November...Gifted Gorgeousness and more...

I cannot believe it's the middle of November already.  It's been a wild and wacky year and it has not turned out anything like I thought it would.  But...that's life, right?  

The last few weeks have been a roller coaster, trying to get things made and out the door for several exchanges I signed up for.  I probably should have given myself a break this year, but it was nice to have other things to think about other than the reality I've been living.  

I don't have as much stitching as I would have liked, but here's what I have for the Gifted Gorgeousness.  Now if you haven't heard about this challenge, you can read all about it over on Jo who can't think of a clever nickname's blog.  Here is where you can sign up for this challenge (and it's never to late to join in the fun!) or if you want to see what everyone else is up to, you can visit this page.  The challenge is to stitch a gift.  It can be a gift of a pattern, fabric or floss from someone to you, or it can be a gift to someone else.  I consider freebies from designers to be a gift to us, so first up is the free Linen and Threads 2017 SAL.

I haven't had much time to stitch on this, so I have just finished October, and put a few stitches in the November band.  I'm hoping to catch up on this before December, but we shall see.

I have stitched a few ornaments, I will show two of them here.  I'll have to wait until the others  have been delivered before I show them.

That's it for the stitching.  The rest of this post will be about our Veteran's Day excursion.  I had read about an exhibit at the Sackler Gallery in DC and wanted to see it.  Little did I know that it was not the only exhibit being shown at the time.  I really enjoyed seeing art from China, Iraq, and Egypt.  

The bell exhibit from China was so interesting, we even got t ring a few!  

The Iraqi art was incredible too, and so different from the Chinese art. 

And we all know how much Mike would enjoy the Divine Felines:  Cats of Ancient Egypt.  What is it they say?  In ancient times cats were revered as gods...they have not forgotten this?  LOL Just ask Thomas!!  LOL

But I will say, the Buddha artwork was really beautiful and so peaceful to gaze at.  It's amazing the influence depending on where the art was created.  You can see they had visitors from many countries and depicted it in their artwork.  Amazing!!

 From there we went to the Smithsonian castle ...

And on to the Natural History Museum where we saw the Hope Diamond.

We stopped to admire some of the architecture of the city along the way!

We stopped on the mall to see the Gutenberg Gates which have been touring the country in anticipation of the opening of the Museum of the Bible scheduled for the 17th of this month.  I've been watching the progress on Facebook and can't wait to go see it!!

And last we went to the Capital One area to watch the Washington Capitals win against the Pittsburgh Penquins!   C - A - P - S   Caps Caps Caps!

Quite a day, so much fun spending time with my guys!!   Hopefully I'll be back soon with some stitching updates.  I need my world to slow down!!  Happy Stitching!