A Good Day

Hi, stitching friends!

Photo from whalecoveinn.com

Today was a good day. Shawn and I slept in, watched some football in front of the fireplace, and had a nice breakfast (although we found out that our well-stocked vacation kitchen had no salt!).

We ventured out to Fogarty Creek Beach just up the road from our condo and walked on the beach. I took lots of pictures with my Nikon, so I’ll have to wait until we’re home to show you. (I don’t have a way of transferring them to my iPad.) I borrowed the above photo from whalecoveinn.com, and it shows one of the pretty bridges we walked on at Fogarty. It was a gorgeous day, temp in the mid 50s. We forgot our rubber boots back at the condo, so we’ll be back again with boots maybe tomorrow so we can get wet and check out the tide pools.

After Fogarty, we went to the Christmas store in Lincoln City and bought some pretty ornaments. This Jim Shore Celtic Santa is my favorite.

We stopped by Walmart to pick up a few necessities (salt!) and came “home” to have some salads and watch football. I love our week away and how we can take it easy every day. Lots of down time. The perfect vacation for us.

I brought several projects with me, but I’m currently stitching “Simply Winter” by The Drawn Thread. After this, I’ll just have the autumn one to go. I decided to stitch with two strands of thread rather than the called-for one strand because I wanted the colors to be a bit bolder.

The light in the condo isn’t good for stitching, so I’m happy I brought my portable stitching lamp from home. If you travel and have a hard time with finding good light, I highly recommend this lamp from Amazon; it disassembles and packs in a suitcase. Here is the link on Amazon.

Tomorrow we plan more beach combing and exploring if the weather continues to cooperate.

Mr. Wonderful is sleeping now, pretty typical when Sunday Night Football is on and the fire is warm and cozy. It’s been a good day.

Wishing you joy and lots of time to stitch!

Gifts for Me and Gifts for You!

Hi, stitching friends!

I know many of you are buried under snow or freezing your buns off in your part of the world, and I'm sorry. In Boise, we have "warmish" weather (highs in the 40s, lows in the 30s) and no snow. If I could, I would send our "winter" weather your way. But since I can't, I will send you a big virtual hug and my sincere wish that you stay safe on those roads and stay warm inside, hopefully with lots of time to stitch.

This will be a pretty short post today, as I have been doing a lot of stitching but not much finishing. I started "Halloween at Hawk Run Hollow" last week, and I have the LOFTY goal of finishing it in time to be framed before Halloween. In order to do that, I'm going to need to stitch three blocks every two months. Since January is over on Thursday, I have a lot of work to do to get and stay on schedule!

Here's my progress on block one:

(Don't you just love my needleminder? It's from Mad for Minders - lots more about that Etsy shop later on. Click on their name to visit them.)

I'm stitching Halloween at Hawk Run Hollow on 32-count tea/coffee-dyed Jobelan. The called-for fabric was too expensive for my budget at the time, so I came up with a solution. I bought white Jobelan and dyed it myself. I'm quite pleased with the fabric. Even though I've already made a major mistake that would require a LOT of frogging, I'm having a ball stitching this. I'm not going to rip out my mistake and start over (I don't have time) and I'm certainly not going to tell you where I messed up. If you can't spot it, I'm not going to help you! It's supposed to be a primitive piece, anyway.

🎉🎉🎉

Happy Birthday to Me!

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you might already know that January is my favorite month. When others are dreading the long, dark, winter days, I'm looking forward to the end of January because it's my birthday! Mr. Wonderful makes it extra special by pretty much giving me free reign to buy whatever my heart desires (as long as he doesn't have to go shopping or pick something out himself, which is fine by me). So, I've picked up a few new things...

Some new patterns, including "The Shores of Hawk Run Hollow" by Carriage House Samplings (and the fabric to stitch it, which has not arrived yet), "Hurray, It's a Snow Day" by Homespun Elegance, and "Liberty Hill Farm" by Silver Creek Samplers. I've also ordered "The Houses of Hawk Run Hollow." (I am ambitious, aren't I? Either that or crazy.)

And...another pattern (not saying which one!), in a book by Blackbird Designs, that I will be stitching this summer along with RJ and Mary of Stitching Friends Forever! It will be my first SAL and I can hardly wait. But I will be busy in the meantime for sure.

I ordered a project bag from DiddlyDaddleDesigns on Etsy, a grime guard from SewMuch2Luv on Etsy, and a blog book from Blog2Print, all of which are currently in the wind.

And these...

Needle minders from one of my favorite Etsy shops, Mad For Minders! Aren't they awesome? I am a total Trekkie nerd, and I love this retro snow girl.

Who's ready for a giveaway... or TWO?!?

My birthday would not be complete if I didn't share the love with you. I've put together a couple of giveaways that I hope you'll love. There will be a few hidden surprises with each one as well as what you see in the following photos. Please choose which giveaway you'd like to enter and let me know in your comment by using the phrase I give you. You must be a sidebar follower to win. I'll do the drawings on Friday, February 8.

Giveaway #1: Bless Our Home

The first giveaway includes Country Cottage Needleworks' "Bless Our Home," a cut of 36-count vintage country mocha Edinburgh, and a sweet Betsy Ross needleminder from Mad for Minders. (There will be a few extra hidden surprises as well!) If you would like to enter to win this giveaway, please say "I would like to stitch Bless Our Home" in your comment.

Giveaway #2: Snow

The second giveaway includes an out-of-print chart by Bent Creek called "Snow," a cut of 40-count vintage country mocha Newcastle, and this sweet, vintage Santa needleminder from Mad for Minders. (There will also be a few extra hidden surprises included in this giveaway.) If you would like to enter this giveaway, please say "I would like to stitch the Snow" in your comment.

Again, I will do the drawing and announce the winners on Friday, February 8. You must be a sidebar follower (and hopefully an email follower as well!) to win.

Good luck!

I hope 2019 brings you time with friends and family and lots of stitching time (and NO frogging!). Until next week, be well, dear friends. Thanks for stopping by.

Hibernation Day

Happy Thanksgiving, stitching friends!

The holidays this year are sneaking up on me. I'm still stitching a Halloween project! And tomorrow is Thanksgiving! Holy Hannah. Part of it is that Thanksgiving is early this year, but the other part, for me, is that my mom is in Cuba right now, and will be flying back to Idaho the day after Thanksgiving.

This is the first year in a long time I have not spent the holiday with her, and it just feels weird. She will be spending Thanksgiving day in Miami with her travel buddy, Carol. I hope they have a great day! I will definitely miss her but am looking forward to her photos and stories when I see her Friday.

While my mind is still on Halloween stitching (I'm working on "When Skeletons Dance" by The Drawn Thread), I did finish a winter-themed project today. It's for my dear husband, Shawn, and it's probably my most favorite project.... ever.

This is Shawn, in 2000, after an especially dirty day on the ranch. It was a hot, dry day and they were working cattle at the "dippin' vat," a set of community corrals owned by their cattle association. (I have no idea why they call it the dippin' vat.) He was sweating and the cattle were stirring up dust, and I just could not resist the opportunity to snap a photo of my beautiful cowboy. Oh, those blue eyes....

So, why the random photo of him covered in dirt? Because it reminds me of how hard he works, and it really does relate to my cross-stitch project.

Shawn's family owns a 1,000-acre cattle ranch in central Idaho, and the ranch has been in their family for four generations. The above photo is Shawn and his dad, Terrence. Terrence passed away eight years ago on November 19, so this time of year is especially hard on Shawn, his mom and his sisters. Terrence was a great guy, with a big, booming voice, an irreverent sense of humor, and a big heart.

We lived in a house on the ranch then, and Shawn and his dad worked every day of the week, often putting in 12-hour or longer days. Shawn and I would get away maybe four weekends a year, and we would travel to Boise to stay with college friends and get in some movies, shopping and dining out - all those things we didn't have access to in a town of 500 people.

Here we are back in the day, on one of our trips to Boise. (We look different now - Shawn is a lot more grey and I'm not so skinny anymore!) I loved our trips to Boise because I got my cowboy all to myself for a whole weekend.

When we lived on the ranch, I looked forward to rainy weekends in June the most. If it was raining in June, that usually meant lightning, and that meant it wasn't safe for Shawn to be outside moving pipe. So, he would come inside and we would spend the whole day together watching movies, snuggled up together in a big overstuffed chair, listening to the rain hit the windows.

And that brings me to my most recent finish, "Hibernation Day" by Heartstring Samplery. Thanks to Beth of Heartstring Samplery for personally responding to my email (WOW!) asking for help with the alphabet to personalize the sampler. She is awesome!

Hibernation Day
by Heartstring Samplery
Stitched on 32-count natural linen by MCG Textiles
with called-for overdyed threads

I love the snap of winter air
and snowflakes on my face
How snowdrifts make the world
disappear without a trace

I'll take a day dressed in pajamas
in a room without a view
If I can spend the day
curled up next to you

Let's have a hibernation day,
me and you

Sorry about the huuuuuge photo, but it was a really long finish! I found this vintage-looking shutter at Michael's and did a happy dance when I pulled out my measuring tape to find that it was the perfect size for this sampler. (Don't you just love it when you find the perfect thing to finish a project?) I finished it Priscilla & Chelsea-style, lacing the stitching on 3/16" foam core, then mounting that on homespun-covered chipboard. I used magnets and washers to attach it to the shutter, then also used a magnet/washer combo to attach the bow and greenery to the bottom so I can reuse the shutter for another project if I want to and change out the embellishment.

I really like the variegation in the overdyed threads Beth chose for the project.

This sampler just nails the way I feel about my days with Shawn. Now that we are living in Boise and he is a teacher, I still look forward to our "hibernation days." Spending the day with him, no matter what we're doing - watching TV or movies, running errands, grocery shopping - is hands down my favorite thing in the world. He still works two or more weekends a month at the ranch - a 500-mile round-trip drive - so those hibernation days are still precious and few.

So this Thanksgiving I think I am most thankful for time. Time with my family, time to stitch and enjoy good days, and the time you take to visit me here. Wishing you a happy Thanksgiving and wishing you lots of hibernation days with those you love.