New SAL project

Three Boats has been put aside for now as I realize that I just can't juggle working on 3 different cross-stitch projects especially when 2 of them are time sensitive. That being said, I will now be sharing my Santa Christmas stocking for my Stitch-along updates as the other project is my secret stitching. I will return to posting Three Boats updates once Sant is finished.

 I have been steadily working on this stocking to have ready for my son-in-law for this Christmas. The last time I shared this piece on my blog, I had finished filling in Santa's face. 

As I have mentioned previously, I am not filling in any of the white stitching until most other colors are completed as I want it to stay as clean as possible. I wash my hands before I stitch on Santa, but the white can still get dirty from handling. Currently I am working on a small part of Santa's hat. It is nice to add some more colors.

A happy cheer for the fact that my son received his second vaccine yesterday! Now only my daughter and son-in-law are waiting on their second which they will get in about 2 weeks. My son will probably be visiting next weekend for Mother's day and to give me a little help as Hubby is having hernia surgery this Thursday. 

Thanks so much to Avis at Sewing Beside the Sea for hosting this Stitch Along every three weeks.

Grab yourself a cup of coffee or tea and take some time to visit the other talented bloggers below who are part of this stitch-along. You will see a wide variety of stitching projects. These talented stitchers are from all over the world so please allow for the time differences and check back for each post. 

Avis, Claire, Gun, Carole, Constanze, Christina, Kathy, 

Margaret, Cindy, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Megan,

 Deborah, Mary Margaret, Renee, Carmela, Sharon, 

Daisy, Anne, AJ, Jenny, Laura, Cathie, 

Linda, Helen  

Thanks for stopping by! 

I've been bestowed "Outstanding Blogger Award"

 My dear blogging friend Kathi of Design Orginals by KC has bestowed on me and a few other bloggers an "Outstanding Blogger Award". I am humbled that she enjoys visiting my little blog each week. I always visit hers each week also. 

The goal of this award is to get to know each other better, not really to tout the award. Here are the questions with my answers that Kathi asked of each of her nominees:

What is your favorite color/what color do you have the most of in your craft area?

I would have to say that I like all colors. Usually my answer is purple, but I rarely make any crafts with that color. I would say that I love blue. My bedroom and kitchen are blue, but my living and dining rooms are red with green. Go figure. I really like almost any color. 

What is your favorite time of day to craft and what craft do you choose first?

I will craft any time of the day, but I mostly craft in the afternoon after work. When I am on school vacations, I try to get an early morning start on my crafting so that I can work on more than one project per day. I most likely choose to cross-stitch. 

What is your favorite season outside and why?

I think my favorite season is Spring as I get to plant all my flower pots and it becomes warm enough to sit on my front porch and craft or read.

What type of crafter do you wish you had more of in you? (Ex: I wish I could applique better)

 I would love to be able to knit sweaters that truly fit and are to gauge. I would like to have the time to make more quilts.  

There are several bloggers whose content I enjoy each and every week. I will bestow the "Outstanding Blogger Award" to the following:

Karen at Pumpkin Sunrise

Diann at Little Penguin Quilts

Renee at Hand Stitched Treasure

Jocelyn at Canadian Needle Nana

I would like them to answer the following questions:

Do you do anything else while crafting? (i.e. listen to music or a book, watch TV, etc.)

Do you prefer crafting alone, with a friend or in a group?

Beach, lake, mountains? What would be your preferred place to vacation/visit? 

What is your favorite genre of music?

Okay ladies, I hope you accept your award and bestow it on others to allow all of us to learn about each other and discover "new to us" blogs.

Thanks for stopping by!

Progress

I have finished filling in Santa's face and have not started adding a pale blue to the pom-pom of his hat. 

I have also added some stitches to the Secret Stitching. A few more leaves and flowers.

I have decided that the Bobble Baby blanket is the size that I want and I have started working on the border. This is a close-up of the border with lots of bobbles.

Here is the whole blanket.

I am hoping life is going to be a little easier. As of this past Thursday, Mom has a full-time live in aide. There will actually be two aides, one every other week. I no longer have to sleep at Mom's house at night. I will still have to portion out her medicines and make freezer meals to have on hand. Mom is a picky eater and doesn't like what the aide cooks, so I try to have items in the freezer that just need to be heated. Heck, sometimes she doesn't even like what I cook and most of what I make for her I learned from her. 

Hubby and I were able to enjoy a day out yesterday. We visited the Bayard Cutting Arboretum. It has a small parking lot, so there weren't a massive amount of people walking around.

These gorgeous bright red rhododendrons were the first flowers we saw. Isn't that color beautiful.

There is a very scenic river walk that we enjoyed immensely.

I don't know what type of flower this is below, but it was very pretty.

I was amazed at the way the roots of the trees pushed up and out of the ground near the river.

This is one very large evergreen. There were people walking on the other side of it when I took this photo, but you can't see them at all.

Below are some beautiful japanese azaleas.

There was a Holly Walk. Only one bush had any berries on it.

There were a few ponds on the Rhododendon Walk.

The view in the opposite direction. 

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. It is a miserable rainy day here so I am going to make a cup of Irish Breakfast tea and scroll through some of the blogs, then I will add some stitches to my secret stitching.

Thanks for stopping by!

Lots of stitching

I am not exactly sure why there were some slow days at work and after work, but they did allow me to get a whole lot of stitching completed on Santa and a little bit on the secret stitching.

Santa's face is filling out. I just have to keep stitching the pale peach color. 

He even has eyes now. Do you see him winking at you?

The secret stitching had some more green leaves added as well as some pale blue and white flowers that are somewhat difficult to see and not evident in this photo.

They will come alive when the outlining is completed. 

These pretty pink flowers in front of my house have bloomed.

They are a welcoming sight when entering the house.

There may be a light at the end of the tunnel in my quest to find my mother 24/7 care. I will update you next week as that care is supposed to hopefully start on Thursday. Fingers crossed. There have been a whole lot of phone calls and virtual assessments happening this past week.

To put a smile on everyone's face, I was placing an yard ornament and turned around to see these two bunnies facing off.

I quickly took a picture and then eased my way toward the fence that is too the left so that I could go up those stairs that you see and back into my house.

I got to take a couple more photos of them.

Aren't they cute?

 

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Grab a cup of tea or coffee and pop on over the her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. I think I will work some more on my secret stitching or Three Boats. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Stitch Along Update

Once again, I can't believe how quickly three weeks have passed by! I can't say that I have spent much time at all on Three Boats. I am trying to put as many stitches as possible on the Santa Stocking and the secret stitching. Here is where Three Boats was at the last update.

At least this time, it is easy to see the progress that I have made over three weeks.

Along with adding some stitches to Three Boats yesterday, I decided to treat my mother (and me) to my grandmother's sour cream coffee cake.

Just smelling this baking brought back so many childhood memories. It tastes so delicious too. Here is the recipe in my mother's handwriting.

Mom stated that she grinds the walnuts for the topping, but I just chopped them. Mom actually told me that she liked that better when she had a piece yesterday.

Speaking of mom, she is doing okay now that she has been home a while. Despite being approved for 24/7 care from Medicaid, we are still paying for 12 hours of care a day and I am still staying overnight as, so far, none of the local approved home care agencies has anyone available for 24/7.  I have been told that they can't provide services for anything less than what has been prescribed. That just doesn't seem right. I am so tired and frustrated. 

A big thank you to Avis at Sewing Beside the Sea for hosting this Stitch Along every three weeks.

Grab yourself a cup of coffee or tea, maybe a piece of coffee cake, and take some time to visit the other talented bloggers below who are part of this stitch-along. You will see a wide variety of stitching projects. These talented stitchers are from all over the world so please allow for the time differences and check back for each post. 

Avis, Claire, Gun, Carole, Constanze, Christina, Kathy, 

Margaret, Cindy, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Megan,

 Deborah, Mary Margaret, Renee, Carmela, Sharon, 

Daisy, Anne, Connie, AJ, Jenny, Laura, Cathie, 

Linda, Helen  

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Easter Stitching

Happy Easter! 

It is a time for new beginnings! Hubby and I are starting our lives as a couple who are fully vaccinated against COVID this week. I received my 2nd shot on Wednesday. On Thursday, I was tired and had the chills on and off, but had no other side effects. I actually surpised myself by taking a 40 minute nap. Hubby and my mom had their 2nd shot on Friday. 

Our daughter came to visit with her pup, Ruby, on Thursday. You may recall that she and her husband rarely venture from their home so we all feel this is safe. She should be eligible for a vaccination in her state mid-April.  Ruby was a very sleepy pup on Thursday.

She has perked up a bit since then.

Our son drove in on Friday after having a negative COVID test. He has to go in to work periodically so he feels more safe getting a test prior to visiting. It is not yet known when he will be eligible for a vaccination in his state. 

We celebrated Easter as a family on Saturday as daughter needed to make the 3 plus hour drive home today for work tomorrow. Sometimes on holidays the drive can become 5 hours. 

Katie made a Challah bread for us.

We had some with dinner last night and it became Lemon Blueberry French Toast Casserole this morning.

I made a Pineapple Upside Down Cake by Brown Eyed Baker.

I haven't done a whole lot of stitching this week despite being off from work. Santa's cheeks have more color. 

I have also added a few more blue colors to the secret stitching.

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. I am hoping to add some stitches to either Santa or Three Boats.

Thanks for stopping by!    

A week off from work

I have the next week off from work for Easter/Passover vacation. That is a whole week before Easter to get some crafting completed. The Easter decor that you see in the header is from my mother's house. I believe she painted that little chick several years ago at a local ceramics store.

I have been steadily working on my special secret cross-stitch. Here is a peek of some green and blue that was added.

Santa now has some color in his cheeks. 

There is a story to go with that. I was about to start those rosy cheeks, when I realized that the color that was included in the kit couldn't possibly be right as it was a lighter coral/beige that was the same as the color next to it in the floss card. The kit includes the DMC number that corresponds to each color and I have a card that has all the colors on it. Nope, it was not the right color. Thankfully I had DMC 351 which was stated, although I have to tell you that in person those rosy cheeks are somewhat orange even though the kit calls it light red. I am not sure that I like how they look, but the surrounding colors also tend to coral so they are probably correct. They don't look anything like the photo on the front of the kit though. I have since finished the cheek on the right and I am leaving them as is. 

I have been reading a bunch lately. I suprised myself by thoroughly enjoying "A Walk to Remember" by Nicolas Sparks.

 I totally enjoyed the story line and the ending didn't bother me as much as his usually do. I mentioned in the past that Mom has almost all of his books in hardcover, so I have decided to read them. I always need to read something else in between though. 

I have since gone back to reading the Harry Potter series and I am now more than halfway done with "The Prisoner of Azkaban". Such an easy read and I enjoy making the comparisons with the book and the movies as I read.

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. I think I wil grab a cup of tea and peruse a few blogs myself. I will get to stitching something later today.

Thanks for stopping by!