Last Saturday

Last Saturday was spent with my Mom at the Country Sampler in Spring Green, Wisconsin. We woke up in the morning and had breakfast in our wonderful little second story apartment. The night before we went to the local grocery store and bought supplies. We did not need to go to a restaurant all weekend.
Those are our windows up there. I can't say enough about the perfection of the apartment up there. So much room! Delightful!
This is the door that is right next to the shop. Open it, go upstairs, and you are in heaven!
The inviting front of the store.
My Mom really loved the George Washington quilt pictured below. She wanted to do it in blues instead of browns so we got the whole store working on picking out the right fabrics.
Below is an idea that I have now commissioned my Mom to do. Cut out little pieces of fabric, piece them together and frame them! Fun!
My Mom is holding a bolt of fabric that I picked out. It turns out that this will be the back of the quilt. I think she is making it for my brother; but maybe I can arm wrestle him for it!
We had such a wonderful time; I definitely want to go again and wish we could go at least twice a year and bring lots of friends with!!!!!!

Cross Stitch Interlude

I am interrupting the blow by blow recap of last weekend to talk about cross-stitching for a minute. My Mom and I were able to spend last weekend in a great little apartment on the second story of the quilt shop, Country Sampler. It is an ideal place with a huge work table, kitchen, fireplace, and three bedrooms. It could accomodate 7 people. All weekend we were imagining our friends being with us.....it would be a really grand time!
Well, I brought up every cross-stitch project I have. I thought I would get so much done and I also just wanted to ooh and ahh over my stash. The top picture in this post is a look at everything all jumbled up. Well, I must have brought out at least four pieces and each time there was something wrong. The linen was too small for me to see; there was some counting mistake and stitches were off, etc., etc., etc. It was very frustrating. I could not get a good flow of stitching going.
Above is my Mom doing her first backstitching. She found these ornaments in a magazine; a bunch of Swedish ornaments. So cute!!!

Anyway to make a long story short.....I struggled and struggled with linen projects....I had this lovely little number above started a long time ago with a 25 count Lugana. I decided that I am going to work on this piece exclusively until it is done. I feel bad that linen is sort of kicking my butt right now; but I have to have something that is not too hard to stitch right now. So, that is where I am at in cross-stitch land. I have taken a couple of steps back.........but I vow to keep trying and conquer the linen!

Weekend Away with Mom - Part One

In order to celebrate my Mom's birthday we went away for the weekend. Our ultimate destination was Country Sampler in Spring Green, Wisconsin. However, first things first.....we had to stop at Barnes & Noble to see if there were any new must have mags! As you can see the stamping, knitting, quilting, cross-stitching magazines were the focus.
My Mom loves to look at tons of mags as I roam about in the books. She will join me in book-land in a few minutes.
Newstand/Periodicals! I love signs like that. Love magazines. I always imagine going through and picking out each one I would like to read and then taking them all home!
This turned out to be our lunch! Scandal! The Barnes & Noble Neopolitan cheesecake is amazing!
We made our way to the little grocery store in Spring Green. There was one lone case of Tab there! Lucky us!!! We bought some food at the grocery store and then took it back to our amazing accomodations (more on that later).
My Mom was piecing together fabric to make a red quilt. I love all of these patterns.
This cool blue and white pattern was upholstery on a chair. Gorgeous.
Here is a bad picture of a gorgeous quilt that was in our little Spring Green abode. I slept underneath and it was very comforting!

More to come!!!!! We had so much fun!

Test Run

I finally got my rear in gear and started using my new Sony Cybershot. I love it! I love the macro feature especially. Nothing like the beauty of my Tab and my hobnail glass!
Picture of flowers (and bee) at Home Depot.
This magazine cover is the first thing I took pictures of. What colors!
Here is a cross stitch that I did in 1993. I was working through a life tragedy (that turned out to be a blessing). My Mom recently pressed it for me and I wanted to do a photo shoot with it. I need some work in the still photo and staging department; but this is a start.
Above and below are examples of how great the macro feature is on this camera. Great close-ups of stitches.
Mr. Buddy wanted to give you "the look of love."

Summertime 2009

I have been a bad blogger! I felt like I had nothing to say of late....I still don't have anything to say; but I wanted to check in so you did not think I was off somewhere in danger or something! Following are some thoughts:

RANDOM SUMMER THOUGHTS 2009

1. When driving to work in the morning I have the most beautiful artistic thoughts; what I can do, what I can create, who I can call and reconnect with........by the time I get home from work I can barely type an email!!!!!! I sense this is a common phenomenon.

2. Hoops & YoYo are some of the funniest people I know!

3. I have made a reconnection with the music of The Who and Pink Floyd. And strangely I wish I had Beyonce's new album.

4. One of the funniest things ever is a plaque my Grandma had in her den that said, "The opinions expressed by the husband in this house are not necessarily those of the Management." I have this plaque now hanging in my computer room.

5. I love, love, love cross-stitching and started doing it again about 9 months ago. I have not finished one thing I started! Yet, I keep buying more. I think I am a collector at heart; and I also think there are too many good designs out there. The same thing happened with me and rubber stamps. I am going to start stamping again soon.

6. The one constant in my life is reading. I could read all day long; everyday. When I am all riled up a trip to the bookstore soothes my nerves. I have tons of books in my home and I just love to look at them. I joined www.Paperbackswap.com and it is a ton of fun!

7. Mike and I are very lucky to have a big screen plasma TV. There is a new show (to me) that I love to tape. It is called Sunrise Earth. The premise of the show is a camera perched somewhere in the world at sunrise. No talking; just the ambient sounds of nature. Whenever I lay in bed and watch one of these I feel like I just took a Valium. Verrrryyy relaxing!

8. Girlfriends are the best!!!! I have such wonderful friends! I remember in my teens and twenties the most important thing to me was going out on a date with a guy or hanging out with a guy all day. Now I most look forward to a play date with my girlfriends! Complete turnaround!

9. I am lucky to have parents that I like to hang out with. My Mom and I are going away for the weekend in August to a quilt shop in Wisconsin and staying overnight in their upstairs accomodations! In September I am hoping to go to Bainbridge Island to visit my Dad. I want to stay for 10 days and really relax.

10. Mike just got us tickets to go see Bruce Springsteen in September. Bruce is going to play his the entire Born to Run album from start to finish! Great idea! Also, Mike loves Bruce so this will be fun.

11. I think I might be liking science fiction more than I thought. We watched "Torchwood" on BBC America and it was good.

Hope you are having a lovely summer too!!!!