Slow everything

I have been slowly adding stitches to Three Boats. I have filled in more of the branch to the left of the tree trunk and added some more stitches to the trunk itself.

 I can only work on it either during a break or after school which is usually when I visit mom. Most of my stitching has been on the weekends, but this weekend our son is visiting. Yay! Not sure what we will be doing on this grey, cloudy day, but we will try to get out and about.

I add a couple of rows here and there to my Breezy Infinity Scarf when watching TV. 

I actually finished the first skein of yarn last night, so I am now halfway done. I have found that crocheting with fingering yarn is a sloooow process.

I used those plums that I bought at the farmstand and made a tasty plum coffee cake. It is the same recipe that I used during the summer with peaches. Yum.

I gave away most of it to our mothers so that Hubby and I don't pack on the pounds.

 I finished another book, "Shelter Mountain" by Robyn Carr. It is the 2nd book of the Virgin River series.

I waited all summer for this book to become available on my Kindle and it was well worth the wait. Now I have to look for the next book in the series. First, though, I am reading "The Vanishing Half" by Brit Bennett. 

I am not far enough into it to tell if I like it. It is a departure from my usual reading fare.

The leaves on a few trees are starting to turn. This one is across the street from my home.

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. I will probably stitch more on Three Boats tomorrow morning when Hubby and son are golfing. It is a school holiday for me.

Thanks for stopping by! 

Apple picking and Slow Stitching

Last weekend Hubby and I decided that we needed to get out of the house so we drove to the east end of Long Island and went apple picking at Woodside Orchards. We went early so that there wouldn't be very many people there and we went to a small orchard that didn't have children's activities.

There was nobody near us when we took this picture.

We got a peck of Jonamac, a cross betwen MacIntosh and Jonathons.

On the way home we stopped at a local farmstand, Bayview Market and Farms.

We bought some potatoes, plums, delicious green beans, tomatoes and more.

We even got a couple of pumpkins and some Indian Corn.

This week I was giving my university Precalculus class an exam, so I was sitting watching all the students on a Zoom session for 2 hours. While doing so, I was able to stitch on October Morning. I added quite a lot of stitches on the dirt road leading to the church. I needed to reposition the hoop. Yay!

I have also been working on Three Boats just a little bit. See the pretty blue that is mostly filled in to the left of the tree trunk. There are lots of different floss colors in there.

I have been reading a lot lately. I have finished Nora Roberts' Key Trilogy.

I really loved this set of books. It is my second time reading them and I enjoyed them just as much.

Now I am reading "Shelter Mountain" by Robyn Carr. I have waited all summer for this book after I finished "Virgin River" which was the first of the series. I am not all that far in, but I am already enjoying it.

I am joining Kathy for Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to see what other bloggers are stitching. I think I will add a few more stitches to Three Boats. I want to fill in those white patches in the blue and move on to finishing the tree trunk.

Thanks for stopping by!

September SAL Update

 This is the only SAL update for September. It is so hard to believe that the summer months have passed by so quickly. I haven't had a whole lot of time to stitch so far this month. I have been grading Precalculus assignments and writing the first exam for that University class.  I did put my mind to stitching a few times so far this month. Here is where Three Boats was three weeks ago.

I have been filling in some of the tree trunk and the area on the left. It is a lot of working 20 stitches of a color and then switching colors and maybe stitching 5, then switching color again and stitching 15 stitches. You know how it is. It is hard to make any significant progress in one sitting. I really don't mind though, because that is what makes the final picture so amazing.

Here is where I am today. 

I made some scones the other day when visiting mom. We've been going through her collection of clipped or handwritten recipes lately and decided to try some of them. This recipe was hand-written by my mom with no clue as to where she got it. It is quite tasty, though mom wasn't thrilled.

I will be keeping this recipe because I really like them. They are much, much better than one of the recipes we tried several weeks ago that went straight into the trash. The scones themselves were pretty inedible.

This little bunny paid an early morning visit to our front walk last week.

It was only interested in showing me its profiles.

Thank you so much to Avis from Sewing Beside the Sea for hosting this Stitch-along. Please take the time to visit the other bloggers below who are part of this stitch-along.

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

 Margaret, Cindy, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Hayley, Megan, Deborah,

Mary Margaret, Renee, Carmela, Sharon, Daisy, Anne, Connie, AJ, 

Jenny, Laura, Cathie, Linda, Helen

Thanks for stopping by!

School has started

School has started which means I will have a lot less time to craft. At least I think that is what will happen. I am working from home for both of my positions, so I may have time to craft during my day job as I wait for students to come to me via Googlemeets. You never know. I have definitely had a lot less crafting time this past week. It was the second week of lectures for my university class, so I had assignments to grade. My high school just had Zoom and Google meetings about the logistics of reopening. As I said I have been allowed to work from home and I am very grateful for that. 

It is starting to get a little cooler here. Hubby and I went in our pool Friday afternoon for probably the last time this season. 

So, what have I been working on? 

The church in October Morning now has almost all of its roof and steeple. That was a nice easy stitch of two different colors. I also finished the last two windows and the tree trunk that crosses the church. 

I spent some time yesterday working on Three Boats. It is hard to see much difference from the last time I posted. I added a bunch of confetti stitches of various colors here and there.

I have gotten a few more goodies in the mail. First, my cousin's daughter....who is closer to my age than my cousin is....asked if I would like a cross-stitch kit that she had that was too advanced for her. You know I didn't turn that down.

Isn't it gorgeous. I am so looking forward to working with all of those beautiful colors of floss. I haven't seen fabric painted like this before other than in needlepoint, but it comes with a counted cross-stitch chart also, that I am sure I will be using. 

I also got more fat quarters to use in my daughter's quilt. 

Unfortunately I won't be able to use all of them as they aren't the right tone for what I am planning (the top 4 - 6 are good, but the bottom two are too bright). I got two of the same fabric for one of them, which will be fine. 

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site and see what other bloggers are stitching. I think I will get some more stitches added to Three Boats today. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Slow Sunday Stitching

After stitching away on Three Boats exclusively for a few weeks, I needed a break. So I turned to October Morning. I started teaching my university class this week online and I guess that I am in the Autumn mode despite it still being Summer for a few more weeks. This is where I was the last time I showed this piece.

This is where I am now.

I have finished the grass below the church and have started stitching the church's roof. There isn't as much confetti stitching and that is what I needed for a few days. 

My daughter has been visiting since Wednesday night. She will be leaving sometime today. It has been so nice to see her again. 

My high school job is supposed to start this Thursday with faculty training. I have requested that I work from home as my math tutoring is going to be online anyway. I don't know yet if my request will be honored. We shall see. It is scary times for teachers, students and parents.

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. I will probably go back to working on Three Boats later this afternoon after my daughter leaves for home. 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Reading

I have been reading like crazy this summer. I recently finished "The Geometry of Sisters" by Luanne Rice.

I almost didn't finish reading this novel, but I am glad I did. I have to admit that it is a little depressing, but it is the story of a broken family with some of its highs and lows. I would recommend it.

Following that book, I decided to read "Stars of Fortune" by Nora Roberts. This is the first book of one of her classic magical romance trilogies. 

Oh I just couldn't put this book down. It was fun, full of mythological creatures and introduced the 6 main characters in wonderful ways. There was just enough suspenseful action and romance. Of course, once I finished book one I had to move on to book 2.

This second book was just as good as the first and I finished it in no time. This book followed the second couple of the six characters. There was no let down from the first book. I was worried that I would miss some of the unique attributes of the main characters of the first book, but they were represented well in this book as well. Of course when I was finished I had to move on to book 3 "Island of Glass".

I finished that this morning. Following the interactions of all six main characters and specifically the third couple was so very interesting. It is a Nora Roberts trilogy, so you can be pretty sure of a mostly happy ending and I wasn't disappointed. I hardly put down any of these three books. Needless to say, I didn't get much stitching done these past two weeks.

I just had to share what I have been reading. 

Thanks for stopping by!

SAL Update

 I have been working hard on Three Boats. Here is where I was for the last update. I had almost finished Page 1.

It took a day or two to finish all the confetti stitches in the bottom right-hand corner to get that page finished. I added some pretty salmon colors.

Since then though, I have just been stitching my little heart out. I am well into the next page now. 

I am so pleased with how this is looking!

Thank you so much to Avis from Sewing Beside the Sea for hosting this Stitch-along. Please take the time to visit the other bloggers below who are part of this stitch-along.

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

 Margaret, Cindy, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Hayley, Megan, Deborah,

Mary Margaret, Renee, Carmela, Sharon, Daisy, Anne, Connie, AJ, 

Jenny, Laura, Cathie, Linda, Helen

Thanks for stopping by!