really looking forward to getting away from my reality for a while. I'll be home on Monday, ready to tackle the real world once again lol :)

I did finish up one little stitch this week .. Donna's Friendship RR. Donna choose a lovely piece of 40ct lambswool for us to stitch on and her color pallet is soft purples. 40ct was a bit of a challenge for me .. old eyes here! lol .. but I muddled through and think it turned out really nice. Hope Donna likes it :)

Thought I'd share a couple more picture of my Easter decorating ...


This bunny is one of my all time favorites .. maybe because I painted him or maybe because he has the sweetest face ever. Back in 1978, my mom and I took a ceramics class. We really had a great time learning to finish greenware and the art of glazing .. and it was such fun to share it with my mom .. lovely memories ...

and my last picture tonight .. the Easter egg dish is another piece we made in class ...

Thanks for visiting and thanks for all your comments, keep'em coming! lol See ya in 5 days .. be good and get lots of stitching done!

I hope you find your joy in your stitches ...

I'm grateful for memories of time with my mom ...

Easter Stitching and Decorating ...

I have a finish and a wip to show off .. unfortunately both pictures are horrible .. I took a ton and couldn't get any that did the projects justice .. here they are anyway .. first is my finish, Lizzie Kate's A Chicky Easter. This is a limited edition from the Nashville Market. The fabric that came with the kit was a lovely soft buttery cream color that was a delight to stitch on. I decided to stitch it over one .. yep, over one and you know I never do that! lol .. but the fabric was very much like an aida and just lent itself to over one .. and I love how it turned out *smile* Of course the buttons that came with the chart were too big for it after stitching it small .. so I stitched french knows in their place. Pretty cute, don't ya think??

And here's my progress on Peppermint Twist. The colors are much deeper and warm than this picture looks like .. hopefully I'll get a better picture next time I work on it. I did leave off the long stitch snowflakes .. just didn't like how they looked when I started them ...

I've been decorating for Easter this week. Had the kitchen table done and decided to share a picture .. well imagine my surprise when I was taking the picture and realized there was this red thing sticking out of the chick bowl ..

taking a closer look .. looks like something hatched .. yep, it's a red dinosaur lol ..

last year the boys got some plastic eggs in their baskets that transform into creatures .. ya gotta have a sense of humor in this house .. all boys and just me .. I still have army men guarding secret places in the kitchen! lol

I'm off to stitch on my Friendship RR .. I have Donna's RR, she chose a beautiful piece of fabric, lambswool 40ct! Good thing this fabric is yummy cause the 40ct is trying my patience! lol Pictures soon :)

I hope you find your joy in your stitches ...

**edited to add information about the button scissor fob. Back in October Carol posted about the button scissor fobs. I wish I could make them ... they are wonderful! Maybe Cathy at Golden Needle can still order them .. good luck!

I'm grateful for humor ...

Weekend and Exchanges ...

Happy Monday! Hope everyone had a great weekend. My weekend was busy but good busy. Saturday I went with some coworkers to visit another coworker who had a liver transplant 2 weeks ago. It was great to see him. He's home and doing really well. He won't be back to work for a few months, so we are going to try and visit every couple of weeks .. he misses the social side of work! lol Saturday night we went to dinner and a movie with Ken and Lisa. We had great southwestern food and then went and saw Duplicity. Very fun movie, Clive Owen is sooo cute :) and Julia Roberts was her usual great self. Sunday was race day, laundry day, and stitching day .. for the most part it was good too lol.

Diane was my partner for this years Stitching Bloggers Birthday Club. Her birthday was Friday (3/20) and my package arrived right on time. Here's what it looked like before boxing it up ... Joann's had this adorable birthday fabric .. I thought it made a fun package ...

and here's what was inside the package ... the little pin pillow design is from Heart in Hand's Wool Whimsy, May. It was a fun little stitch. I stitched her initials and year on the back. I'm really glad she liked everything :)

Look was waiting for me when I arrived home from work today .. Beth (no blog) from the Fair and Square blog stitched this adorable bunny for me ... isn't she the cutest! I love the ribbon in her hair and the border is just wonderful .. all those carrots!

Here's a close up .. better picture than the other one ...

and here are the squares I stitched for Beth ... it's JBW's A Very Merry Spring. I really enjoyed stitching this and want to stitch it for myself ...

I have some stitching to show you but my camera died .. it should be all better tomorrow.

I hope you find your joy in your stitches ...

I'm grateful for fun exchanges ...

Happy First Day of Spring!

March Madness started today .. our house was full of boys and baseketball this evening. Both our Washington teams won today .. WTG Huskies and Gonzaga! I got involved in my first bracket challenge and it's been lots of fun! My youngest son Robert is the family sports authority. He is going to college to be a journalist, hopes to get into sport journalism at some point. We've become quite the sports household because of him .. and I'm constantly learning the nuisances of whatever sport we are watching. It goes well with stitching :)

Tonight we also watched our Seattle Sounders, new soccer team win their first game .. it was really fun!!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Friday .. don't forget to stop and smell the flowers .. or at least look as they start to peep their heads out in the sweet sunshine.

I hope you find your joy in your stitches ...

I'm grateful for family parties ...

Hump Day .. finally!

Happy day after St. Patrick's Day. I hope you all had a wonderful day and didn't drink too much green beer! We had a great evening with my dad, Chris and Monica and yummy corned beef. Here's a picture of my table before everyone arrived ...

I just love tulips .. heck I really love most all fresh flowers .. pretty aren't they :)

and here's a St. Patrick's Day toast from my house to yours .. Cheers!

I have been stitching a little bit, two things are still in the mail somewhere between here and there .. I hope they arrive soon so I can share pictures with you :) The Friendship RR I'm participating in just started. Here's a picture of Kathy's RR .. I "borrowed" this picture off Kathy's blog because it shows all the lovely colors she picked for her RR and the picture I took of my heart was all washed out ...

I really enjoyed stitching on Kathy's RR .. hope she likes the heart :)

Tonight I'm stitching on Peppermint Twist again .. I haven't stitched on it in over 2 weeks and I've missed it! I really am in love with this design. I'll post a picture tomorrow of my progress .. I should get a nice amount done while watching American Idol. I'm really enjoying AI, I think the boys are so much better than the girls this year. Right now Anoop and Danny are my favorites. Anoop's version of Always On My Mind was incredible last night! Kris and Michael are also really good right now .. and wow, Matt really nailed it last night. Should be interesting to see who goes tonight .. one of the girls I think.

One last thing .. my favorite topic .. coffee! lol .. I received a sweet RAK from Edgar over the weekend .. a bag of coffee beans from the Blue Bottle Coffee Company .. can't wait to try it! Thanks Edgar :)


and lastly .. have you seen this new release from Little House Needleworks?? OMG I love it!!! but then I'm only a little in love with sunflowers! lol


Thanks to very one for all your comments .. I really enjoy reading them! Off to stitch ...

I hope you find your joy in your stitches ...

I'm grateful for family parties ...

Long week ...

and not much stitching for me at all .. but I have spent some time cleaning my stitching room. I honestly don't remember the last time my room got a good cleaning, there was crap all over. Charts not filed where they needed to be, floss not put away, fabric all over the place and finish supplies out of control! lol .. I'm about 3/4's done organizing and it feels great! and I've found way too many patterns I had totally forgotten I had and I want to stitch them all right now! lol .. it is really fun to play with all your stitching stuff, isn't it :)

I heard from April that she received the squares I stitched for her. This was a very fun stitch .. I loved the border! and I usually am not a big fan of borders. This is a Little House Needleworks design from 2007 (or 2006) JCS Ornament issue. I might have to stitch this one again for myself.


One of the stitchers that is in the Friendship RR with me, Lisa, was her for a hockey tournament this weekend with her son Robert. She had emailed me to see if we could meet up and I could hand off my RR to her .. of course I said yes! It was such fun to meet Lisa .. we chatted about everything for 2 nice hours and then it was time for her and Robert to get ready for another hockey game. Here's a picture of Lisa and I and my RR in the bag lol btw, Lisa is on the left and I'm on the right :)

BTW big congratulations to Robert and his hockey team. They won their regional hockey tournament and will be going to nationals in NC soon! Oh and Lisa brought me a good from Sees Candy, a box of latte flavored hard candies .. yummy :) I hope everyone had a great weekend and got lots of stitching done!

I hope you find your joy in your stitches ...

I'm grateful for the stitching ...