Whew! So here I am, finally in an upright position! Still coughing, but not like before, this sure has been hard to shake!
A couple of days ago my brain finally kicked in so I was able to concentrate a little and get some stitching done. I was way behind in a few SALs so I stitched like mad on Au Point du Croix and managed to catch up. Since I'm on a scroll frame with this piece, you can only see the last few pieces. I really like this one!!
Just as soon as I finished stitching up parts 9 and 10 (which you can see here) they published part 11. I guess that can wait until tomorrow...I really wanted to stitch on something different!! Here is Marquoir Francoise...
Part 9 of the SAL Maryse is having came out a couple of days before I left for Alaska, so I wasn't able to get it stitched before I left. It took an entire day (well a day with a fuzzy brain from the flu I had) but I was able to catch up with this one too! (Just a week before the next part comes out...suddenly I feel like I'm on a treadmill!! LOL)
I did a little rejoicing when I finished these up last night knowing that today I could work on whatever I wanted. So this morning I thought for a bit, and pulled out one of those crazies from a few years ago...the Christmas Quaker Bellpull from Wienhenberg. I love this pattern, but because it's stitched over one, it is one of those patterns I can only handle in small doses. I'm going to start a weekly rotation and hope to make a concerted effort to try and finish before Christmas 2015. I need to make some goals on it...
After a little while working on that I pulled out something I haven't worked on for a little while, Royal Garden. I was determined to finish these motifs that look like curly Qs. In order to finish with one length of thread I had to start with 90 inches. I can tell you my arm is tired from pulling such a long thread through each time!! I finished up 6 of them today!! The next section I will be working with satin thread...this could be challenging as it has a mind of it's own. Wish me luck!! Here's my progress so far...
I still have some time left over tonight so I think I'll do a little crocheting. I really want to finish an afghan for my Mom before the winter is over. I have close to 200 squares left to make but I've already made more than that, so if I really concentrate I could probably get them done in a few days. So....off to get some squares done.
Thanks for stopping by! I hope the predictions of a harsh winter don't have you too discouraged. All I can think is that sometimes those hard winters lead to getting a lot of crafts done, so stock up on supplies and hot cocoa and get ready to enjoy creating things with your hands! Happy Stitching!
Hi folks!
This has been an incredible year. It just seems like the hits keep on coming! Some good....some not so good....and some just plain fabulous!!
My husband and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary back in August. (At first posting I had written 39th anniversary, but it is only our 30th...sorry for the confusion!!) We knew it was a bad time to get away, so we thought long and hard and decided we wanted to take a cruise to Alaska in September. We didn't tell too many people, first because our son would be home alone and because we knew of others who had taken a cruise to the same place, and we wanted to make our trip our own. So...then we got terribly busy, too busy to really plan, or rest, or contemplate our navels...and so we didn't have much time to make up our minds what we wanted to do or see. So, we had to wing it, but in that we had the ability to be spontaneous, and though that is FAR outside my comfort zone, it really worked for us this trip. It was exhilarating, it was relaxing, it was invigorating, it was exhausting all at the same time! We came back refreshed, and ready to tackle another 30 years on the road to wedded bliss. LOL!!
Everywhere we went, they told us it was the first nice day in ages. We saw that it had rained overnight a couple of times, but it never rained on us directly. The sun was out most of the time, but cloudy when it was important to be cloudy. The Naturalist on board the ship told us that it was best to view the glacier on cloudy days as that is when you see the lovely blue tints. Seriously, there wasn't a day that went by that I didn't say WOW at least 10 times at the amazing scenery we saw.
We saw all kinds of animal life, whales, seals, eagles, ravens, sea otters, deer, salmon (this is the time of year that they migrate back to where they were hatched to spawn) but no bears or moose.....or northern lights (really a bummer!!) BUT...We saw other fabulous sights so I'm not complaining, and that will give us a reason to go back another time!!
I did get to visit a cross stitch shop (though it was really in a quilt store) and picked up a couple of patterns I hope to stitch to commemorate our trip.
I did NOT get any stitching done to speak of. I maybe stitched two sides of a block I hope to make for a Christmas ornament, but not even enough to show you my progress here.
I DID get to meet someone who stitched on my round robin! My new pal Sally from Friendly Stitcher's yahoo group made a trip to Seattle with her hubby to meet me and my hubby and we had lunch together. We had a lovely time and I hope we can meet up again another time!! Turns out we had quite a few things in common, so it was a lot of fun to sit and talk at lunch (which was yummy from the Pink Door in Seattle!!).
I found the most amazing nativity to add to my collection....isn't this the bomb??
So without further ado, here are a few of my favorite sights from our trip...
Mt. Rainier
Chilhuly Glass Museum
The Space Needle...it was a beautiful day to see Seattle from the observation deck!
Johns Hopkins Glacier in Glacier Bay National Park
Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau
The salmon run in Ketchekan
Marsha made a new friend...a "Good Time Girl" in Skagway, and this stores facade is made of drift wood....so neat!
The wild life was pretty amazing!
And the full moon made quite an entrance one night!
All in all we had an amazing time....and I hope we get the opportunity to go back another time, and this time spend a little more time on land. Thanks for visiting, I hope to actually get some stitching the next time I update my blog!
