Lots to talk about....

I've gotten some more done on the Red Deer Sampler.  These vases of flowers are huge!

Sorry for the perspective -- I have the sampler laid out on a pillow.  :D

I also knitted some more hexipuffs.  Slow but sure.

You can't see all of them -- they are piled up in there.

Saturday, the father type and I headed out to NYC once again.  This time we made it to see the girl child's apartment!  She recently moved to NYC and is very happy there.

We seemed to spend a lot of time eating that day.  lol!  Such good food everywhere!

veggie wrap from the Seasoned Vegan

In line at Big Gay Ice Cream.  So good!

deliciousness from Trattoria Pesce Pasta -- yum!

It was Independent Bookstore Day too, so we went to Book Book.  And of course, we bought books.

There's one missing cause the father type hid it somewhere.  These aren't all mine.  (Mine is the one on the right.)

All in all, we had a nice day together.  And the girl child was off to tango later that night.  Such an active girl!

Judith from MrsLove2Stitch gave me an award.

The purpose of this award is for bloggers to nominate fellow bloggers. In order to accept the award, the nominated blogger must follow these rules:

• thank the person who nominated you and link back 
• Share seven facts about yourself
• Nominate 10 other bloggers for the award.

Seven facts about myself:

1. I didn't try chocolate until I was most of the way through grade school -- maybe 10 or 11?  This was because my older sister didn't like chocolate (still doesn't!) and so my mom didn't buy any for the house.

2. This meant no oreos as a child.  Sad, huh?  We had vanilla "oreos," with vanilla wafers for the cookie part.  Not the same.

3. I've lived in 5 different states: Oklahoma, Kansas, California, New Jersey and New York.

4. The father type and I met at Princeton University, where we went to college.  My sister and her husband also met there.  My sister and the father type were in the same class or year, my BIL was the year after them, and I was the youngest at the year after that.  

5. My father went to graduate school at Princeton and met my mother in Princeton town (she wasn't a student there, but they met there).  And the girl child also went to Princeton.  

6. All three couples (me and the father type, my mother and father, my sister and BIL) were married in the Princeton University Chapel.  The father type and I were married by the same person as my father and mother, Dean Ernest Gordon.

7. This is old news, but I'm an Anglophile.  And a Beatles fan.

I nominate

A Closet Full of Posies
Kitten Stitching
Mugwump Woolies
Garden Grumbles and Cross Stitch Fumbles
All My Scattering Moments
Jackie's Stitches
Merry Wind Farm
Samplings from Spring Creek
Bookwoman Stitches
Wool Woman

I know lots of people have been taking notice of how blogging seems to be going away.  I too have noticed this.  I know lots of people have taken to Facebook.  I'm not one of them, despite the fact that I do have an account there.  On the other hand, I love Instagram.  It's my go to place now.  Much easier in so many ways too, not as much of a time commitment.  I've thought periodically about stopping with my blog, but I haven't yet.  Especially since I am not as dedicated to stitching as I used to be, I've wondered if it was time to stop.  I'll think on it some more.  I use my blog more as a record for myself, for things that have happened and for what I've been working on.  I do think I would miss that.  We'll see.

Mia has been enjoying the weather, as we all have.  One of her favorite places to be this time of year is here.

Thanks as always for stopping by and saying hi.  I hope everyone has a great week!

Oh cripes -- and an award

Here is SDW so far.

It's getting so long!  Believe it or not, I'm only a bit over halfway done.

Isn't the chapel pretty? I love the trees that surround it.

The whole character of the design is going to change from this point on.  You can tell by what I'm stitching now.  The letters are quite enjoyable though.

Now for the title of this post.  The boy child is going to be a senior in high school this year.  So yes, it's that time.  Time for the college crunch.  And somehow that stress is just starting to dawn on all of us.  Cripes.  Ugh.  Bleagh.  'Nuff said.

Here's the boy child doing one of his favorite things with Mia.  Just one of the ways he tortures her.  lol!

Mia's only compensation for this unladylike position is that it usually happens when dinner is done.  So she gets to sniff at the boy child's plate and lick it if she likes.

It's the girl child's last week of work at her internship.  She'll be coming home on Sunday and be home for a month -- except for a week of vacation planned with her friends -- until college starts again.  Sounds like she has really enjoyed her job this summer, which is good.

Finally, I received an award from Mouse at Tales of a Stitching Mouse.

It's the stylish blogger award.  These are the rules.  Thank the person who gave it to you -- thank you, Mouse!!  :D   Name 7 things about yourself.  And give the award to 15 other stylish bloggers.  Well, here comes the hardest part.  The 7 things.  Hmmm.

1. I'm good at remembering numbers.  Don't ask me why, I just seem to retain numbers well.  For example, I still remember my high school locker combination.  And I think I remember my junior high school one too.

2. I love dolls and teddy bears/stuffed animals.  I think you might have guessed that one from my pincushion collection.

3. I'm a pack rat.  And unfortunately, so is the father type.  lol!

4. I've lived in 5 states: Oklahoma, Kansas, California, New Jersey, and now New York.

5. I love tech gadgets.  ie iPad, ebooks, -- hey I even get excited when a new handheld gaming system comes out.  I don't get excited for me on the gaming systems though, just for the boy child.  :D

6. I hate to make phone calls.  If I can get away with not doing them, that's a good thing.  Email all the way!

7. I want an iPhone.  (See no. 5)  But I can't justify getting one.  Do I need one?  No.  And it costs more for the plan than my current simple cell phone.  So why get one?  But still, I'm waiting to see if the iPhone 5 comes out.  Just to dream.

I'm afraid I'm chickening out on the giving the award to other bloggers.  I enjoy so many blogs and love talking (virtually) to so many other stitchers/quilters that it's impossible for me to name just some of them.  So consider yourself awarded if you're a blogger.  :D

Thanks as always for stopping by and saying hi!  I hope everyone has a great week.

WIP, framing, an award, and etc

I seem to be posting more often than usual recently.  No worries, I'll slow down now.  lol!  But I thought you might like to see my Catherine Maudsley.  Got that border done.  The next tedious part is the verse over one.  But that's coming along.  Sort of.

I just love that border!  And it was much easier than I thought it would be.  After doing it so many times, I had it memorized.  lol!

Next up, Kathy, Nancy (no blogs) and I went to our LNS today to drop off some framing and pick some up.   Don always does such an amazing job.  He has a wonderful eye -- I usually end up going with whatever he suggests.  And recently, it's always been "how about this?"  and the first time it's perfect!  Anyway, here is my Paradise Lost by Plum Street Samplers.

And here is a closeup of the frame.  I wish I could get the colors to be more accurate.  The fillet (or whatever it's called) on the inside matches the colors in the piece perfectly!

And here is my Sarah Esh by Carriage House Samplings.

Here's the frame closeup -- it's perfect for the piece!

I now have 4 pieces on my Adam and Eve wall.  Two more are with Don waiting for framing.  I'm so psyched!

I got an award from Sherry!   Thank you so much, Sherry!  It means so much to me that you have become my blogging friend.

I had such a hard time last time choosing just 7 blogs to pass an award on to.  I'm going to pass this one on to all my blogging friends.  There are so many of you whose friendship I enjoy and whose blogs I love!  So consider yourself awarded!

Finally, Deb over at the Thread Gatherer blog has a great giveaway!

I hope I win!!!  I've wanted a beautiful flower frog forever!  Deb, if I don't win, can I commission you to buy me one?  lol!  Anyway, go check out her giveaway, and her blog.

In other news, the girl child is back at college after a week of Spring/midterm break.  It was nice having her home, but it's also nice having her back at college.  lol!  The boy child had a wonderful birthday on Saturday from the sound of it.  He spent most of his day with his friends as opposed to the old people at home.  I guess that's what happens when they start growing up!

The boy child will have his Spring break next week.  The one thing I'm really hoping is that by the time his Spring break is over, we won't be waking up in the dark anymore.  Have I told you how much I hate the time change being this early?  Well, I really really really hate it!!!!!!!!! 

I got the fabrics for my next Tessellations BOM quilt block in the mail today.  So pretty!  I'm going to have to work on that soon.

Thanks for stopping by and saying hi, everyone!  I hope you all have a great week!

A very newsy post

Lots of stuff for today!  Let's start with the stitchy news, shall we?  First off, my new project, Catherine Maudsley by the Drawn Thread.  Here is how far I am with her.

 Catherine Maudsley by the Drawn Thread

40ct Meadow Rue

NPI threads

I'm really loving her, especially that border and the reds.  Yummy!

Next up, Nicole asked in my last post how big my Margaret Harris Sampler from Blackbird Designs ended up being since it was stitched over one on 30ct.   I took this picture to show the answer visually.

The lovely ruler is from Tanya at The Scarlett House. 

In the "in other news" department, about a week and a half ago, my poor father type was in his car on the way to work, tried to step on the brakes, and it being a snowy, wet day, the car promptly kept going until it slid into the car in front of him.  The air bags deployed and my poor father type was quite shaken up.  They ended up taking him to the hospital, but thankfully the tests showed he was fine -- just a few scrapes and a very shaken father type.  I got him home just fine and he was back to normal in no time.

We waited for a whole week, surviving on one car between the two of us.  Then finally exactly a week later, we got the verdict: the car, a 1996 Honda Accord wagon with over 160,000 miles on it, was totalled.  If it hadn't been so old or the air bags hadn't deployed, it might have been a different matter -- they might have fixed it.  But as it was, totalled.  So we had to limp along without a second car for the rest of the week.

Thanks to modern technology and the web, yesterday, after having done our research and knowing ahead of time that we wanted a Honda, the father type went online and expressed interest in a new Honda Civic (don't ask me where he did this, but it was some website online).  The result was that all the local dealers in the area started emailing him with their offers on a new model.  The father type was able to do some dealing right online before we even stepped into a car dealership!  It was great!  And again, thanks to modern technology and everyone wanting everything yesterday, we ended up with a new Honda Civic sedan by the end of the day.  The father type is very happy with his new car.

The whole process still has me reeling.  We usually spend a long time deciding on a car much less buying one.  Plus which, this is our first new car in over ten  -- count 'em ten -- years!  So this is going to take some getting used to!  lol!

For those of you who are clever enough to wonder about the double bass carrying capacity of this car, the answer is, we don't know.  I really doubt that the double bass will fit in the car as well as two people.  I actually doubt the double bass would fit period.  But we still have my minivan and hopefully having just one double bass carrying car will be enough.  Who would have thought that one day this would even be a consideration in our car buying?

Finally, I've won an award!  Thanks to Belinda of Blue Ribbon Designs, Melissa of Words and Blooms, and Cari-in-VA of Serene Stitches, I won the Beautiful Blogger Award!  Thank you ladies! 

Here are the rules that come with the award:

1. Thank the person who gave you the award.

2. Paste the award on your blog.

3. Link to the person who nominated you.

4. Tell 7 interesting things about yourself.

5. Nominate 7 blogs and post links.

So the first three are done.  Here's the hard part.  7 interesting things about myself.  Well, in another post, I'd already done this sort of thing.   So you can read those interesting things (and so can I so I don't repeat myself!  lol!)  Here's the new list.

1. I've lived in 5 different areas of the country: Oklahoma, Kansas, Southern California, New Jersey, and New York.  I've lived in New York all my married life, so the rest was when I was a child and for college.  :D

2. I have a sister who's two years older than I am, and 3 step brothers, the youngest of whom is 2 years older than the girl child.  My father remarried a few years after my mother died and had a second family, thus the young step brothers.

3. I'm not a gardener.  I wish I were, but I'm not.  You can tell by our yard.  :D  (Unfortunately, the father type isn't a gardener either.)  I have eternal guilt about this since we bought our house from old friends of ours and they WERE gardeners.  We've sort of ruined the yard for them.  Sigh. 

4. My kids missed out on two chances to be rich.  The father type's great great grandfather  was the founder of Cadillac.  Unfortunately he was a poor businessman.  I won't go into the gory details.  My grandfather was the co-owner of the Fette - Lee rug company in China that made beautiful Oriental rugs.  The business went under due to WWII and the Communist takeover of China.  Thus, we aren't rich.  (I have googled the rug company online and fume  -- due to the usual sort of prejudice of the time, it seems sometimes the rug company is referred to only by the non-Asian owner's name, Fette.  Figures.  The co-owner of the rug company, who was always known in my family as Mrs. Fette, had a daughter who was my godmother.  The Fette family helped my family escape the Communists and come to this country.  I guess this should have been a separate little known fact.)

5. I've only had one guy in my life, the father type.  Nothing before him that I would call a real relationship.  We met in college and that was it.  We've been together for  29 years, and this year will be our 27th wedding anniversary.  We're old.  :D

6. I love Mission furniture.  We have a few pieces of Stickley furniture and I'd love to have more.  None of it is antique, which would be even cooler.

7. In another life I would have loved to be an interior designer.  But I don't have the color sense for it so it's good I'm not.

Now to nominate 7 other bloggers.  Lots of bloggers who I would have nominated have already been nominated, so that makes it tough.  But here are my nominations in no particular order. 

1.  Cathy
2.  Cari
3.  Sylvia
4.  Robert
5.  Corinna
6.  Glenna
7.  Melody

And now I'm thinking there are a lot more of you I could have nominated.

We are waiting for the girl child to come home from college.  She was supposedly coming home Friday night.  But Friday night she texted saying she had research to do so she was coming home Saturday after dinner.   Saturday rolled around, and she said never mind, she would come home Sunday morning (this morning).  This morning, she said nope, she'd come home this afternoon.   Now she's waiting for the train, but everything is delayed because of the lovely Nor'easter that went through yesterday (yes, we were car shopping in torrential rain and horrific winds).  Hopefully she won't get too delayed and will be home before evening.  I think the father type is looking forward to picking her up in his new, snazzy, red car.  :D

Thanks for stopping by and saying hi, everyone.  It's a joy to be part of this blogging world!  Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Alphabet progress, pictures, and an award

I finished the letter J in my Prairie Schooler Alphabet last night.  Here it is.

I'm using Legacy (so I've been told) 30ct Custard Creme over one with DMC.  Here are A and J together.

I'm really surprised at how much I'm enjoying doing the over one.  Maybe the secret is not to use 40ct or 32ct.  lol!  I've had to change some of the colors on both charts, and wish I'd changed the red on the A chart.  For details go to the Prairie Schooler ABC SAL blog. 

In other news, it was Thanksgiving weekend this past weekend.  The boy child had a sweet 16 party to go to.  My friend Ralph managed to get a picture of the boy child all spiffed up -- and smiling!

Now how fair is that that he can get the boy child to smile -- or even to pose for a picture for that matter?  You should have seen me the other day trying to get a picture of the boy child before his Area All County concert.  Forget it!

And of course, we had Thanksgiving dinner.  I won't bore you with lots of pictures.  But I just had to brag about my dear father type.  He always does the holiday cooking around here.  (I do the cooking the rest of the year.)  He's been doing the turkey since before we were married.  I still remember how disastrous his first attempt was way back in the dark ages before marriage.  lol!  But now he's an expert -- makes his own stuffing, candied sweet potatoes, homemade gravy, the works!  Here's the lovely turkey -- not a large one since the kids don't go for turkey that much.

Such a good cook, my father type!

And before I forget, a very old friend from way back when (or at least it feels that way!) gave me this award.

Her blog is Pomegranates and Paper.   I still remember going to her house back when she lived in our neighborhood and just drooling over her Stickley furniture, her real wood venetian blinds, and everything else that was just perfectly decorated to a T.  And of course going to the quilt shop together.  Or how about the time when we made a trip to the emergency room for some kidney stones?   I stayed in the waiting room with the two little ones, one of hers and the only one I had back then, the girl child.  The teen (my friend's blog name for her) outshone the poor girl child in the waiting room for cuteness.  I think it was the girl child's first time being outstaged by a younger woman.  (The girl child was a bit more than a toddler and the teen was a bit less than a toddler I think.)   :D  Anyway, check out her blog -- it's wonderful!   Loretta, I never thought you'd go back to the law stuff.  And what happened to the quilting in our lives?

Anyway, the rules for this award are to list 10 random facts about me followed by nominations of 7 bloggers that I hold dear.  Hmmmm, this is going to be tough!   Ok, here goes!

1.  I love the Beatles.  Many of you probably already know that, but it doesn't say it has to be little known facts, does it?  :D   I actually discovered the Beatles in college (we're talking '79 to '83 here), but I do remember jumping up and down on the couch to "She Loves You" as a wee one.  We sang along too:  "Bunxum yeah yeah yeah!" we screamed.  (That's what we thought they were saying.)   Later as a small child I heard various Beatles songs as the 101 strings version played on my mom's favorite radio station, KMAN in Manhattan, Kansas.  I had no clue that songs like Fool on a Hill were by the Beatles till I was in college.

2.  My hands are way too small.  I mean waaaaaayyyyy toooooo smalllllll!!   Just to give you an idea, I have to wear my kids' winter gloves from when they were little.  I think the ones I'm using are a child size medium from LL Bean.  See what I mean by small?  It's a real disadvantage when you are trying to learn to play the piano (I can only barely reach an octave) or the guitar.  I trashed the piano when I was in 4th grade I think.  The guitar was my idea so that lasted longer, but with small hands I just can't do much.

3.  I wanted to learn to play drums as a kid and so did the boy child.  Pretty funny, huh?  The reason why I didn't learn was that my mother said she wouldn't be able to take all the noise.  The reason the boy child didn't learn?  Well that's a long story.  He was already taking guitar lessons at the time that all the elementary school kids got to choose an instrument to learn at school.  He wanted to do drums.  I said -- do you really want to learn two instruments?  Why don't you put down guitar and see if they'll let you do that with the band?  Well, he went off to school and saw the instrument demos -- and discovered that you could play the Jaws music on the double bass.  You know, that DU DUM  DU DUM DU DUM thing.  How cool is that?!  So the boy child signs up for guitar with double bass as his second choice.  And they assign him double bass.  I say to him, well that means you'll be learning two instruments after all.  Do you want me to contact them and ask to switch you to drums since that was what you really wanted?   And I think you know what the boy child said.  No thanks.  And the rest is history.  :D   (This is getting to be long, isn't it?)   Oh, and he picked up the bass guitar later.  After the double bass.  They're the same thing after all.  Sort of.

4.  I've had two stitching lives.  Well, I've mentioned that before.  Basically, I had a stitching life mixed in with my quilting where I'd basically just do the AC Moore or JoAnne type stuff.  I loved Paula Vaughn, and my first real designer was Prairie Schooler.  But I used aida and DMC and life was limited. I did try one Scarlet Letter kit, which was my first time with linen and silks, but never finished it.   Stopped stitching pretty much, just quilted.  Then my neighbor Kathy (no blog) got me back into stitching and I discovered how changed the world was.  Silk fibers, linen galore -- I went ga gah crazy and that was it.  I haven't touched a quilt since.  Sort of.

5.  Which leads to -- I want to get back into quilting.  I guess it will be my second quilting life if I do get back into it.  The same sort of thing has happened.  In the 3 or 4 years since I stopped quilting, things have changed.  Now there are all these new fangled precuts which are marvelous, neat patterns all over the place, and the best part is -- all these hand applique designs!!!!!  Argh!!!  Like this

Or this

These amazing quilt patterns can be found at Threadbear Quilts in Australia.   The first one is the Civil War Bride Quilt.  There's a blog that I think I have the link for in my side bar.  The second quilt is Phebe's Quilt by Di Ford.  I so totally want to do both!  (Thanks to Lizzie for the second picture.  Hope you don't mind, Lizzie!

6.  I have a fear of crowds.  I think it's because once upon a time in junior high, there was this event in the gym.  Afterwards, everyone was crowding out and something happened and everyone was panicking and pushing and shoving and -- well, I was in the midst of it.   And I went down with people falling on top of me and was sure I was about to be trampled.  Luckily, someone pulled me out and I was ok.  But ever since then I haven't been able to tolerate crowds.  I just get panicky.  Ugh!

7.  I hate housework.  Well, I don't mind the laundry that much, but I hate everything else.  My mother was a clean freak and I'm the exact opposite.  Which isn't a good thing.  Oh well.

8.  The father type and I are pack rats.  I guess that sort of goes along with the housework thing.  But it's true.  Luckily we're not extreme pack rats (ie hoarders) like Homer and Langley.

9.  I'm an anglophile.  Yes, I'm one of those who loves to read about the royals -- actually more the historical royals than the modern day ones.  And I love to read British literature and all that.  I'm an anglophile.  What more can I say?

10.  I love to watch tennis.  Which you probably already know if you read this blog.  The internet has changed my tennis watching.  I used to just watch the slam events.  Now with the advent of online streaming, I've been watching all sorts of tournaments.  The latest and last of the year was last week's ATP World Tour Finals (or WTF, which totally cracked me up the first time I saw that).  Boy, was that a great tournament!  Only the top 8 seeded players in the world going at it.  Totally enjoyable.  And it was at the O2 arena in London.  Cool!

Whew!  I did it!  Now the other part will be harder.  In fact, I'm such a chicken that I'm not going to pass the award on.  Sorry Loretta!   :D   But hey, I think this post is long enough as it is!

Have a great week, everyone!  Thanks for stopping by and saying hello.

I got an award!

I was surprised and totally excited to see that Gwen gave me an award! I've never gotten an award before! :D




Thank you Gwen! Now I have to name 8 other blogs for the award. That's so hard! I read way too many blogs so it's difficult to choose. But I'll try to avoid the ones Gwen chose (and also Debbie, who already gave her awards, and go for it. In no particular order,

Tanya
Joy
Paulette
KwiltyKim
Sandra
Meg
Sandra
Rechelle


Here are the rules.

1. Copy the Kreativ Blogger Award into your blog

2. Make a link to the person's blog who nominated you.

3. Nominate eight (8) other blogs

4. Add their links to your blog

5. Leave a comment on the blogs that you nominated telling them that you have sent them an award.

Whew! I hope I can remember to do all that! Thanks again, Gwen. And thank you for reading my blog and posting comments. I really love doing this blog thing!

Now to decide what I'm stitching next......