Happy 4th of July

Hope you all have a wonderful day with family and friends!

Exchanges and a bit of decorating ...

The mailman has been very busy delivery sweet exchanges to my house again. I participated in an exchange on the Pals BB. The exchange was to stitch and finish either a pinkeep or a pincushion. My partner, Abbie (no blog), stitched Lizzie*Kate's Land That I Love and finished it into a pinkeep/scissor holder for me. This was Abbie's first pinkeep! She did a lovely job ...


here's the back .. love the scissor pocket .. oh and she made the scissor fob too. Abbie included the scissors, some fabric, needles and a few patterns in the exchange package.

Karen and I have been friends for a long time and participate on a lot of the same exchange blogs. For the frist time were finally paired up as partners. We were paired in the Fair and Square Exchange. We decided to "finish" each other's pieces instead of sending them "un-finished" like what we normally do in the exchange. Karen stitched Patriotic Bouquet by BBD and finished it into a pinkeep ... I love it!

and look how she "signed" the back ... how cute and clever is that! I love these two exchanges because one is from a new friend online friend (Abbie) and one is from a dear friend I've know for a few years now. Now every 4th of July, when I bring out all my decorations, have these two lovely pieces to remind me of two lovely ladies ... aren't exchanges great!

Now to share some 4th of July decorating with you ... this is our kitchen table ...

my only new decoration this year was this wood wheel barrow that I found at JoAnne's when they first put out their 4th decorations ... it's so cute!

And here's my mantle this year ... I'm still playing around with it a bit ... I think it still needs some red, white and blue flowers ...

Waving Hi to all of you ... thanks for visiting and leaving me comments .. I love them :)

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

I'm grateful for friends ...

Exchanges and some stitching ...

Happy First Day of Summer! Although around here you'd never know it ... we had a very unseasonably wet and cold Spring. We've only had a couple of days that were over 70 degrees ... wonder what July and August will be like?

Summer might no really be here yet, but Summer exchanges are ... first up is my exchange from Karen from the Stitching Friends Through the Seasons blog. Karen stitched the lovely SB design for me ... it's going to look great on my mantle!

Karen also included some ribbon, fabric, beads, charms and some of her wonderful handmade cards! I just love everything Karen *smile*

My exchange partner is Joan. I stitched for her BBD's Pins and Needles. Vonna finished it into a lovely pincushion, filled with walnuts. I wanted to make a little something for the 4th of July for Joan too, so I stitched up this cute Quaker freebie design and finished it into a little pillow. Funny thing about this Quaker design, Joan had just finished stitching it for herself the night before my package arrived lol ... wonder how she'll finish her's?? Along my stitched pieces, I sent Joan some other goodies too ...

After stitching for a couple of exchanges I stitched a couple of things for myself ... This is Bent Creek's Liberty from their Zipper kits. I stitched it on a left over piece of 32 ct fabric instead of the big count fabric that came with the kit. I think it turned out really cute ...

And this is a design by Tanya of The Sampler Girl. I love this design ... not sure how I'm going to finish it yet. I just realized that the word Sweet is supposed to be in red, opps!

I "stole" this story about the design from her blog because I love the story and don't want to forget it...

Design draws inspiration from one of my favorite hymns, My Country tis of Thee, written by Samuel Francis Smith while he was a Seminary student in Andover, Massachusetts. Smith wrote the lyrics in thirty minutes! The song was performed in public on July 4, 1831 at a children’s Independence day celebration in Boston.

My Country tis of Thee

Sweet Land of Liberty

Of thee I sing

Land where my fathers died

Land of the pilgrims' pride

From every mountainside

Let freedom ring!

Last week I was looking online at all the 4th of Juoly designs and found one that I've never seen but knew I wanted to stitch it. Terry and I were married on June 14th, which is Flag Day so I'm going to stitch this in honor of our 35th wedding anniversary. I'm going to make a few changes to personalize it for us. I think I'll put the year we were married on the flag (instead of word Liberty) and then stitch the M T 3 5 in blue. I think it'll be a fun stitch.

Thanks for visiting and for leaving your comments ... I do enjoy reading them!

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

I'm grateful for my husband ...

A few more finishes ...

No rotation this week for me ... and I think I'll be putting my rotation on hold for the rest of the month. I have some more 4th of July stitching I want to do and I over committed myself to exchanges so that's what I'll be doing the rest of June.

So besides stitching on exchanges I've been doing some finishing ... and loving it!!! It's nice to have these out of the finish drawer ... I stitched Celebrate Freedom (Bent Creek Snapper) last year. I finished it into a hanging pillow. The backing fabric is the fabric it's sitting on. I just love how it turned out!

My next finish is a pinkeep. Faye stitched these for me last year in the Fair and Square 4th of July exchange .. adorable!

and here's the back ... I put the name square on an angle so everything fit ...

Melita stitched this for me 2 years ago in the Fair and Square exchange ... I had fun playing with all the beads ...

the back ...

And last is my scissor fob. This is the Lizzie*Kate Spring fob. Karen had stitched the design for the Lizzie*Kate exchange and finished it into a floss tag ... now I have a matching floss tag and scissor fob :)

here's the backing fabric to the scissor fob ... colorful and cute ...

No more blogging for me this week ... Terry and I will be heading out of town for a long weekend away to celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary ... yep 35 years!!! can't hardly believe it's been that long :) Our anniversary is actually the 14th (Monday) but we're going to go play Friday through Sunday ... I'm really looking forward to getting away.

Thanks for coming and visiting and thanks for all your lovely comments about my finishes ... I really am having a great time with them.

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

I'm grateful for my husband ...

Weekends and finishes ...

4 days off ... what a great 4 days off, even with all the rain we had. Miserable weather and all the outdoor plans turned into indoor plans ... so we stayed up late and sleep in ... watched movies and Nascar racing and just played around ... and of course I stitched. But I also did some finishing and some sewing! Yep sewing. I borrowed Monica's sewing machine and had a lot of fun sewing. Sewing and I don't always get along, but this weekend everything went fairly well.

One of the first things I wanted to attempt was a needlebook. I'm doing a personal exchange with Kathy. We chose to exchange needlebooks ... since this is a new finishing technique for me I knew I'd want to make one or two before making the one for Kathy. Here's my first attempt ... of course the one for Kathy will have a stitched front and back ... here's the front ...

and here's the inside ...

and the back ... I have a few tweaks to work out, but all in all I think it turned out pretty good. I used white thread so I could see the stitches and what needed to be reworked.

I decided to do some finishes since I was in the mood for sewing ... even though Spring is almost over I can enjoy these for a couple more weeks ...

Here's another new to me finish ... a pillow ... and I just love it! I will definitely be making more pillows ...

and another pillow ... how sweet is this *smile*

And here's my last two finishes ... both are BBD's Bluebird, one stitched 1 or 1 and boy is it tiny! lol .. I stitched them both with Belle Soie's Poison Apple. The tiny one is my first ever floss tag ... and the bigger one is filled with crushed walnuts to use as a pin cushion ...

here's the backing fabric ...

I sure had fun this weekend playing around with new finishing techniques. Thanks for stopping by for a visit. Hope everyone had a great weekend.

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

I'm grateful for new things ...

A new start and a winner ...

I'd like to introduce you all to Tuesday's new rotation design ... Sampler Sisters of the Thread by Primitive Needle. I'm using the recommended fabric (Picture This Plus Mello) but I'm stitching it on 36 ct instead of 40 ct, 1 over 2 and a combination of GAST and WDW threads. I'm soooooo in love with this design. The Mello fabric is lovely to stitch on and the colors of the threads are just so nice and calming. Karen and I are doing an SAL on Tuesday nights ... want to join us?? You'll love the design!

My giveaway for Autumn Song was supposed to be on Tuesday but I forgot! So I came home from work today and listed out everyone that had posted that they wanted in on the giveaway, then into my wide mouth coffee cup they went ...

when Terry got home I asked him to pick a name out of the coffee cup ...

and the winner is ... April ... it's really hard to read her name on the paper ... I didn't write the names dark enough for my camera ... Congrats April! I'll be emailing you this evening. Thanks everyone for entering my giveaway ... it was fun!

In between my stitching rotation, I get some exchange stitching done too *smile* I stitched this Lizzie*Kate design for Karen (for the Lizzie*Kate Exchange Blog) and finished it into a pinkeep. I'm really glad you liked it Karen! shhhhhh I wasn't supposed to include any extras, but I couldn't resist making a scissor fob for Karen, especially after I found the perfect charm for it.

I'll leave you with a couple more pictures from Mother's Day ... here one of my favorites ... me and my boys ...

and here's all of us ... on the rocks ...

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

I'm grateful for Thursday ...

Wips and a finish ...

Time for an update on my rotation and an another finish! First up are the rotation pieces ...

Peppermint Twist ... stupid tree was pretty boring to stitch, but I love how it looks!


Earth laughs is coming along nicely ... even with all the color changes for each flower, I still can stitch more in an evening ... feeling sooo accomplished! lol


and last is L*K's Christmas Flip-its ... I'm a bit bummed because I dont' think I have enough fabric left to finish the last of the designs ... I might rip out the top of the border and see if one would fit on top of holly ... I really need to sit down and count it out ... yuck!


My finish for the week is Autumn Song by Blackbird Design. I was doing a SAL with Natasha. She got a little side tracked by other stitching that had to get done, but she's really close to finishing it :) I really enjoyed this ... loved the colors!


I know I won't be stitching this again and would like to offer it up as a giveaway. The giveaway will include the chart, leftover Weeks floss (probably not enough to stitch it, but a good start) and the scissor fob, but not the scissors, in the picture. Just leave me a comment with your email address and I'll draw a name next Tuesday, May 18th. You don't have to have a blog to enter, but please make sure you include your email address ... also, I'll email international too!


I've picked by project to put in rotation now that Autumn Song is done. I'm finally going to start something new! I'll post pictures as soon as I have it all together *smile*

I hope all you mom's out there had a wonderful day! Mother's Day was also Chris' 28th birthday, he was really a Mother's Day baby too :) We started the day at Starbucks (surprise surprise! lol) and then headed to the waterfront for the day ... later in we ended up seeing Iron Man 2, ending with a nice dinner at Red Robin ... it was a very full day but so much fun! I'll leave you with one of my favorite pictures from Mother's Day ... more to follow in another post ...

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

I'm grateful for the my sons and daughter-in-law ...

Happy Mother's Day

I found this poem on Carolyn's blog. I thought it was lovely and spoke to my heart ...

"If roses grow in Heaven Lord, please pick a bunch for me. Place them in my Mother's arms and tell her they're from me. Tell her that I love and miss her, and when she turns to smile, place a kiss upon her cheek and hold her for awhile. Because remembering her is easy, I do it every day, but there is an ache within my heart that will never go away."

Miss you Mom. It's Chris' 28th birthday today. You'd be very proud of the man he has become.

I hope you all have a wonderful Mother's Day

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

I'm grateful for the the years I had with my Mom ...

Spring and Exchanges ...

Happy May to you all! Did anyone get flowers on their doorsteps on May Day? I remember making paper cones our of colored paper, picking flowers out of the back yard, putting them in the paper cones and hanging them on the door knobs of some of my favorite neighbors ... sometimes they were filled with grass and dandelions lol .. what fond memories I have of the 1st of May :)

Last week I didn't stitch on my rotation pieces ... instead I finished up an exchange and then stitched a couple of fun quick spring stitches ... now to get them finish finished! First one is Fresh Spring by Homespun Samplar. The bunny is stitched with GAST Maple Sugar and the rest of it is stitched with an unknown GAST color. Quite a while ago I bought some of GAST's special edition sets. Unfortunately I didn't know that the floss tags for each color, didn't have the color name on them, and I threw out the list before realizing it ... owell, they are still pretty colors and nice to stitch with ...

Next up is a freebie by The Stitcherhood ... the fabric looks purple'y in this picture, but it's just a nice neutral ... I do love the DMC purple and green for this one ...


I have two exchanges to show off to you too ... I received this lovely floss tag from KarenSC for the Lizzie Kate exchange I'm in ... I love this spring design! Sooo colorful and Karen did a great job on the floss tag ... this was her first one! I hope it isn't her last :)

here's the back fabric on the tag ...

and over on the Pals message board I participated on a Spring Stash Exchange ... here's what I received from Meg (I don't think she has a blog) ... didn't she send some great things! It was really fun to do an exchange that wasn't about stitching something, but about ending along new stash ... I hope we do another one like this soon ...

Friday afternoon I took off to the ocean for the weekend with my dear friends Yvonne and Lisa ... this was our 3rd annual trip and we had a blast as always ... walks on the beach, yummy hors d'oeuvres, pomegranate margaritas, lots of laughs, hot tubbing, an evening at the casino (we were all winners thanks to Yvonne ... she won big on the penny slots!) and of course great shopping ... good times with good friends ...

Here's the 3 of us in front of a sign of one the shops we visited ... had to get a picture! Yvonne is the one on the left, Lisa is the one on the right ... little old me in the middle ... definitely 3 wacky women! lol

I'm back to my stitching rotation this week ... Peppermint Twist is up for this evening ... can't wait!

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

I'm grateful for the ocean and good friends ...