The things you forget when you post early in the morning....

just after I hit the 'publish' button on the last post I remembered that I forgot....

I forgot to thank all of you for your gushing adoration for the finishing Karen did.  I REALLY appreciate your kind words and compliments of both my stitching and Karen's finishing.

Great teamwork!

Take the risk and send Karen an item or two.  Buddy up with another stitcher and share the postage.  I've used another finisher, who also does awesome work, and Karen's prices were right in line with hers...even with the added postage of sending things to England.  

I can't tell you what a thrill it is to see your work turned into something so pretty.  Somehow it just feels different then when you do the finishing yourself. 

My nest is full.

For a few weeks, anyhow, all my kids are home.  Until summer camp jobs begin we're all full up here.  The wandering child is catching up on sleep and adjusting to our time zone.  (I think she wishes she was still in Spain but all good things must come to an end.)

Since we missed her birthday in April we celebrated last night with our traditional dinner and cake.  I'm happy to say our bakery doesn't need to be featured on Cake Wrecks.  Always a good thing.  Per her request.... dinner was hamburgers and the cake was a cookie cake. 

I can now reveal the photo quilt I made using pictures from her various travels.  I hadn't sewn the binding down when I snapped these photos. 

 This was a fun wall hanging to make.  Very different from the usual photo quilts I've seen.  I have fabric to make another from our trip to Colorado a couple years ago. Now that I know how easy it is to print the photos onto the fabric I'll try to get to it sooner than later. 

A box

of goodies arrived this afternoon.  I sent some finishing to Karen.  She always has such gorgeous finishes that when she announced she was starting a finishing business I knew I had to send some business her way.   She assessed my pieces and produced this wonderful collection of stitching ready to be proudly displayed around my house.

I sent 7 pieces...

 Best Witches by Shepherd's Bush,

 Spring by Lizzie Kate,

 Bernard by Heart in Hand,

 Blessings Abound by Heart in Hand,

 Celebration Spring by Heart in Hand and Blue Moon by Bright Needles,

 

and last, but not least, Holly and Berries by Little House Needleworks.  

 

 Aren't they fabulous?  Check out Karen's finishing album for more pictures.  I had a heck of a time uploading these so didn't include any of the sides or backs.

Thanks again, Karen.

Despite appearances

to the contrary, I haven't forgotten that this is supposed to be a cross stitch blog (or mostly cross stitch, anyway). 

I've been stitching on Peppermint Twist now and again.  I need a magnifier, so I spend as much time getting myself situated as I do stitching.  It's coming, though.

We finally have a little sun, so I've been getting the landscaping cleaned up and some flowers planted.  Everything looks so lush and green after such a wet spring. 

Soon, soon, soon, I should have a post about some finishing I sent out.  Each day I think the package will arrive and I'll have a wonderful picture laden post but the mailman continues to disappoint.  The virtues of patience.

I went to see Something Borrowed over the weekend.  Loved it.  I've written before about how much I like Emily Giffin's books and the movie didn't disappoint..... even knowing how it came out in the end.  All her books have a little bit of a surprise ending. 

The Scholar embarks on her return journey tonight.  Phew. 

How many stars?

I don't write about books very often anymore.  Even on Goodreads I just give a book some stars and move on. 3 stars means I liked it well enough, 4 stars means I'd specifically recommend it to someone, and 5 stars means I'd read it again.   Very few books inspire me to 4 stars and rarely is there a book worthy of 5.

Today, however, I just finished this book.....

You Know When the Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon. Somewhere in my book review blog reading I came across a review of this book.  I bought it and added it to my pile.  Had I known it was short stories, I might have passed.  What drew me, besides the beautiful cover, was the mere idea of the story.  The title says it all.  What's it like to be home while your husband is in Iraq?  I thought it would be a story told in the traditional style of a novel.  It's not.  Just short stories.  It's the writing, however, that just got me.  It leaves me without words.  What it must be like to dream of a house and a family..... fun, friends, babies, play groups...but doing those with one ear to the news.  Listening and looking and worrying and coping.  Most of all coping.  What we whine and complain about is just NOTHING.  These families would be happy to be worried about a spring that never comes.  OY.  I know that, in this day and age, people choose to join the military, but the reality is an entirely different thing.    Many times, as I read this book, I wanted to throw it down like it was a snake that had bitten me!   Each story left me feeling sad and empty and angry.  How many stars do you give a book like that?  Who would you recommend it to?  I'm sure glad I read it and hope a few others will too.

Lucky Friday the 13th...

First up... is Blogger being weird to anyone else?  My last post is gone.... although it's on my reader but the link says it's been removed.  For a couple hours this morning I couldn't log on either.  The page said Blogger was temporarily unavailable.  Hmmm.  Technical difficulties, I imagine, but not sure why that took away a post from Wednesday afternoon.

So, why is Friday the 13th lucky?  Because today is my wedding anniversary.  22 years.  Not quite half my life, but we did meet when I was 22.  This picture was taken a week before we got engaged.  My husband was a groomsman in his cousin's wedding.  I was dressed in the typical yuppy working women's style of the day. 

We don't generally exchange gifts on our anniversary.  Coming on the heels of both Mother's Day and my husband's birthday we just never developed the habit.  So, I was quite surprised to find this on my kitchen counter this morning after the kids left. 

Addressed to 'Mom and Dad'.  Those wonderful, sweet children decorated up the envelope and gave us 2 tickets to their show tonight!  So cute. 

Of course, we were going to the show anyway but it was a cute idea.  On Mother's Day, which I had to share with my husband's birthday, I was joking about my anniversary night being spent at the school because we're providing the cast with dinner then going to the show.  Dinner and a show.... only I have to fix the dinner and share it with 17 high school students.  It's all in how you look at it.

It reminds me of the year we celebrated our 8th anniversary.  My neighbor, whose 3 kids were grown, stopped over.  I was in the midst of the typical predinner chaos of a house with 3 kids.  Buttercup was a baby, we'd just started a huge renovation project, and I was trying to get supper.  She commented on this being no way to spend our anniversary.  I remember saying that if 8 years ago, on that very day, someone told me that this is what I'd be doing 8 years from that day I'd have thought I'd died and gone to heaven.  So, again, it's all how you look at it.  

A finish

One of my quilting goals this year is to finish the 2 monthly projects I didn't keep up with last year.

On Monday I finished 'Under the Garden Moon... Snowmen on Parade'.  A row by row style quilt.  I love the colors and enjoyed all the different techniques used.  

 I've left it on my sewing room floor while I decide if I'm going to quilt it myself or take it to the long arm quilter.  I think I'm going to take it to the quilt shop because I just don't want to wreck it.  I like it too much to take a chance with my unpracticed machine quilting. 

I think I enjoy the process of piecing much more then quilting.  Quilting a quilt is an entirely different art then piecing.  I will use my machine to quilt smaller projects but I need a professional to handle the larger jobs.  

Now, if I could just be sure to wear blinders when I go into the shop.......