First week of summer vacation!

We are celebrating Independence Day on the Fourth of July here in the USA! Hence, the change in the header photo. Except for the local (illegal) neighborhood fireworks, it should be quiet here. Hubby and I will be visiting our moms and then just staying home. We may go in our pool if the weather is good. 

I have been enjoying my first week off from work. I started the baby announcement cross-stitch and have made a lot of progress. These are the leaves of the central tree.

I have all of the needed floss now so I can just keep on stitching.

I want to get back to sewing my daughter's quilt, but the sewing area needs straightening and I think I want to assemble the Santa stocking first so I can put it away with the other Christmas stockings and get it out of the sewing area. I looked at my own cross-stitched stocking and decided to use some red felt as backing fabric. I have a nice tree fabric for the lining. 

I have to make a trip to Joanns to get some piping.

I have started another new project. I am crocheting a pair of socks with some yarn that I remember buying in ACMoore's bargain bin. I bought it specifically to try making my first socks. I have the cuff of the first sock completed. 

It is a somewhat drab colorway, but I believe the skeins were only 50 cents each.

On Thursday Hubby and I went to the nearby Clark Botanic Garden. It is a 12 acre garden with some beautiful flowers and foliage. I have a bunch of photos to share.

Below is my husband's hand to give you an idea of the size of those flowers!

A beautiful Japanese maple tree.

There was a wide variety of colorful daylilies.

And some more.

I loved the dark edges on the leaves of the hosta below.

Only a few more photos to share. I hope you're not bored.

I have the golden coral bells below in front of my house. I love them.

It was a nice morning adventure. 

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 will add more stitches to the baby announcement. I am really enjoying working on it.

Thanks for stopping by!

Stitch along update

For the last update, I stated that I hoped to have the Winking Santa Stocking finished for this update. This is where the Santa stocking was three weeks ago.

I shared in my post last week that Santa is finished! Happy Dance!

I have bought the featherweight fusible web to attach to the back of the stitching. 

I just have to choose the fabric to back it with. I think the fabric that came with it is quite ugly.

So what is next? Well, I have a granddaughter arriving at the end of August, so I will be stitching this birth announcement. It is "Woodland Babies" by Stoney Creek.

I have purchased the fabric and all of the necessary flosses that I didn't already have. I bought a box to keep the flosses neat for the project and then use for storage as my 2 other boxes are full. I am waiting on two DMC flosses that I ordered only as couldn't find them in any local craft store.

I can't wait to start work on this.

Thank you to Avis at Sewing Beside the Sea for hosting this Stitch Along every three weeks and sending us the needed posting reminders. 

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. 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, Gun, Constanze, Christina, Kathy, Margaret,

 Cindy, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Megan, Deborah, 

 Sharon, Daisy, AJ, Cathie, Linda, Helen, Connie

Thanks for stopping by!

School's Out!

 My last day of work was Friday. I am off for the Summer.....probably for good. I have been hemming and hawing about whether or not I should stop working. I have a zoom meeting with the teacher's retirement board on Friday. I am not eligible for much of a pension as I took a 25 year hiatus to raise my children. With our first grandchild due at the end of August in another state, I really want the freedom to visit her whenever I feel like and not just squeeze it in on the weekends or school breaks. That 3+ hour drive does not allow for just popping in to visit. I also want to be able to visit my son in California at my leisure. Again, not just on school breaks when everyone else is traveling. 

Yesterday, I took the time to make a few lists. I am a notorius list maker, but doing so usually clears my head somewhat. So what lists did I make? Well, first was a list of household chores that I would like to complete. Some are long term, some for now. Then I made several lists of crafts I want to complete. So there is a cross-stitch list, a quilting list, a knit/crochet list and an "other crafts" list. Let me tell you that each list has at least 10 items on it. I think I need to buy a journal of some type to keep track of all the WIP crafts that I have, all the kits I have, all the crafts that I have already bought the supplies for and all the ones that I have longed to complete in the future. Right now my lists are just on a few pieces of notebook paper that could be easily misplaced. 

The lists did help me realize that I have plenty to look forward to completing. Retirement will mean I can actually have a hope of working on many of the crafts that I long to complete. 

I am currently working on another embroidered bib. This one has an adorable lamb on it. The outline of the lamb is mostly blanket stitch. I am getting better at it stitch by stitch.

I am stitching the outline of the lamb in a light blue and have chosen a pink and a rose for the flowers. The pattern faintly shows two different colors needed for these flowers. I think perhaps they are supposed to be orange and red, but I wanted a more pastel look. Since there are no directions, I am doing my own thing here.

I picked up October Morning again since finishing Santa. You can just see the outline of a mailbox emerging.

My daylilies have started to bloom.

I have a few more astilbe in bloom too.

They are two slightly different colors.

The bowl of begonias that I potted is starting to fill in.

Finally, my coneflower is blooming. Oh how I love its color.

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 will try to add some more stitches to October morning. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Two finishes and Father's day

Today is Father's day here in the US. I am forever grateful to have shared parenting with my hubby. He has been and still is a wonderful husband, father and father-in-law. I can't wait to watch him take on the roll of grandfather.

I have two finishes to show you today....and two new items to start.

First and foremost I finished the stitching on the Winking Santa Stocking. I love how he looks!

I still have to make it into a stocking, but I will do that once my summer vacation starts at the end of this coming week. I want to buy some lightweight fusible web to put on the back of the stitching. I also have to choose a fabric for the back of the stocking as I don't like what was provided with the kit at all.

I also finished the embroidered kitty bib.

Please excuse the wrinkles. Isn't this kitty adorable? I have to wash it as an old tag has left a glue mark near the bottom. I really don't mind if it doesn't come out as this is a bib to be used and will probably get stained. 

Hubby and I have been enjoying trips to the beach at night. Jones Beach is a state park that is free after 6pm.

This is a view of the water tower and the Wild Play zipline and aerial adventure park.

Listen to the waves crashing on the shore.

It is so peaceful.

Another evening we went to TOBAY beach. (Town of Oyster Bay)

This is the bay side.

The paddleboarders were accompanying a large group of swimmers.

We went the ocean beach side of TOBAY on Friday night when the temps during the day were in the high 80s.

You can just barely see a container ships on the horizon. This is looking southeast, but to the southwest I could count at least 13 other container ships all waiting to dock in NY. It is easy to understand part of the supply chain problems when you see all these ships.

Some of my flowers have really bloomed beautifully this year. Look at these tiger lilies!

This is a new perennial I bought this year called Betony. I love it!

One of my lavender plants is getting in on the blooming also.

I do love purple flowers. 

My mother's astilbe are going strong. I took this photo to show her.

Now let me tell what stitching I may be working on today.

I want to start a baby announcement that I purchased.

I bought the suggested 28 count fabric, but I still have to check whether I have all the flosses. I am sure I have most of them. I may have to purchase a few.

I also want to start working on larger bib. 

This will be my last week of school/sitting with my mom project. I do want to finish it by mid-July though as that is when my daughter's baby shower is. Once again there is a glue stain on the bottom where the original sticker was affixed in the 1950s or 60s. I have the flosses chosen for this and am looking forward to working on it.

I also want to share with you a gift that my son bought for me when he was on his honeymoon in Hawaii.

He found a needlework shop and bought me this baby announcement pattern. Can you believe he stopped in a needlework shop on his honeymoon? He said it was also a quilt shop that had a lot of applique patterns and the owner was impressed that he knew what he was talking about. I love that guy! You know that whenever he and his wife are expecting, I will start stitching this pattern immediately.....or maybe sooner if I ever have a stitching lull. LOL

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 will determine what flosses I need for the baby announcement, iron the fabric and affix it to my scroll frame. I might put some stitches in October Morning also.

Thanks for stopping by!

A visit, flowers and stitching

Last weekend our daughter visited with her pup, Ruby. 

As you can see I took a lot of photos of Ruby.

We went down to Jones Beach one night to walk on the boardwalk. It was a little chilly.

This is probably our daughter's last visit to Long Island until after her baby is born.

I have made a decent amount of progress on the embroidered bib recently when visiting my mom. 

I have finished all of the blue and red. I just have green leaves and grass and the bottom half of the kitty.

I have also been doing a ton of black backstitching on Santa. I am going to run out of the black floss that came with the kit, but I have plenty of other black floss and a slight deviation of color (should there be any) won't show in backstitching. I have been working around the bow.

My garden and potted plants are looking quite lush. Look how many buds this tiger lily has. Wow!

The astilbe is blooming.

Coral bells, astilbe and hosta.

More hosta and astilbe.

Salvia

This astilbe I planted only last year. It was an offshoot of one of my mom's many astilbe plants.

Tomatos, lettuce and some flowers.

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. I will be working on Santa. School is out in two weeks. I think Santa should be done by then and I can start something new and work on my daughter's quilt all summer. I can't wait.

Thanks for stopping by!

Stitch along update ..... More metallic stitching

 There may only be one more Stitch Along update on Santa. I am hoping that in three weeks I can do a happy dance that all the stitching is complete. This is how the Winking Santa stocking looked three weeks ago.

I have since completed all of the cross-stitching and am now adding the bling and backstitching. Here is where I was on Friday. I had added all the beads to the furry brim of Santa's hat and outlined his face and mustache.

This is where I am as of yesterday.

 I was muttering a few choice words when adding the metallic backstitching to the bow. I also had to search my stash for some extra metallic thread as what was provided ran out due to the constant shredding. Yes, I used short strands and also ran the floss through bees wax. There is only one little bit of metallic stitching left where the ribbon goes down the gift box below the gift tag. I think I will have just enough gold metallic floss to finish it. I still have some black backstitching to complete on the rest of the stocking as well as more beads, but it is all going quite quickly. I can't wait to show you a finish and what I will be working on next!

Thank you to Avis at Sewing Beside the Sea for hosting this Stitch Along every three weeks and sending us the needed posting reminders. 

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. 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, Gun, Constanze, Christina, Kathy, Margaret,

 Cindy, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Megan, Deborah, 

 Sharon, Daisy, AJ, Cathie, Linda, Helen, Connie

Thanks for stopping by!