Happy Dance

Today I am doing the happy dance. My replacement Daylight Magnifier Light came yesterday. I got it installed back on my stand tonight. Now I can go back to my VOHRH SAL. The head of the lamp is completely different than my other one. Maybe this one will not crack. We had quite a laugh to day at the LNS today. The packing slip showed no charges with the explanation "cracked head". First time I have been told I had a cracked head or am a crack head. LOL

Went for my annual physical today. I hate those. I was anticipating that she would not be happy with my weight. I was supposed to be losing some of it. Hard for me to do. Her comment was that it was good that I had not gained since last year. That was a good thing since most people at this stage in their life gain almost every year. My blood pressure was good, too. Always afraid it will be going up. High blood pressure problems run in the family. No problems, just go for mammogram an bone density in about 6 weeks. Her comments made me do my happy dance too.

Spent the afternoon at the LNS with our Wednesday afternoon stitch therapy group. We had a real nice group today. I am working tomorrow at the LNS. Will be putting together some her patterns for sale and whatever else comes up. If I get everything done and have no customers then it is time to stitch. Stitched on VOHRH mostly today. Light at the LNS is good enough to stitch with my magnifier glasses, but coming home to my light is the best. Should have a picture of the Village progress with my next post.

Thanks everyone for your comments and visiting my blog. Been trying to keep up with reading, but don't always take the time to comment. Everyone does such nice stitching is quite an inspiration to me to do more stitching. Wish there was more time.

Have a good week. Happy stitching.

Game Day and other Trivia Things

Surprise!! Surprise!! I am doing my blog at a normal hour instead of late at night. Plans were to do a post last night and I just didn't have the energy to download the a picture that I wanted to include.

Stitching has been at a premium this week. I was able to do quite a bit over the Labor Day weekend. However on Monday, we went to a new shopping area for part of the day. My significant other thought it would be too boring to sit at home on a holiday. It was a successful trip for me. There was a Clark shoe outlet store there and I bought two pairs of shoes. That is a good thing. As I have said before pictures of stitching progress are going to be limited since I am stitching Christmas presents and a Sunflower Seed design model. My VOHRH is sort of on hold until my magnifier light is returned from the manufacturer.

For three days last week, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I worked in the LNS while the owner is on vacation. Things were rather slow on Tuesday, but there was plenty of work in the shop to keep me busy. The other days were basically busy so I had very little time to do stitching while I was there. I should not really call it work, because I enjoy it so much that it does not seem like work. She had several orders from Hoffman for patterns that I got prepared and mailed off. Her sister covered the store yesterday and is doing it today.

Here is a photo of a piece stitched for me for my birthday by one of my stitching friends locally. We met many years ago at a different LNS stitching group. Found out we lived close to each other (and still do) and became fast friends. We and a couple of others have had many stitch vacations in various places for stitching festivals and stitch camps. She stitched the design and I had it framed at our local frame shop. My original idea was to mat it and have snowflakes cut into the mat. Well, that did not work out. the mat would have had to be real wide to get the snowflakes in it and combined with the frame I had chosen it was overpowering. We settled for a double frame instead. I ask her the other day whose design it was and she said it was an old one and the name was Francis and Me and the title of the design is "In the Meadow". Had a copyright date of 1990. I love snowmen and this fits right in. Thank you Sandi for stitching this for me.

Going to have to end this so I can get on the road to the football game. My alma mater, Kansas State is playing at home today against San Jose State. I live about an hour away and have season tickets. Have made brownies this morning for the tailgate and taking some home grown grape tomatoes to share also. Before I meet my friends to go to the game, will make a stop by the LNS to make sure everything is going OK this morning.

Have also been dog sitting for the LNS owner for Betsy, the shop dog. She has been good, but I know she misses her Momma. She is like my shadow and goes everywhere I go in the house. Right now she is laying on the floor behind me snoozing away, but the minute I get up she will be right with me where ever I go in the house.

Gotta go, hope everyone has a good weekend.

Village SAL and Misc.

Here is my progress on Village of Hawk Run Hallow. It sure seems like it is slow going. Doing this as SAL with Marie P and Jane. I am using 32-ct R&R Lt. Cappuccino with Vicki Clayton silks. Our start date was to be September 1st, but I got the itch to start sooner. We also are planning to try to do one block a month. Progress on this might be a little slow for a couple of weeks or so. I had to send my Daylight magnifier light in to the company today. I did not realize how much the light on it helped, until I don't have it. I can make other magnification arrangements with my Magnavision glasses, but light is still an issue. The plastic around the magnifier and over the light up next to the part that allows you to adjust it near where it hooks onto the swing arm had begun to crack. I had taped it up to keep it together. One little piece of plastic fell off the other night. Another issue I had with it was that out of the clear blue it would dump this very fine black powder on the top of the light, on my hands, on my clothes and one on a stitch project. It is kinda oily too. I can wipe it off the light and wash my hands. It does not wash totally out of my clothes, so glad they were not anything but grubbies that I wear around home. The stitch project was something that I could wash. I got most of it out, but I can still see where it was. Most other people cannot see it. I e-mailed the Daylight Company and told them about my problems and the next day I had a response telling me to send it back to the company and they would replace it at no charge. I was impressed.

Continue to stitch on things that I cannot show you here. The one Christmas present is about half done and the design model is about 1/4 done. When I get frustrated or make a mistake and have to frog, then I switch to another project. I guess you could say that was my rotation. With football season starting, I will be in front of the TV watching football and stitching. I have season tickets for Kansas State football, so will spending a few Saturdays attending those games. They are fun, but it cuts into the stitching time.

Next week, I will be helping cover the LNS while the owner takes a vacation. It is the first one she has had in 2 years. She deserves it. It is a good week, since Monday is a holiday and she will not be open. I will work Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Her sister is going to work Friday and Saturday. I will go in and help her close on Friday, but I have a home football game on Saturday so will be gone that day. Probably will go in on the following Monday and open for her. Not sure what time they get home that Sunday. Also, I will be dogsitting the shop dog Betsy. She and my Boston just tolerate each other, but there will not be a problem. She is a sweet dog and she likes me. She not so crazy about men, especially the UPS man. By the time she had been here several days last time, she decided that my significant other was not so bad. He was the one to take her for walks and out to get the paper in the morning.

Thanks for stopping by my blog and for all your comments. They are very much appreciated.

Have a great holiday weekend. Keep those needles hot.

USO - Unidentified Stitching Objects

Just a quick post to let you know this has been a relatively good stitching week. It was hot a lot of the week, so I did not go much of anywhere and got in a lot of stitching. However, all the stitching has been on things that I cannot show pictures of the progress. Hence the USO name.

• Finished a design model for The Sunflower Seed. Frame is ordered and once framed it will be available.
• Started a Christmas present for one of my friends, but don't want to show pictures, since she may read my blog from time to time. It is going well. Getting close to being half done. Will post pictures after Christmas. Have plans for 3 other projects as Christmas presents.
• Picked up and started another Sunflower Seed design model. Just beginning. Have the border around about one-fourth of it.

Also I got some significant stitching done on my BAP, Village of Hawk Run Hallow while watching a baseball game and the NASCAR race last night. I love that piece. Really like stitching on it. Plans are being made to turn this into a SAL with Marie P and Jane. Marie is waiting on fabric, and she is stressing that she is going to be behind. I doubt that. With all the things I am stitching on at one time, I won't get too far ahead of her. Will try to post a photo next time.

One morning last week I made some Fresh Tomato Salsa. We have had lots of tomatoes, but not enough to go to the trouble of making a big batch for canning. Have been keeping a couple of other people supplied with tomatoes.

Now I have some Colorado peaches that came in on a truck last week that I need to do something with. Not sure how I will take care of them. When it is hot, I don't like to work against the a/c by making cobblers and pies. It is supposed to get hot here again for the first part of the week. Temps up in the 90's with heat index above 100.

Here's hoping everyone has a good week. I am going to do some more work on the computer and then do a little stitching before bed. I am a night owl, so I still have about 2 hours more.

Stitching, Stashing, Working (not really).....

It seems like forever since I did a post. My plan was to do it yesterday evening, but when I went to do pictures the battery was low on the camera. They are rechargeable and I thought it would only take an hour or so, well it did not happen before bedtime. And my bedtime is very late.

The big news is that when I went to the LNS on Wednesday afternoon for my afternoon stitching therapy, I found out my fabric was in for Villages of Hawk Run Hallow. So since I needed to work at the LNS on Thursday, I got to cut my own piece for the Village. I had trouble sleeping Wednesday night knowing that I might be able to take a few stitches on that BAP on Thursday. The morning at the shop was fairly steady with one customer at a time. I was partially through cutting my fabric and had to stop and wait on customers. I make that sound like a bad thing. It is not. Now that I have been in the shop off and on for 3 years, many of those that come in are now my friends too. Another enjoyable thing about working in the "candy store". There were several things I needed to do before starting on the Village. Priced all the new Lizzie*Kate designs, limited edition Christmas design kit, 2007 Santa, and the last of this years Flip-it Series. Cute stuff. At long last I was able to actually take a few stitches on the Village piece. Below is my progress so far.

Village of Hawk Run Hallow
by Carriage House Samplings
32 ct. R&R Lt. Cappuccino
Vikki Clayton Silks

My plan is to do one block a month. Since I started on August 16th, my month will run from the 16th of one month to the 15th of the next. I have been communicating with a couple of gals regarding doing a Village SAL. When I was back in the LNS on Friday to show Anita (owner/designer) my progress on one of her designs and to check colors that I was not sure of, she mentioned she would like to do the Village also. Maybe she will join me on a SAL. We already have one regular stitcher that is working on Block 5. For awhile it is going to be hard to keep me focused on stitching design models and Christmas presents instead of the Village.

Give Me A Home

28-ct Tea Dyed Irish Linen

Sampler Threads

Speaking of Anita, the designer, aka The Sunflower Seed, I can now show you pictures of the designs that I have recently stitched for her. The first one is "Give me a Home". We are waiting for it to come back from the framer. Frame is just laying on it for photo purposes. This is the one I finished about 3 weeks ago. It is easy to tell Anita's background. Born and raised in Kansas. She was the Friday Feature on Hoffman Distributing a week ago, if you would like to learn more about her and her designs.

Here is the 2007 edition of Kansas Xmas, that Anita has going. I stitched this one for her.

Kansas Xmas VI

32 ct Lambswool Linen

Weeks and Sampler Threads

Both designs should be available from your LNS very soon. If not you can contact, ww.thesunflowerseed.com. I am currently working on another design model for release soon. There are two other relatively new designs on that web site also. I ended up working at the shop again yesterday. Business was fairly steady with at least one person in the shop most of the time. I was working on assembling patterns for the design "Tequila and Salt". Ready to mail off to the distributor. About the time I had things going so I could sit down and take a couple of stitches, I had more customers. That is a good thing.

During last week, I made 2 trips to JoAnn's Fabrics. I can go weeks, if not months without stopping there and it is only 2 doors down from the LNS. Anita told me that had these nice rolling totes for portable sewing machines. She got one and used her 40% coupon. So Wednesday I went over and came back with this one. I have a very old Singer portable and I have carried it a lot of places, put it is really heavy. This will be perfect.

Also decided it will be just the thing to take to cross stitch camp when I go go Oklahoma City in October with my sister and a couple of my stitching buddies. Just the thing to carry all my many projects that I just have to take with me. Lot easier than carrying a bag over your shoulder.

Then yesterday after I closed the LNS I went over to JoAnn because they had Christmas and Halloween fabric 50% off for the weekend. Here is what I got for less than $20. I got a yard of everything, but the skeletons. It was the end of the bolt and ended up with 1 1/2 yards.

The skeletons are sparkly. I am sure that I will find a use for these as time goes by, either as part of a finish of a cross stitch piece or in some quilting project.

My intention was to get this done, by the time the NASCAR race started. Had a couple of glitches that took longer than I thought. Now the NASCAR race has been cancelled til tomorrow. I will catch it then. Went in my stitching room to straighten out one thing and it has led to a totally different thing to straighten and clean -up. Need to see about finishing that up and off to stitch on the design model, Christmas presents or the Village.

Hope everyone has had a good weekend. Stitching and doing whatever helps you relax and get retooled for another busy week. I know many of you have been struggling with hot temps like we have, stay cool. Thanks for taking time to read my ramblings. Your comments and interest is greatly appreciated.

Keep on stitching.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK!!!!!!

Well the little farm girl from Kansas has been to the Big Apple and made it home fine. We left a week ago this morning (Saturday) on a trip to New York City and returned home Wednesday evening. It was a great time, but tried to pack too much into such a short time. There was lots of walking and was very warm. Should have been used to it since it is also hot in Kansas, but I don't do hot very well. The trip was centered around baseball and getting to see both Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium before they are torn down after the 2008 season. On Sunday we saw the Yankee's play the Kansas City Royals from a suite. Royals lost. Boo! Hoo!

This photo is taken of the Yankee Stadium field taken from the Press Box when we did the behind the scenes tour on Monday afternoon. There is a lot of history and mystic surrounding Yankee Stadium.
Below is a picture of part of our group in the Suite on Sunday afternoon. The guy in the yellow shirt in the foreground was one of the organizers of the trip. He is the host of a local Sports Talk Show where the idea of this trip came up. A travel agent that listens to the show and is a big baseball fan actually did the trip planning. And they did a great job.As I said, on Monday afternoon we had the behind the scenes tour of Yankee Stadium including Monument Park that houses placques honoring all of the Yankee greats. Here is a picture of the plaque honoring Babe Ruth. Yankee Stadium is billed as "The House that Ruth Built".

What trip to New York would be complete without seeing the Statue of Liberty. We did both a Twilight Cruise and a Day Cruise of New York Harbor. The day cruise actually went all the way around Manhattan Island. I have included a picture of Lady Liberty by day and at night. The night shot is not very good, but I tried to do some editing to make it better. At least you can see more than just that flame as it came out originally.

As time allowed, we did more of the traditional tourist things. Went up to the Observation Deck of the Empire State Building and visited the big Macy's store. Some of the escalators in Macys are still wooden. How cool is that.

Below is a picture of the front entrance to Macys taken from the top of the Empire State Building.

In the tradition of a true stitcher, my purchase at Macys was a bag. Loved it because it said Macys- New York. What could have been a better souvenir for a person that loves all kinds of bags. Something else to carry stitch projects.

While gone on the trip I did not get as much stitching done as I wanted to. One evening I was so tired I did not do any stitching. Also our hotel did not have the best lighting. I have learned to deal with that in lots of hotels. This one was particularly bad. One lady said that she had to go to the bathroom if she wanted enough light to read anything. All in all it was a great trip and we had a wonderful group of people to travel with. There were 40 in all. Everyone had memorable experiences, some more memorable than others. One group had their taxi stopped by a cop in a John Deere Gator because the taxi driver was driving on a bike path. Evidently the taxi driver did not know how to get them to the proper pier for one of our cruises. The cop let him off with a warning basically because he had customers with him waiting to get to their destination. The group had many laughs on that one.

A while back I joined a Yahoo Group to get involved with a Halloween SAL that Julie, Weathered Barn told me about. Well, it started August 1st and you were to stitch at least one Halloween ornament each weekend beginning last weekend. Being out of town on the weekend complicated matters, but I did get one stitched before we left on our trip. It is called "Beware of the Cat". It was to be stitched in red and white and I did not like that so I changed to WDW Sweet Potato and Whitewash on 10-ct Black Tula. I took several pictures trying to get it to look right. This is the best I could come up with. Now it is another weekend and I need to do another ornament. Not sure how I will finish this one. The SAL is also having a little contest at the end with those that want to participate in a tree decorating contest. Not sure I am going to compete, but would like to get a tree made to hang the ornaments on.

I am almost done with the 3rd ornament from the PS Cranberry Christmas pattern. I did not take time to take a picture. Stopped at the LNS yesterday and she has in the WDW wool that we are going to use to finish these ornaments. Maybe we can get on them this week sometime.

Other stitching activities include the starting of some of my Christmas present stitching. I will not be putting pictures of these up until after Christmas. Most of those I am stitching for also read my blog. I don't want to spoil the surprise.

Continue to stitch on a design for The Sunflower Seed. Maybe done in a week or so. I just went and checked her web site. The newest designs are up. www.thesunflowerseed.com. I stitched both the "Give me a Home" and "Kansas Xmas VI". The Xmas one is available now and the Give me a Home will be available very soon.

When I was at the LNS yesterday she had gotten in the Vicki Clayton Hand-Dyed Silk for me for the 1st block of Village of Hawk Run Hollow. Still waiting on the fabric to come. I am so excited about starting this BAP. I am going to try to follow the plan that others have used of stitching one block a month.

While I was gone to New York, I got a call from one of my sisters that had taken my 87-year old father to his WWII Army Reunion that the men had decided to come back to the town where I live to have their reunion next year. That will involve a little work on my part, but it make my dad so happy to go to the reunion, I will gladly do the work. I think that in the beginning their were about 195 men in his outfit. He thinks now there are about 15-17 living. There were 5 at the reunion. Most are brought by their children. My dad and another man had been to every one held since they started them in 1967 until this year. The other man died the end of May. It was a bittersweet get together for my dad this year. Hopefully they will all we around for it next year.

This has really gotten longer than I planned, but I have always been accused of being long winded when I write anything. Besides I have not posted in over a week. I thank everyone that stops by and reads. Also thank those that make comments. Being gone several days put me behind in reading e-mail, blogs and comments. Should be caught up by the end of the weekend. Again thanks for reading. Hope everyone is having a good weekend and staying cool. I just looked at the temp here and it is just after noon and it is 90 with heat index of 97. Predicted to be 100. I am staying inside and stitching.

Happy Cool Stitching.

On the Road Again and Stitching Progress (No Pictures)

Have one more day to get ready for a big trip to New York. Sig. Other and I are headed out on a baseball related trip on Saturday morning. As time goes on you will discover that I am a sports junkie. Love to watch on TV and go to games. Like Kansas State University sports of all kinds, Kansas City Royals baseball and NASCAR. Favorite driver is Kasey Kahne. I had to get a new one last year when my favorite driver retired (Rusty Wallace). Well, I digress from the trip. We are going to a game at both Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium before they both are replaced and torn down after the 2008 season. It has always been a dream of ours to make it to most of the major league baseball stadiums. Already have missed some of the old ones, but could not miss out on this chance to see them both in one trip. The trip is sponsored by a sports talk show on a local radio station. There are 40 people going. They were so surprised at who signed up for the trip. Over one-third are women.The Yankee game will be against the Royals and in a suite.LA-De-Da. There is even a dress code there. No jeans, no shorts and no flip flops. That just about knocks out my wardrobe. So tomorrow will be spent finishing up the preparations and packing.

One of the biggest issues is figuring out what stitching projects too take. Want to make sure that I have enough, God forbid that I would run out of anything to do. But yet don't want to overdo it. Easy for a stitcher to do. Again, you want to make sure you don't run out. It is a long flight, so hope to get a lot of stitching done there. Actually, I had to start a new small project to take along. It is a Christmas present for one of my friends. So I have started the Christmas Season.

As for stitching progress. I finished the design model that I was doing for The Sunflower Seed. They were taking pictures of it for the web site today. It should be up on there in a few days. www.thesunflowerseed.com. The name is "Give Me A Home". It was fun to stitch. I love the border. Last week I picked up another design to stitch, again it is a secret until it is released. I am about 1/4 done with it. It is a real fun stitch.

Still working on my PS Cranberry Christmas ornaments. The third one is about 1/2 done. It will travel to NY with me. These are going to be shop models for the LNS. We are going to try to finish them similar to the pictures on the pattern. She has ordered some WDW wool to put on the back as part of the outside frame of the design. (See picture on the pattern).

Recently, I joined a Yahoo Group called Wonderful XS World (wXSw). A designer named Helga Mandl has set up a Halloween SAL of some of her designs. It started August 1st and you are to stitch one design a week and post a picture of what you have stitched at least once every 2 weeks. This runs through October 14th. Actually, you are supposed to do it on weekends, but already many have stitched 3 or more before August 1st. I got my first one stitched today. (Beware of the Cat) I had to make color changes, etc. but it was a very fun quick stitch. Picture later.

My birthday had the last hurrah on Tuesday. I had another lunch with a friend. I could say stitching friend because we became friends through stitching, but now we are friends because we like and enjoy each other not just because of the stitching. Well, she knows that I like snowmen, so guess what I got snowmen. Love it. Still needs to be framed. (Picture later) Think I will run to the frame shop tomorrow to see about a mat for it and see if they can cut snowflakes in the mat. Found a frame moulding at the LNS that I like.. She also gave me a gift certificate the the frame shop. We had a great 2 hour lunch including cheesecake for dessert. It truely has been a great birthday. People are so generous to me that it amazes me.

Well, I better end this rambling before my readers fall asleep. Thanks to all that stop by to read my ramblings. We return from our trip Wednesday afternoon, so there will not be another post until after that. Try to have pictures then.

Thoughts and prayers are with the victims of the bridge collapse in Minneapolis and their families. What a horrific thing to happen.

Happy stitching!!