Where does time go?

Hi there cloud friends! Time is just flying by.  It looks like I have been neglecting my blog so here is a quick catch up.  Last Wed. I had my one year checkup for my good old replaced knee.  The Dr. was very satisfied with my progress.  The best news for me was that my right knee looks good!!!  I really feel for people that have to have them both replaced.  I thought it was a big nasty ordeal. Of course, it didn't help that all the pain meds made me sick.  Well, on to happier thoughts.  I have continued to work on  the Mary Jane Smith Sampler.  That's one reason I haven't blogged as much.  There just isn't enough to show very often when you are doing a big sampler.  I have to make a trip to Alabama again.  So I am keeping all the flowers on the border to stitch on the plane.  This will not be a fun trip.  My step-mom has been moved to  the skilled nursing(in the old days , the nursing home )part of her complex.  We have to go down and clear out her apartment.  She is very angry about the whole thing.  The only good part is we will be spending the time with my sister and BIL who live in Florida.
 I am adding some pretty garden photos.  I am really enjoying watching spring come to so many of your gardens!!

 I am not loving  Miss Mary.  However, I saw it finished in a shop and thought it was great so I am continuing to work on her.

 I forgot to show you this wonderful egg my DD, the artist of Woolpets, made for me this Easter. Isn't it wonderful?

 The Wisteria is blooming.

 The first Rosa Metabulis.

 The Golden Rain Drops crab apple has been beautiful this year.  I was weeding under this tree and thought there was a bee hive in the tree as I heard so much buzzing.   No hive just hundreds of bees! I moved away very carefully.

 The peony is now in full bloom.

Thank you so much for joining me today! I hope your spring is as pretty as these lilacs!

A Finish, A Start, and a Walk!

I hope this has been a great week-end for all of you.  It has been spectacular here.  Actually a taste of summer with sun and temps in the 70's.  We have spent lots of time outside getting the deck and the yard ready for summer.  In the yard, we put up the bird bath and fountain.  Tomorrow we plan to fertilize all the plants.  That's going to be a big job!!
In the stitching realm, I finished one design and started a new one.  We all seem to have different habits for stitching.  I generally do one design at a time.  I stitch almost every evening from 7:30 or so till about 10.  My DH loves TV, I can take it or leave it except for a few programs.  Anyway, that's how I got started stitching in the evening.  I would do more at times during the day but good old arthritis only lets me stitch for a few hours a day.
I'm also including a few pictures we took from a walk last week.  We went to a state park called Penrose Point.  It's about a 2 mile walk and much of it is through the woods and often there are water views.  It's a very pretty walk.

 Bittersweet September is all finished!  This is a BBD  from the Ladies Prim Society.  The only changes I made were the linen, 36 ct. to a 32 ct.and the color of the pot on the roof. I am trying a new finish for this design.  I will show you as I get it finished.  I'm not in a hurry as I will most likely use this in the Fall.

 The start of Mary Jane Smith, and I did the traditional happy dance when the border met up just right! I think this is going to be a fun sampler to stitch.  Did you notice, no house?  After the huge white house and the house in Bittersweet September, I am taking a break from houses.  However, not for long as I love houses in samplers!! 

 Two big apple trees and no house!

 We loved the way the clouds were reflected in the water.

 Dead trees provide homes and food for the wild creatures and the birds.

Have a great week and thanks for joining me!

Cross Stitch and Sunsets

I hope all of you have had a good week.  This was our Spring Break out here so I did not have my volunteer job at the school.  It was a nice quiet week for us.  We did have more showers this week so our world is filled with all different shades of beautiful spring green,  after all Seattle is called The Emerald city!
One evening we decided to go over to one of our favorite spots to enjoy the sunset.  The pictures show an area about 30 minutes from our home. I'm also making great progress on  "Bittersweet September" by BBD.  I think I'll be finished after just a few more nights of stitching. 

 Sorry for the wrinkles.  I never press until I am all finished.  This was a fun house to stitch.  I think because of the way the colors were broken up.  I changed the color of the pot on the roof as it was too close in color to the shade of the roof.  I have one more design to put in the pot and the border flowers to finish and then it will be done.  I have an idea for finishing that I will share when I am finished,

 Sunset at Seabeck!

 These are the Olympic Mountains.  During most winters they would have lots more snow at this time of year.

 

I love the way the evergreens look in front of the mountain.

Thanks so much for joining me today.  We went for a nice walk so I will show the photos when I finish the project.  Have a wonderful week!

The Tulip Festival

Hello Cloud Friends! If you read my blog to see stitching, you might want to skip this one because today, I'm taking you to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival! The Skagit Valley is a few hours north of Seattle.  The DH and I took the ferry and headed up there for the day.  It was beautiful.  There are between 400 and 700 acres planted with tulips.  Between 300,000 and 400,000 people come from around the world.  That's why we went on a cloudy Wed.!!! I can only imagine that sunny week-ends are impossible. The first thing I will show you are the fields.  I compare them to rainbows on the ground!

 Now, I will share some of our favorite combinations.

 Here are some individual favorites

I hope you enjoyed seeing photos of the Tulip Festival. Thanks for joining me.  I wish all of you a very Happy Easter!!!!

Cross Stitch and Spring!

Greetings to all of you my dear "cloud friends!" Actually that is what my DH calls all of you, my cloud friends. I think that fits pretty well.  Last Fall I joined the Ladies Prim Society at Dyeing to Stitch.  I had seen so many wonderful designs coming from that group.  My biggest problem is I often want a different color or size of linen.  I still think it is worth it to get the charts!.  After all, this addiction is much cheaper that alcohol or drugs.(I'm very good at rationalizing). Last Fall Blackbird designs put out a chart called Bittersweet September. I am now working on that design. I have looked all over for the one that came out in 2013 but I can't find it.  I do understand about belonging to the group and I'm happy to have done that again this year(2015) .  It's a bit out of season, but I am loving the design!
At the end of the post, I have included a few more pictures of our amazing and beautiful spring!  I hope you enjoy seeing them.

 I chose to stitch this on 32ct.  The kit included a piece of 36 ct.  I will use that later.  I had to buy some  floss as I knew that I would be doubling the amount of floss that I would need by stitching with 2 strands instead of one.  I did use the colors that the kit called for.  They are wonderful warm Autumn colors. This border has really been fun to stitch .  I'm still not finished with it.  No frogging yet! Yea!

 Some eyelet stitches go in the spaces by the gold flowers.

 We planted these bulbs last fall and lost the package.  We are not sure what they are.  They are tiny and very close to the ground.

 This is the end of our daffodils.  I will miss them.

 The bleeding heart is full of flowers.

This is my second one.  I love the chartreuse color of the leaves.

Thanks so much for joining me today.  I so appreciate the time you take for blogging!  Have a very Happy week-end!

A Bit of Everyhing!

In reading many of your blogs, it looks like good old Spring has made an appearance in many places.  We are still enjoying beautiful weather and thankfully we have had a bit more rain!(I imagine you never thought you would hear that from a person in the Pacific NW).  However, we really did need rain.
We took a short road trip a week ago.  I got some wonderful pictures of Mt. Rainier from the ferry.  I will share them with you.
 Finally, I won the LHN ornament from Mary Ann.  Her blog is called "Just Stitching."  It's a great blog so I suggest you take a look if you are not already  following that blog.
Last, I have had an unusual stitching problem occur.  I was making a wedding gift for a friend who lives far away.  I have never seen her home and I have no idea of the style.  I was trying to keep it very neutral so it would fit anywhere.  I am almost finished.  I woke up this morning and told my DH I don't like it and I'm thinking of buying them another kind of gift.  I'm pretty sure I will do that, just don't like the design at all.  I have never done that before. I usually love the pieces even more when they are finished.  Have you ever done anything like that??  I feel like I wasted a few weeks of stitching time! Oh well!
I hope you all have a great Sunday!!!!

I left this picture huge so you can see the Space Needle. I knew I was getting a good photo of the city but until I saw it on the computer, I didn't realize you could see the Needle!

Normal size photo of the city and Mt. Rainier.

Another of our volcanoes, Mt. Baker.

This is the reason for my trip to the city.  I found this little rabbit container at a thrift shop last Fall.  I think it was only $2.00.  There is a shop in Edmonds that has great silk things.  They fix the arrangement for free when you buy the flowers.

This is a very simple arrangement but it reminds me of Peter Rabbit.

Here is the first ornament in the 2015 series.  I used a  GA special edition red on the house.  It is stitched on a small piece of Lakeside Linen Sand dune 32 count.

Can you believe that the hydrangea on my porch is this full of leaves?!

I love the spring colors of this little Japanese maple.

Thanks so much for joining me today.  I hope your next week is full of sunshine!!

A Finish and A Little More Spring

If the weather people can be trusted, many of you have turned the corner a bit and it is more like Spring in many parts of our country.  As I have told all of you, we are way early this year.  It is much more like the beginning of April than March.  Oh well, I can't do anything so I might as well be enjoying it.  I also have a finish to show.

 Here you have the BBD design,"Home is Where My heart Blooms".  I made a few changes.  I omitted the date and the words , home is where my heart blooms.  I questioned using the orange and the red together, but I like the way they turned out.  The linen is vintage Sand Dune by Lakeside Linens and I did use the called for floss. 

 It goes just perfectly with this very old frame I have.  Of course, I did have to take out the design I had in the frame.  I bought this frame years ago, probably at least 15 years ago at a craft show in Cincinnati. I wish I could find more like it.  Thank goodness for Valley House Primitives.  They make a beautiful frame!

 Hello Spring!

Thank you so much for joining me today.  I really appreciate that you took time to read my blog!!! Have a wonderful week!!!