August 30th - The best day of my life!

On this day, 14 years ago, my life changed in ways I'd never imagined or dreamed of. My little boy was born and since that day, my heart grew so much and keeps growing every single day with love for this guy. He is such a sweet thoughtful, kind, compassionate, funny, smart, loving and caring guy. Everyone told me to wait for the terrible two's, wait til he turns a teenager. But not this guy, he defies the norm. He's always been a very loving person to be with and I miss him when he's at school or away for whatever reason. He's a great conversationist and never lacks for something interesting to talk about and easy to laugh with. But what really makes him special is his heart. He has a heart for God, then his family and somewhere down the line, himself. I have no doubt that he will be incredibly successful in all that he does in life and will have many friends and family to support his endeavors. I thank God for him everyday and can't believe I have such a special person so dear to my heart. Thank you God for this beautiful blessing, every single day. Happy Birthday sweet son!! Love, Mom~

Here's my Art Nouveu Lady WIP

With the beginning of football season comes the beginning of a new project. I chose this Art Nouveau Lady from a British magazine, designed by Lesely Teare. I thought the colors were beautiful and reminded me of summer. So, starting with the Hall of Fame game with the Dallas Cowboys, I began and got 5 hours of stitching accomplished.

Here's my progress after another 10 days of stitching:

When I got to this point (above picture) I realized something wasn't right. The colors weren't as pretty as the picture and were kind of dull. It wasn't until then that I referred to the color picture and saw that many areas have the wrong symbol and I'd been stitching the wrong colors.!!! First off, the outline that I initially started with is the wrong color. Then, the bosom of the dress is yellow and right where I was starting the highlight of the dress (below the forearm) it is charted with the darker flesh color. That's when I didn't like what was going on. Come to find out, the dress where I started stitching her knee (above her forearm) is not the right shade of orange. Plus, the orange outline inside the blue circle is the wrong color too!!! Guess what! I frogged all of it and began picking out the colors that closely matched the picture.

So...after all that disappointment and sending off an email to the publisher (they are looking into the situation), here's my new progress:

I estimate I'll have it done in 2 weeks. A little late for me because my husband and I are headed back to nursing school and once it starts, there'll be very little time for stitching if any at all.

Wish me luck on all endeavors!

By the weekend, I hope to have filled in the light blue background and then I'll add the features to her face and detail of dress. I am loving this design! Happy stitching!!

Vacation's over but was fun!

We had a great time on our vacation! Fell in love with the great-grandbaby girl and got to babysit her many times. She's going to be a talker and a sweetheart. She has a sweet disposition and is very spunky and coos all the time. She made a great first impression on us as she loved us and laughed at us and all the faces my son made at her when we met her. They bonded really well and I was impressed with how protective he was of her since he is only 13 yrs old.

Here's the great-grandpa pretending to bite her little tiny fingers. She loved playing with him!

And here's the finished and framed pieces I stitched for this sweet baby:

And for my brother, I finished the binoculars and was able to give him the stitched piece along with the binoculars we used as kids on so many of our vacations and camping trips. There are many, many memories tied to those binoculars and the case. I could never get them back in the case properly and always had to rely on my big brother to put them in nice and neat. Even now as an adult, I still find it tricky. I didn't frame the piece since I hadn't been to his new house and didn't know what frame would work best so I left it to my big brother and his creative wife to take care of that task. :-)

Here's a thrift store find that I got for my mom: a copper kettle for $3.99. I knew she could clean it up and make it look spectacular and that's exactly what she did and now she's showing it off on the kitchen table for now.

It was really fun to be in Dallas and see family and friends. The trip was 10 days long but flew by in the blink of an eye. My husband, son and I were all very sad to leave but also ready to get back home to our own spaces. It didn't stop us from touring some neighborhoods for possible places to relocate in the future.

See ya later Big D! Until next time...

We made it to Dallas!

No pictures on this post, but just a note to say that we made it to Dallas in one piece! We had such an adventure traveling. The day started out lovely, some clouds in the sky then it started to get thicker darker clouds, then the most beautiful dark blue/grey stormy skies. Those dark, dark clouds turned into big rain drops. I was driving and when I turned on the wipers and they streaked across the windshield because of lack of use! We happened to be in a mountainous area, no towns or exits for hundreds of miles around. All it was was just rain, mountains and 18-wheelers.

Cars were pulling off the road to wait out the storm but I kept forging ahead. The storm was so bad that the road wasn't even visible! Honestly, for long periods of time I could only see the white line right in front of the car and knew I was still on the road!

There was an orange 18-wheeler in front of me and I kept my eye on that because I couldn't see the road at all from the fierceness of this storm. There were a few times that I lost sight of the big rig even though it was only about 50 feet in front of me. When I lost sight of the truck, I just kept the steering wheel straight and relied on God to keep us on the road. It was such a scary experience but I knew the road was pretty much straight and there weren't any cliffs so I figured that if we did get off the road, we would just be driving on the ground and not down a ravine.  Once we got through to lighter rain, I relaxed, then realized that I had to pass some other trucks that were spraying water so bad that I couldn't see again! Ah well, by faith, we made it and have a story to tell and are so happy with our survival and our vacation.

When we were able to finally pass that 18-wheeler, my husband rolled down the window and pretended to "text" thank you to the driver and waved. He said the driver was laughing and waving back. He was obviously relieved he made it as well!

Before the storm started I noticed the temperature was dropping quickly, once we emerged from the heavy rains I saw the temp had dropped down to 68 F, that was a 30 degree drop! I don't know what it was during the actual storm itself. When we arrived in Dallas, at night, it was 90 degrees, but completely clear skies. So many lights and businesses and excitement! We are so happy to be here, even for a few days.

BTW, mission accomplished on the binoculars. It is all stitched and I brought the binoculars that we had as kids to give to my brother along with the stitched piece. I will take a picture of them together when I give it to him tomorrow. Happy weekend!!

My mom knits and crochets

My mom knits or crochets many hours a day. She's made so many items for family that finally her sister convinced her to sell her items at craft shows. So now she spends hours a day preparing for 2 really good shows in the fall. The sad thing is that her hands are hurting her more and she says that she has to knit slower and that possibly this could be her last year for the shows. I don't know what she'll do if she didn't have some yarn woven through her fingers every day.

Here's a picture of an afghan she's currently making, it'll be done by the end of this week, then she'll start something new. It is a ripple afghan in brown and shades of variegated brown that looks like fudge marble. This is her favorite pattern and the best seller at the shows.

It's Crunch Time!

At the end of this week, my family and I will be traveling to Dallas to visit alot of family and friends. I will get to see my brother and my sister-in-law at their new home in Plano. I started a little thing for my brother's office (he does alot of free lance work from home) last year and put it aside because I wasn't completely happy with the color conversion from Anchor to DMC. Well, I've decided that I'm not scraping it and time to pull it out and finish it. Here's what it looked like before I started on it tonight:

What's funny is that on my camera, I don't see the shadow, but on the computer it's very present!

Anyway, I have stitched on it while watching the Yankees play Cleveland and got some progress made

but I'll have to work faster on it.

Here's the little Somebunny kit that I completed to be a companion to the Somebunny design

that I finished earlier this week. The colors are similar to each other and this little thing took only

2 nights to finish up. Hope the little grand-baby girl enjoys it too!

And here it is next to the big Somebunny design:

Hope your needles and creativity are flying on these hot summer days. Stay cool!

The puppy did it again, sort of!

Our sweet little doggie has messed up in my son's bedroom again. This time she peed...on the bed!!! My son didn't wake me up to tell me, he just took the sheets off the bed and put them in the bathroom and slept with a blanket on top of him. When I went outside to see the dog, she started to jump on me as always, but I said "Bad dog" and she backed away, knowing what she had done. When I fed her, she stayed away from me and just looked at me. I don't like being mad at her, she's a sweet dog and is a big part of our family now.
We rescued her in March and never have been more happy with a dog than we are with her. She's a Brindle Pug, she's black with gold tiger stripes. Very unusual coloring and a great disposition. In hindsight, I now wish we hadn't had her spayed, she would have had some good looking pups. Ah well, back to forgiving the little thing. The sheets are washed and the comforter was washed at the laundromat and is hanging on the clothesline to dry. Her name is Nicki, and I call her Nickers, not to be confused with knickers.

On the stitching front, I finished the little bunny for the great-grandbaby last night and need to start another project tonight. It will be something I've never stitched before: Art Deco style lady. I'll get a picture posted once I get some stitches done.

Until then, Blessings to you and your needle!