Finally ..

I finished Bent Creek's Seasons of Joy on Valentine's Day. This was a class piece at a retreat I attended about 4 years ago. I loved this piece when I took the class .. just not sure why I didn't just finish it then .. owell, it's finished now and I just love it. If you notice the word Joy is in a different color than the rest of the alphabet. In the chart, it's a dark chocolate brown, but me being a "red" kinda girl, I stitched Joy in Brick (WDW). I'm definately going to frame this one .. probably with two color mats .. DH really liked it too and wanted to know where we were going to hang it .. that's when I know he really likes one of my finishes :) Here's some pictures ...

This was a quick little stitch I did last night while watching a movie. It's a freebie from findstitch.com I used some floss that I found hanging around in my floss drawer. I'm not sure where I got this floss, probably in an exchange sometime .. it's lovely to stitch with and I loved all the verigation. The name of the floss is L'atelier du pic vert and I think the color name is Pivoine. I just threw it in this heart tuck pillow ... not perfect for it, but I'll do something else to it later ...

I'm off to watch racing .. Daytona 500 .. woo hoo!!!

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

I'm grateful for racing ...

Hump Day .. love Wednesdays!

Hope everyone is having a good week. Mine has been less than fun, but my cold is gone .. which is a very very good thing! I'll try not to bore you too much with ugly details about my week .. but as everyone knows the economy sucks right now and well we are feeling it pretty hard here. Boeing will be handing out 4500 layoff notices on Friday, 2/20 .. so needless to say work is very stressful right now .. and we have two men in our group that are serious ill, one waiting for a liver transplant and one with lung cancer that is moving aggressively .. please keep Sean and Richard in your prayers .. heavy sigh .. it's just tough right now .. but there are good things .. great things too .. so let's talk about that stuff now ..

Last Saturday night we took Monica out for her birthday dinner. She choose this funky hawaiian restaurant .. very casusal and very fun and the food was amazing .. here's the group .. acting out as usual! lol


I've been stitching a lot in the evenings .. it's been a great way to relax and concentrate on other stuff for a while .. I love my hobby :) After stitching some of the border on my Friendship Sampler RR, I really wanted to stitch a couple of the hearts .. here's what I've done so far ...

I'm going to have all the stitchers pick whatever colors they want to use for their hearts (in the red/pink theme), but I'm going to have them stitch their names with Belle Soie Noir, I love the look of it against the coffee dyed fabric.

The other heart I stitched is the "replacement" heart where the lock of hair is .. I'm really pleased with the colors so far :)

I finished the main square for the winter round of the Fair and Square exchange .. this was a really fun stitch .. here's a sneak peek ...

I'm also making great headway on BC's Seasons .. I love this piece and can't wait to see it finished and framed ...

I have dangerous fallen in love with Etsy. If you haven't been there yet, check it out .. there are so many crafty people and they are selling some wonderful fun items. Thanks to enabling by Cindy I found this adorable bird .. check out the fabric, yep there's coffee cups all over it! lol The red bowl in the picture with the bird is another Etsy purchase .. can't wait to figure out what I'll be using it for :)

A very special blogging friend passed this award on to me .. thank you Michelle. I have really enjoyed our growing friendship .. here's a description of this special friends award:

These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbon's of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these kind writers. When you pass the award along please include these guidelines. I am to choose eight friends to share this with.

I'm sending this award on to eight friends. It's always hard to pick special bloggers to pass this award to ... I have met some wonderful friends over the last couple of years so I'd like to pass this on to Cindy, Karen, Chris, RuthAnn, Natasha, Melissa, Wendy and Sally. I know blog awards are kinda silly sometimes .. but the friendships that I'm making through blogging mean a great deal to me .. and I do like to be silly too *lol*

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

I'm grateful for my stitching ...

Just checking in ...

Between blowing my nose, coughing and sleeping, I have gotten a bit of stitching done. Below is my progress my Bent Creek. I'm really enjoying this one and can't wait to have it finished! Sorry for the wrinkles ...



and here's a little ornament stitching ... It's a freebie by Midnight Stitching called Snowman's Quaker Christmas. Very fun stitch. I used Sugared Coffee by Sassy's Fabrics. I have a few ornament cuts but this is the first time I've stitched on any .. I love the fabric and the color .. can't wait to use more of it :)


Going back to vegging on the couch with my furbabies and my tea :)


I'm grateful for warm blankies ...

Another exchange ...

I participated in a Christmas in July exchange that Simone hosted. The person stitching for me was Jeanine. She stitched this wonderful Christmas ornament for me .. don't you just love that reindeer!
She also sent me some Christmas fabric, a skein of the prettiest Gloriana silk and a kit of Christmas ornaments.

Oh and look at the postcard .. it's real Dutch cows! Jeanine is from The Netherlands and the postcard is from where she works .. sooo cool! Thank you Jeanine, I can't wait for Christmas so I can hang this lovely ornament on my tree :)

In between stitching on exchanges, I've been working on Bent Creek's Joy and on CCN's Summer Joy .. I'll post a picture of Summer Joy over the weekend .. but here's BC's Joy so far ... I really love this piece! But then don't I say that about everything I'm stitching??!! lol

Hope everyone is having a great week .. enjoy your summer and getting lots of stitching done .. your blogs are certainly busy busy busy :)

DH and I are going to see Stevie Wonder in concert tomorrow night .. I am soo excited! We paid more than we should have for the tickets, but he is one of our most favorite music artist. We saw him back in 73, it was his Talking Book tour. In our opinion, Talking Book was definately one of his best albums ever .. a close 2nd would be Songs in the Key of Life. There's a song from Talking Book called You and I. I guess you could call this "our song" .. the first time we heard Stevie sing it live, it touched both of us .. ya know when of those moments when you smile at your significant other, lock eyes, squeeze each others hands and you just know it spoke to both of you. I really can't wait to hear him 30 odd years later, I hope he sings it. Here's the lyrics ...

"You And I"

Here we are on earth together,

It's you and I,

God has made us fall in love, it's true,

I've really found someone like you

Will it say the love you feel for me, will it say,

That you will be by my side

To see me through,

Until my life is through

Well, in my mind, we can conquer the world,

In love you and I, you and I, you and I

I am glad at least in my life I found someone

That may not be here forever to see me through,

But I found strength in you,

I only pray that I have shown you a brighter day,

Because that's all that I am living for, you see,

Don't worry what happens to me

Cause' in my mind, you will stay here always,

In love, you and I, you and I, you and I, you and I

In my mind we can conquer the world

In love, you and I, you and I, you and I

I'm off to stitch and watch Burn Notice .. we are all excited that the summer shows are here! lol ... enjoy your weekend .. be safe and dry and cool .. weird weather all over the US this summer!

and thanks for all your comments .. I really enjoy this stitching blogging community .. you guys are the greatest :)

I'm grateful for music ...