More time for crafting

My fitness journey with classes at a local gym has been sidelined. I think I mentioned a while ago that I have been dealing with what I thought was bursitis in my right hip since last October. It would act up, then calm down and then act up again. I was feeling mostly good for the first few months of this year and then right before our trip the pain really started in again. I was worried about being able to enjoy the trip and all the tours. Needless to say, my orthopedist prescribed a Prednisone dosepack to start just prior to the cruise. It worked wonderfully. I had a followup appointment when we returned and an MRI of my hip was prescribed to determine why this is a recurring problem. Two torn tendons were found so another appointment was made with an orthopedic surgeon. I was nervous, but this specialist says that most 65 year old women have tendon tears. No surgery is needed. He thinks the problem is my back acting up again. I have arthritis in my spine that has caused scoliosis. Another MRI is to be scheduled for my spine and then possibly an epidural shot. I had two of these shots several years ago for a similar situation. I am allowed to continue with my walks, but I must put my fitness classes on pause. I'm disappointed, but I'm looking forward to being pain free. One bright spot is that I have gained 90 minutes of crafting time 3 days a week. You have to look at the bright side. 

So what have I been doing with the extra time. Well, I have made great progress on my younger granddaughter's Christmas stocking. The green nightgown should be finished by the end of next week.

I have also started the Christmas ornament for my older granddaughter. I have to add white beads around the outside and then applique it to a beige background.

It will look like an iced gingerbread cookie.

Having a Ball now has 14 of 36 blocks quilted. I have marked the black block for quilting. I am not happy with how the edge of the block looks, but there isn't enough fabric seam allowance along the edge to fix it and it wants to fray.

I haven't shown you my crocheting in a while. These small granny square blocks will become a baby blanket to have on hand as a gift. I am using up scraps of yarn. I am trying to use colors of similar value.

 I have 77 out of 221 granny squares made at this point. This is my TV watching craft.

My flower pots on our back deck have finally filled in and are so pretty.

My daughter gave me the pot on the right below for Mother's Day. She left it for me when her family stayed at the house while we were on our cruise.

My butterfly bush is all in bloom. The lavendar next to it is done blooming.

My hydrangeas are pretty too. 

If you haven't seen it yet, the final post of our vacation is here.

I will be joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching and Frederique at the Quilting Patch today. Make yourself some tea or coffee and pop on over to their sites to see what other bloggers are stitching. 

Thanks for stopping by! 

Vacation (Part 3), The End

This is the final installment of our Viking Rhine Getaway River Cruise. I hope you have been enjoying the photos. The Wednesday of our cruise found us in Strausbourg, France. We casually walked around the city. Along the canal were beautiful, colorful old buildings. 

We were able to tour the Cathedrale Notre-Dame of Strausbourg. 

The carvings on the facade were magnificent.

As were the stained glass windows. 

This rosette window supposedly rivals that in Notre Dame, Paris.

There was a fascinating automated clock that "performed" every quarter hour. 

The organ pipes were wonderful also.

After our tour of the cathedral, Hubby and I had time to stroll around the city on our own. There were lots of little shops to peek into. 

In the afternoon we took a tour of the Alsace wine country to a little town called Barr. We had a wine tasting at the Hering vineyard. The wine was good, though nothing special. 

This vineyard only produces about 60,000 bottle of wine each year so it is quite the small operation. 

There was a pretty little town square to walk to before boarding the bus back to the ship.

That evening the ship traveled through several locks. It was interesting pulling beside another ship and experiencing the boat being raised to the level of the river on the other side.

On our final full cruise day, we took a tour of the medieval village of Colmar, Germany. Many of the homes were fancifully decorated. 

We saw a sculpture that was designed by Auguste Bartholdi who was the designer of the Statue of Liberty in New York.

Of course there was another cathedral. This one we did not enter.

Colmar is know for its storks. You can see a nest with a chick and its parents on top of this roof.

There were many pretty streets. 

There were canals also.

In the afternoon we were on our way to the Black Forest. There were pretty homes along the way.

There is a lot of farmland and forest to be seen along the very twisty turny steep road.

We enjoyed a cuckoo clock demonstration in a local Hofgut Sternen Black Forest Village. It was fascinating to learn that different families from the area made the various parts of the clocks. Individual clocks were not made by one person or family.

There were a lot of cuckoo clocks. This one had a little train. 

There was also a glass blower. This "flower garden" was full of glass flowers.

There was also a Black Forest Cake demonstration.

I bought a Christmas nutcracker in the gift shop. My one and only souvenir. This was such a pretty place.

There was a sign that informed us that we were 6272 km from home. 

The next day found us in Basel, Switzerland for the return flight home. That was a long day as we had a short flight to Frankfurt, Germany followed by a 4 hour layover. There were another 2 hours in the plane on the tarmac as there was a flat tire. Then an 8 hour flight home. Thankfully, once we were through all the checkpoints and retrieved our checked baggage it is only a 20 minute limo drive home. All in all we had 20 hours of travel home. 

I hope you enjoyed all the photos from our European trip.

Thanks for visiting.

July Stitch Along Update

I am finally home for a Stitch Along Update and will be able to catch up on the other participants' projects. I have pre-scheduled my posts the last two times as we were away for both. It is hard to believe that is already three weeks since we were cruising the Rhine. You can see my first two vacation posts here and here.

Well, three weeks ago Three Boats looked like this:

There has been some sand added and the bottom of the third boat is almost finished.

I am working on several crafts at the moment that are needed for Christmas, so Three Boats won't be progressing as quickly for a while, though I will still be working on it periodically. 

This Stitch Along is hosted every three weeks by Avis at Sewing Beside the Sea who kindly sends us the needed posting reminders. 

Grab yourself a cup of coffee or tea and take some time to visit the other bloggers below who are part of this stitch-along. There is 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, Christina, Kathy, Margaret,

 Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Sharon, Daisy, 

Cathie, Linda, MaryMargaret, Cindy, Helen

Thanks for stopping by!

Christmas in July!

It seems that I am immersed in Christmas Crafts right now. I just finished the Charming Santa ornament for my newest granddaughter. Here is the personalized back.

 Here is the front.

 

I love these Mill Hill ornaments. They look so fancy and are easy to stitch and bead.

My son and daughter in law have decided on the Christmas Stocking for their daughter. They want me to make the companion stocking to their son's. I ordered it immediately and have already started stitching it. 

I will change the colors of the little girl's hair as my granddaughter's hair is mostly black. 

Having finished the ornament for my youngest grandchild, I will now start stitching ornaments for the other two. I think I will stitch the iced cookies from this kit for them.

 Since there are just two this is the perfect year to do that. Last year I stitched the gingerbread man and the candy cane. I may look for some other kits that have more kid oriented ornaments for future years. 

There are two crafts in rotation that aren't Christmas themed. You will see the update on Three Boats in tomorrow's post. The other one is Having a Ball. 

There are now 12 blocks that have been quilted. I also quilted the centers of three more and am now working on finishing the quilting on the orange block.

Hubby and I took a drive to the beach on Thursday evening. Our first visit to Jones Beach this summer.  I had to take a photo of this seagull on the sign as we passed by. 

He was still there when we passed again on our way back to the boardwalk. 

We enjoyed watching the crashing waves. It is a very soothing sound.

The sun was just starting to set and looked pretty in the distance.

Yesterday, this little baby bunny decided to visit our back deck.

 It looked around a while, nibbled some daylily fronds and then found its way back down the steps to its hideaway in our hostas.

If you haven't checked it out yet, installment 2 of our vacation can be seen here.

I will be joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching and Frederique at the Quilting Patch today. Make yourself some tea or coffee and pop on over to their sites to see what other bloggers are stitching. 

Thanks for stopping by! 

Vacation! (Part 2)

In my last post, I showed you the first 3 days of our Viking Rhine Getaway River Cruise. In this post I will share the next 2 days. On Monday we docked in Braubach, Germany. We started our day with a tour of Ehrenbreitstein Fortress.

 The tour was conducted by a guide who took on the persona of a English spy living at the fortress. 

The size of the fortress was quite impressive. 

So were the views of Koblenz from the top of the fortress.

We spent the afternoon sailing the Rhine on our way to Rudesheim. There were pretty towns, castles and vineyards along the way.

At night we once again had dinner off of the ship. We dined in Rudesheim and enjoyed dinner and music in the sweet little town. 

Tuesday found us docking briefly in Mannheim and then sailing on to Speyer. We were taking a tour of the gardens of Schwetzingen Palace. These gardens were spectacular. 

All very formal, but with walkways off to the side to take you to various statues.

 The intricate design on the ground above is actually a birdbath. There were fountains also.

There was also a small open air ampitheater that was quite beautiful.

The "temple" at the top had a beautiful statue and ceiling.

This night we enjoyed dinner and trivia on the ship. Our team came in 2nd place in trivia and won a box of Lindt chocolate that we all shared.

There are still two more days for me to post about, but I am very slow with uploading the photos to my computer. There are a lot of photos and I am labeling them as I upload them.

I  hope you enjoyed this second installment of our vacation.

Thanks for visiting!