Long week ...

and not much stitching for me at all .. but I have spent some time cleaning my stitching room. I honestly don't remember the last time my room got a good cleaning, there was crap all over. Charts not filed where they needed to be, floss not put away, fabric all over the place and finish supplies out of control! lol .. I'm about 3/4's done organizing and it feels great! and I've found way too many patterns I had totally forgotten I had and I want to stitch them all right now! lol .. it is really fun to play with all your stitching stuff, isn't it :)

I heard from April that she received the squares I stitched for her. This was a very fun stitch .. I loved the border! and I usually am not a big fan of borders. This is a Little House Needleworks design from 2007 (or 2006) JCS Ornament issue. I might have to stitch this one again for myself.


One of the stitchers that is in the Friendship RR with me, Lisa, was her for a hockey tournament this weekend with her son Robert. She had emailed me to see if we could meet up and I could hand off my RR to her .. of course I said yes! It was such fun to meet Lisa .. we chatted about everything for 2 nice hours and then it was time for her and Robert to get ready for another hockey game. Here's a picture of Lisa and I and my RR in the bag lol btw, Lisa is on the left and I'm on the right :)

BTW big congratulations to Robert and his hockey team. They won their regional hockey tournament and will be going to nationals in NC soon! Oh and Lisa brought me a good from Sees Candy, a box of latte flavored hard candies .. yummy :) I hope everyone had a great weekend and got lots of stitching done!

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

I'm grateful for the stitching ...

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 ...

Stitching and stuff ...

Hope everyone's week has been good. The cold I have is starting to get better, but the cough is hanging around. I hate getting older and coughing .. ya know what happens don't ya?! Such fun! lol

I just had to share this picture with you. Wednesday night Terry, Robert and I were all getting ready to watch Lost and look what greated us on the couch. I tell ya, all three of those furbabies were dead to the world lol

Last month I joined a group of ladies to do a RR. We are stitching Carriage House Samplings Friendship Sampler. What a great chart to stitch with friends, new and old ones. Everyone is getting ready and making decisions on their colors and fabric .. I think there's only a couple of ladies that are keeping with the designers color scheme .. it's been really fun hearing about all the different ideas. Of course I think all of us are stitching a heart in the center instead of leaving it blank for that lock of hair .. kinda weird imho :)

My dear friend Karen coffee dyed a piece of Belgium linen for me ... 32ct and oh my it is lovely and very nice to stitch on too. Thanks Karen :) I decided to go with a red/pink theme (surprised aren't ya! lol). I grabbed a bunch of floss from my stash and did a bit of tossing on the fabric .. I really like this for a start ...

I started the order using School House Red (GAST). I'll stitch the center heart and then request that each stitcher color design their own heart(s). I'm going to send along the floss I have showing, but every stitcher can use their own floss in the color scheme .. variegated, silk, cotton .. whatever they want. I'm really excited about this RR .. should be lots of fun! Here's what the border is looking like .. the color isn't exactly right, it's a lot warmer looking .. but you know cameras and lighting don't always treat our fabrics nicely.

Any plans for the weekend? Monica's birthday was Wednesday. We're going out to dinner on Saturday. Chris and Monica found this great Hawaiian restaurant that they enjoy and want us to try .. should be fun .. I've never had Hawaiian food :) And Sunday will be the usually getting ready for going back to work .. oh and I almost forgot .. NASCAR racing starts this weekend! Woo Hoo lol .. I know I'm silly watching guys turning left and going fast .. but damm it's fun! lol

Before heading to bed and just want to say Hi and thanks for all the comments lately .. I really enjoy reading them and getting to know you all just a bit better and better. Night ...

I'm grateful for the lazy furbabies in my life ...