Still no stitching

So.  No stitching.  And there isn't even a lake this summer because we're making dam repairs.  So I may change the name of my blog from Lake Stitcher to Lame Sitting Around Person.

Anyway, last weekend I had a long-time wish come true.  One of my favorite musical artists is Chris Isaak and recently we found out that he had a few tour dates in Pennsylvania.  And even though he was performing all the way across the state, that was close enough!   So Dave and I drove to Lancaster last Sunday evening and enjoyed one of the best concerts I've ever seen.  What a night...wonderful music, performed beautifully.  And he's a very funny, entertaining fellow.  And the show was super high energy.  Oh, and can I tell you that our seats were second row, in the center??  Seriously, I was in heaven.

The video below plays one of his newer songs.  OK, most music videos are lame, so just listen to the music.  He has a whole Elvis/Roy Orbison/Everly Brothers thing going on and as for me....well, it completely works.  Which is very weird because individually those fellows just aren't what I'd find attractive in a boyfriend.  But Chris Isaak?  Pure boyfriend material.  And my husband even has a vague man-crush on him, so I think if Chris became my boyfriend, Dave would be ok with it.  And of course, we all know that Chris Isaak reads my needlework blog, so I should be getting his phone call any day now.  Yup.  Any day now.

Anyway, enjoy this song.

Wait, Wait....You want to read about stitching?

Well gang, that's not happening right now. 

My Sit-Down-and-Stitch mood has Got-Up-and-Went. 

Don't ask me why.  It's a mystery. The best way I can explain it is to say that stitching right now feels like trying to dance but not quite getting the rhythm.  I give it a go, but then throw up my hands and decide to leave the dance floor. Ah well, I know that it's something we all experience from time to time and I know it's only temporary.  And I hope it's short-lived.

Meanwhile, I've read a boatload of books and watched some great TV.  Well - Netflix mostly.   I've been on a documentary kick lately.  There was a very cool PBS series about Napoleon and I enjoyed every minute of it.  He was a fascinating fellow and it surprises me that he's never been the topic of a movie, what with all of the movies about English kings and queens.  Maybe it's that Americans have always thought of Napoleon comically?  But this well-done documentary has shown me that nothing could be further from the truth. 

And while it was a great documentary, it's not like I have readers out there who are checking my blog posts, breathlessly waiting to be fascinated by my insights on Napoleon.  So I've been kind of quiet, rather than subjecting you to my nerdiness.

I'll be back when I can think of something cool to write.  Or show you.  Because you all know that I'm all about being cool....

My July SBQ Answer

First of all, I hope that I didn’t put anyone off with the first part of the July question.  The part where I questioned whether we enjoy stitching because we like to be alone, or whether needlework pushes us in the direction of being alone.  Except I used the word “loner” which has kind of a negative connotation and I really didn’t mean it that way.  Oh, this trick-sy business of trying to write what I actually mean!  Also, maybe I put too much of my own experience into that part of the question. 

Here’s what I mean:  My stitching life started because I was looking for something that I could do alone.  When Dave and I were newlyweds, I was alone a lot.  On the positive side, my Saturday housework was done in a SNAP!  On the negative side, I had many weekend hours to fill.  I discovered stitching and it filled those hours.

So it’s been interesting to learn that many of you started stitching in group settings and continue to meet and organize and keep your groups going.  See, I just wasn’t thinking that way!  So I’m sorry that the first part of my question was kind of off-putting.  Maybe that’s why there have been relatively few responses to it.

But anyway…

I’ve enjoyed reading the many Perfect Group responses.  When I think about my perfect stitching group, I think I would model it after our neighborhood group that used to meet in the early 90’s.  Here are the things that I think made it perfect:

1. A nice mix of age groups.
2. All types of needlework are welcome.  If it gives you joy, bring it!
3. No pressure to keep up with other members of the group.
4. Pleasant conversation.  Minimal gossiping. 
5. Members with a variety of backgrounds and opinions, but it should be understood all that everyone must respect each other, regardless of whether we agree with those opinions or not.  No pushiness, but no hyper-sensitivity, either.

So those are the interpersonal group dynamics that I’d like, but when I think about the actual meeting, I like an after-lunch meeting with coffee and cake or cookies.  I think it would be awesome to have a meeting space in a shop somewhere, too.  Of course, that can be dangerous for our pocketbooks because when you see something that someone else has and you want it….well, it’s right there for you to buy!  Maybe meeting in houses is a better idea.

Not much else is going on around here.  Just a normal work week for everybody.  Except that I finally visited a bookstore that I’ve been wanting to visit for well over a year now!  A friend of mine from book club and I went on a day trip to Oakmont to visit The Mystery Lovers Bookshop.  Last year it won an Edgar Award (for shops) and although it’s small, it’s a beehive of activity.  Neat place.  And it was almost directly across the tracks from The Oakmont Bakery, and if you remember my love affair with cake, you know that I was in heaven. 

It looks like the rest of the weekend will be quiet.  I hope to make some more progress on my Summer Basket and share photos later.

I love summer holidays

Because that one leeeetle extra day off can make a world of difference in what I can accomplish.  It wouldn't work that way if I had every Monday off.  I'd fill the day with things that I had to do, and then it would become just like any other day.  But there's something about a holiday Monday that makes the weekend so much more relaxing. 

And what's more relaxing than playing with this?  BBD's Summer Basket.  So much fun!  And it's going rather quickly, too, considering that I haven't put that much time into it.  I'm so glad that I bought this last Labor Day.  It's really the perfect project for summertime.

 Oh...by the way.  The mouse?  To steal directly from Monty Python:

He’s passed on. The mouse is no more. He has ceased to be. He's expired and gone to meet his maker. He’s a stiff. Bereft of life, he rests in peace. He’s pushing up daisies. His metabolic processes are now history. He’s off the twig. He's kicked the bucket, he's shuffled off his mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible. HE IS AN EX-MOUSE.

None the less, I'm taking the advice of many of you wise bloggers and not fooling myself into thinking that there was only one mouse.  I can HOPE that there was only one, but I'm going to keep the traps around for a while.



 

July Stitching Bloggers Question

HA!  I’ll bet you all thought that I’d forget to post the July question today, since the first Monday of the month snuck up on us, disguised as a holiday and all that in the US.  Well, truth be told, I almost did forget, particularly since last night’s fireworks were made all the more enjoyable by several glasses of chilled Gewurztraminer, then I had to get up for work this morning (retail sucks).  So today it’s iced tea and ibuprofen.  But anyway….on to the question.

Stitching is an activity that tends to be solitary.  Sometimes I wonder if we choose stitching because we are more comfortable with pursuits that we do alone, or does our stitching cause us to be loners?  So what do you think? 

And you know that I can never stop with just one question or thing to think about, so here’s something else that’s been on my mind. 

Since we’re stitching alone most of the time, it seems to me that we get great joy from coming together with other stitchers.  It can be such a good feeling when we find a group of people who speak our language and understand our stitching excitement and passion.  But since not all stitchers are perfect, not all groups can be perfect either.  So…if you could create your own perfect stitching group, what characteristics would make it perfect?

For instance, would you all be near the same age, or would you like your group to span a generation or two?  Would you enjoy political or religious discussions while you stitch or would that make you shy away?  Would you like a big group or a small group?  Those are just a couple of variables in groups…tell us what’s important to YOU.

You can leave a comment when you’ve answered the question, if you’d like. 

Happy Canada Day!

Wishing all of our friends to the north a Happy Canada Day!

I don't know much about Canada Day, but in the U.S., if fireworks are involved it usually means that people are getting a day off.  So I hope that this photo means that our Canadian friends are enjoying a fun and relaxing holiday with little or no work involved.

Summer Basket

I have so many great projects kitted up and ready to go, but this one called out the loudest.  It's Blackbird Designs Summer Basket and was released last summer. 

So far it's a lovely summertime project!

Clearly I’m at odds with the animal kingdom

First there was the Memorial Day Bear.  Scared me to death.

Then Saturday night at about 1AM I sat bolt upright in bed because of a sharp pain in my side.  Thought I had been Tazed.  Sunday morning there are several clear bite marks in a circle of sorts on my left side.  Right where my bra strap rests, thank you very much.  So something got me and got me good. 

And last night I baked cookies.  Then Dave came home and sat in the living room.  Colleen came home and sat in the living room.  I sit closest to the kitchen, because my stitching chair kind of tucks into a corner there, and I kept hearing noises in the kitchen so I asked somebody to go look because I had a lap full of stitching, but they looked at me like I was a lunatic.  Finally Dave got up to investigate and said there was nothing.  So before I went to bed, I took the cookies off the cooling rack and put them away.  Noticed that one was missing, but that’s not unusual. I make awesome chocolate chip cookies.

Evidently a mouse thought so, too.  This morning I when went to make my coffee, I noticed a cookie wedged between the stove and the countertop.  Half eaten.  And that wasn’t a trail of chocolate crumbs on the counter. 

Now, as these things go, first you notice one little turd.  Then you notice…um…more than one.  Yikes.  Somebody was having a Mouse Party.  So today my goal was to take everything off the counters, clean, clean, clean, and get rid of all of the stuff that shouldn’t be on my counter anyway.   Cleaned under the stove top and then moved the stove and cleaned behind it.  Then I went to the storage drawer underneath the oven.  Did I even think that this could be a perfect hiding place for a mouse?  So I started to pull out baking pans and muffin tins and Keeeeripes!  There was a mouse running for cover!  I screamed and slammed the drawer shut and called Dave on the phone.  (Yes – totally ineffective, but better than my first instinct - to dial 911)  He told me to cover it with a pot and take the whole drawer outside, but by the time I reopened the drawer, the mouse was gone. 

So now I’m upstairs in the office and dreading going back into that kitchen.  And I may be opting for take-out tonight.  Such drama.

My daughter says it’s kind of like the children’s book:

But with a much darker ending.

(Don’t be groaning.  You know you all thought it, too)

Lo How a Rose – Take Two

Once I took the Weeks Dye Works thread off my head, I actually used it for stitching. 

This is how I stitched my first set of initials and the date:

And now the re-stitched initials initials and date:

I’m happy now. 

I finished Aury’s 2009 4th of July Quaker this morning, too. What a fun design!  I wanted it to finish big, so I used 19 ct. linen, stitched it over two threads, and used 3 strands of regular old DMC.  Maybe I’ll put it on top of the TV today while we’re watching the USA in the World Cup.  For luck, you know.

I see that some of you have started the 2010 design.  I’ll probably get to that one next year.

Have a great weekend, gang!

Hair Coloring

I started coloring my hair maybe 5 years ago.  Maybe 6?  I had finally had enough of the gray hair sprouting from the center of my head and wangling up towards the sky, so I gave in.  (Why does gray hair behave so badly?  It's like it's on the top of your head, sticking straight in the air, waving and shouting Hey!  LOOK AT ME!)  I didn't do any drastic color change...just trying to keep my natural color but without the snow on top.

My hair color was ok for a while, but now I've grown to haaaaaate it.  I hate the process.  I hate the fuss.  I like things to be very low maintenance and coloring my hair felt high maintenance.  I hate the ever-present roots.  And each time I colored, even using the same brand and color shade, I felt as if I came away with a weird color, which only kept getting weirder and weirder.

So...  Anyway, I went to the hairdresser's on Tuesday and he and I decided that it's time to go natural.  Which means gray.  And he told me to just be patient and let the color treated hair grow out.  All the while he was assuring me that the color wasn't so  bad.  Still, it's hard for me to internalize that because every day I have to look at this gray-blonde-brown-whatever the hell color combination you want to call it.

Call me crazy but I'll be obsessing over my hair growing out for the next 18 months, at least.

Proof of that obsession?  Thursday night I was getting ready to stitch my initials into LoHaRose, and pulled out my WDW London Fog cotton floss.  I looked at it, then looked at my hair.  Looked at it, then again....at my hair.

Oh. Dear. God.

The current color combination of the hair on top of my head is EXACTLY the same as this skein of floss.

See the proof below in the extra-flattering photo that I've taken of my head! 

Yup.  That's Weeks Dye Works #1198, London Fog. It's hard to capture it in a photo, but that thread matches every shade that's on my head right now.  If they made hair extensions out of this, it would look perfectly normal on me.  I mean....as far as we can stretch the meaning of "normal". (You'll notice that the word "flattering" isn't in this post)

It's going to be a very long 18 months.

This is the coolest!

I like to stitch in the car.  I usually take something with big stitches, like 7 ct. or 11 ct. or even 19ct (working over two).  So you can only imagine how excited I was to see this! 

 And now I'm going to RUN over to Karen's blog, Sew Many Ways and tell her how brilliant she is.

Finding the ultimate stitching house

Remember that I told you that last weekend my husband and I drove to Philadelphia to pick up some stereo equipment?  Dave loves stereo equipment.  He mostly buys speakers and receivers, but he'll also salivate over a nice turntable or tape deck.  So we drive here and there and pick up these things for him to play with....then probably trade or sell later, once he's decided to move on to some different piece of stereo equipment.    And I don't mind going with him, because these trips usually involve going somewhere new.  It's always an adventure and then we always arrange to have lunch or dinner somewhere nice.  It kind of feeds the gypsy-wanderer part of our personalities.

Anyway, so last weekend we went to this fellow's house.  As it turns out, he's a writer for a Stereophile Magazine and he reviews receivers and speakers for a living.   

Well gang, Dave thought he had died and gone to heaven.  I was sitting in the car stitching, and he came out and said, "Lee, you have to come in here.  If you think that I have a lot of stuff...wait till you see this!"  This man's house was completely outfitted for the purpose of listening to stereos and he managed successfully (mostly) to integrate these massive speakers and amplifiers and receivers (his test subjects) into all of his living areas.  It was all really amazing.  And the fellow?  Super nice guy and brilliant at what he does.

So this got me thinking....have I ever had that experience in the needlework world?  You know...when you walk into somebody's home and think to yourself, "This is a perfect house for stitching!"  And I'm happy to tell you, YES!

Back in April, when I was in Topeka, one of the women we shop-hopped with invited us to dinner at her house after a long day of shopping.  (She doesn't have a blog and she doesn't really put herself out there much in the internet world, so I feel like she's quite private.  Consequently, I won't mention her name here, so I can respect her privacy.)  Of course, being invited to dinner was marvelous.  Isn't it always great to return home to a meal after a day of stash shopping?  But her house?  Amazing.  And I'll tell you what made it so amazing.

1. The sheer number of stitched items in the house.  Her stitching was everywhere, and not only on the walls.  Yet it was beautifully and artfully arranged all around the house.  She is a very fast and very prolific stitcher, and chooses designs of almost every sort.  From tiny and intricate to big and simple.  From classical to whimsical.  Soft and pastel to bold and bright.  You get the picture, right?  And somehow, even with all of that diversity, it all worked.  

2.  Wonderful lighting and seating in the living room of the house.  Extraordinary large windows providing loads and loads of natural light.  Chairs arranged to take the most advantage of the light, yet still set about to make comfortable conversation groups.  Baskets of work in progress near the chairs, but it was attractive, not cluttered looking.  

3.  Extra seating and workspace in a downstairs area, so that if the upstairs was being used to entertain, there was still a stitching haven in another part of the house.  And this was only steps away from:

4.  A totally separate, awe-inspiring studio/storage area that was so incredibly organized, I almost fainted.  Shelving, filing cabinets, and bins all came together so that if you said, "Hey Amazing Friend, do you have (Insert any obscure stitching supply here)?", she could literally reach her hand out and touch it.  I can only imagine the work it took to create this storage area, and even the amount of time it takes to have it remain so organized, but think of the joy of knowing where your stuff is all the time!

So...there you have it.  A stitcher's dream house.   Perfect work spaces and living areas that surround you with the work of your hands.  

And I could have that, if I could only get rid of some of this damn stereo equipment...

No Free Speech for Pierogis

This has absolutely nothing to do with stitching, but if you are from Western PA and especially if you are a Pittsburgh sports fan, you’ll be interested in this.  Evidently it’s no problem for Steeler QB Ben Roethlisberger to assault young women in bars, because he gets to keep his job.   But if you’re a Pierogi who doesn’t toe the line with regard to Pirate baseball, you’re history.

Out at the plate: Pirates dump outspoken pierogi

Saturday, June 19, 2010

By Dan Majors, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Peter Diana/Post-Gazette

A pierogi race takes place in front of Pirates right fielder Ryan Church during Friday's game at PNC Park.

Frustrated fans pleading for something -- anything -- to be done to stop the Pirates' losing ways are likely to find little to cheer about in the baseball team's latest move.

They fired a pierogi.

Andrew Kurtz, 24, of New Brighton, one of the 18 men who take turns posing as pierogies in a crowd-pleasing race after the fifth inning of every game at PNC Park, was dismissed by the team Thursday because he posted disparaging remarks about the Pirates on his Facebook page.

"My son always was a big Pirates fan," said his mother, Mary Kurtz. "He took pride in being a pierogi runner. Since when, in this country, are you not allowed to state an opinion? Well, here is my opinion: The Pirates came through again and let go one of their biggest fans and dedicated workers."

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10170/1066854-63.stm#ixzz0rMBM6CjA

Feast or Famine

That's what my blog has become.  It feels like I either post constantly with loads to say and one picture after another, or else I disappear for days and come back with nothing at all significant to tell you.  Oh no.  I've just now told you that this post will be insignificant.  Way to shoot myself in the foot.

First of all, our overnight at the beach last weekend was fabulous and fantastic. After a quick stop in Paoli to pick up a stereo receiver (more about that in another post), it was a quick drive to Stone Harbor and we were actually sitting on the beach by 4PM.

Then dinner with my mom, brother and nephew and then we drove into Wildwood to walk on the boardwalk.  I used to love its total trashiness and it had been over 10 years since I had been "on the boards" and I have good news my friends:

It's even trashier than ever.  But in a wonderful way. 

Spent a bit of time on the beach again Sunday morning, then headed off the island by lunchtime.  But not without stopping at Pat's Lunch, because we just had to see if Pat was still around.  Bless him, Pat is 99 years old and still working the counter at his little place.  Fantastic cheesesteaks by the way.  Not cheap, but always tasty.  Loads of soups, but don't let that little unit in the window fool you....there was no A/C, so soup was not going to be a good choice. 

I'm serious.  99 years old.

The drive home was NOT good.  We've decided that we won't be traveling on I95 at any time during the weekend ever again.  When it's clear, I95 is a breeze and the fastest way to most shore points for us.  But when there's any teeny tiny little tie up?  It's amazing that a 6 hour trip on Saturday can take 9 hours on a Sunday. 


Sorry that I don't have any stitching to show you today.  I've actually picked out more stitches than I've put in these days.  While I appreciate all of you who had nice things to say about my signature on LoHaRose, I've decided to pick my initials out and start over.  If I just use my L.O. initials, instead of ELO, I should be able to use the quirkier lettering and make my signature less noticable.

Feh.  I also miscounted the 4th of July Quaker heart, so when I got near the end, my heart was decidedly NOT heart shaped.  Pick, rip, pick.

Oh and thank you very much Miss Aury for a 2010 version of this design.  It's SO not fair that these designers are spitting out things faster than I can stitch them...

Come with me on my walk

Here are some pictures of what I see along my walking route each morning. I'll tell you, there's no place quite so lovely as Pennsylvania in May and June.  So we’ll start in my driveway and end up back at my front door.

The Dad SBQ

So this month’s question addressed fathers.  What have we stitched for a father in our life, and have our fathers had any impact on our approach to stitching? 

As for the first part of the question, over the years I stitched many things for my parents as a couple.  Anniversary samplers, household samplers, etc.  But I only stitched one thing specifically for my dad while he was alive.  It was a wee little thing…a lighthouse with a saying about fathers not steering our ship but instead providing our guiding light.  Maybe it was an old Gloria and Pat design?  But it suited him well and I know he was touched.  He hung it by his bedside where he could always see it.  Dad liked to know that I stitched.  I think he saw glimmers of his mother when I showed him my work, and that made him happy.  What a sentimental guy he was…

The second thing I ever stitched exclusively for my dad was a Heart in Hand sampler.  But it was after Dad was suffering with Alzheimer’s disease and for one reason or another I just put it away unfinished.  After my dad died, I decided to take it out and frame it with some of his photos.  I think I’ll always wish that I had given it to him before he died.  I guess that’s part of the thing about Alzheimer’s disease. All of the what if’s and if only’s…but we just have to make the best of it.

OK, so I don’t want to end on a sad note about my dad, because he was not a sad kind of guy.  I’m happy that I see many things in my stitching personality that are SO SIMILAR to my dad’s personality.  It’s also a little scary, but good scary.

Dad was a serious model railroader for most of his life, starting when he was a boy.  And I can attribute every bit of my needlework collecting soul to my father.  He was a collector’s collector.  And he did many of the things that we needleworkers laugh at ourselves for.  For instance, there was always some excuse for running into a hobby shop in any town.  And when he retired, Dad went to work at the local hobby shop (how many of us would love to work in a needlework shop when we retire??), and that’s when the serious buying began.  It was so serious that Dad would leave his boxes and bags in the car and then wait till my mom went to work before he snuck them into the house and down to the basement to H.O. Railroad Land.   Raise your hand if you’re guilty of doing that….I know that my hand is up.

My dad had every conceivable modeling tool and gadget known to man.  Little stuff, but big stuff too.  Like spray paint hoods.  Specialty drills.  He even created some tools.  And storage?  Don’t get me started. 

Here’s a picture of Dad at his railroad club.  Will you look at that head set?  Dad was large and in charge at his railroad club and had the whole hands-free thing going waaaaaay before bluetooth technology came to us mere mortals.  Because when it comes to holiday train displays, the trains have to run on time, you know.  And that requires constant communication with the guys working the control panel.  And now you know why I’m so in love with needlework gadgetry.  It’s genetic.

 

Whenever my dad came to one of our houses, he always, without fail brought some train cars to work on.  Kind of like the way I never travel without my stitching bag?  He’d come for the weekend, unload my mom’s stuff, then he’d plant himself on the porch or at any convenient table and while Mom and I would run around with the kids, Dad would work away to his heart’s content.  This picture was taken when he was visiting my sister’s house, and I can’t quite tell what he’s working on, but isn’t it kind of funny that there’s a bag of M&M’s on the table?  Only my favorite stitching snack!  And his coffee mug.

And this is me at stitch camp last year.  With my coffee.  And the M&M’s may not be in the photo, but I had brought with me.  They were there somewhere!  (Hi Barb!)   Jeez, do we ever look alike?

Dad especially enjoyed immersing himself in his hobby and he’d travel far and wide for a train event or show.  Especially if they let him drive the train…(Will you look at that concentration on his face?)  He loved talking with other people who shared his passion for any part of his hobby, and he was well respected when it came to his modeling ability.  I love stitching related travel, and I’d love to command half of that respect when it comes to my stitching.  And Dad shared his talents with his children and grandchildren.  Each of my kids has a wonderful train set that my dad built for them and other types of models, too.  Sailboats.  Sailing ships.  Airplanes.  Cars.

Sometimes I wonder what other kinds of worlds would have opened up for my dad if he was alive right now.  Is there a model train blogging community?  Would he be a blogger?  Oh My.  Or would he be a message board kind of guy?  Ah well.  The Internet will never know.

I should listen to my own self

It's just too ridiculous that I asked all of you to post your Patriotic Quaker Hearts so that I could send a list to the designer, yet my PQH is still not even close to finished.  I know!  Don't you just love somebody who says, Hey, let's do this, and then she doesn't do it?  Yes,  I'm annoying even my own self.  But I plan to stitch and stitch this weekend.  It'll be another car trip weekend, and this is a great car project.  

But here's my big finish! LoHaR is complete, although I keep looking at my initials and wondering if I can't come up with something that I like better.  My eyes keep wandering to that bottom corner and my brain keeps saying,  No.  You could make that look better.  What is it that's bothering me about it?  Is it the color I chose?  I used another color in the design, not London Fog.  Or is it the type of lettering I used?  Or is it ok as it is?  If you have any suggestions, please suggest away. 

Let's see...in other stitchy news, I started BBD's Summer Basket Sampler and man oh man, I'm having color issues with it.  My piece of Baby's Breath WDW linen is much more peach-tinted than the fabric in the photograph and so far three of the WDW threads that the design calls for are completely invisible on this fabric.  I'm stitching and switching like crazy.

And by the way, not to keep ripping on WDW, but since when is Baby's Breath pink or peach?  Baby's Breath is white.  Sheesh.

There's not much going on in family news here.  Daughter ran her first half-marathon last week. She described her last mile as a death shuffle. .  Sadly, that's what all of my miles look like!  But hey...I'm moving and it may not be pretty, but I keep putting one foot in front of the other. 

My son wiped out on his bike last weekend.  He's been thrilled about riding all around Marin County, and was finishing his longest ride ever and towards the end he was going too fast and took a curve too fast and...well, he says there is no skin left on the left side of his body.  It's terrible to be so far away sometimes.  I mean, these things happen and he's an adult and can deal with his own health, safety and well-being, but it still gives my heart pangs.

Dave and I are headed to the Jersey shore on Saturday for one night.  He wanted me to ride with him to pick up some stereo equipment in Philly, and I was able to parlay that into a night in Stone Harbor.  I can be such a powerful negotiator.  And it helps that my husband can be such a marshmallow sometimes.  But in a good way.

Show of hands

Suddenly I'm seeing Aury's red, white and blue Quaker heart everywhere.  I'm wondering how many of us are stitching it? 

If you are, leave me your blog and/or photo link in the comment section and I'll put together a list.  I'll post the list and then send it on to Aury, also.

As for me, I'm enjoying the heck out of it.   You know, I have loads of Quaker designs, yet I've stitched very few of them.  I should change that situation.

June Stitching Bloggers Question

So many great things happen in the month of June.  Graduations, lots of weddings, the First Day of Summer (for those of us in the northern hemisphere, anyway).  Flag Day in the U.S. and St. Jean Baptiste Day for our Canadian friends.  And for many of us, the third Sunday in June is Father’s Day and it’s a pretty big deal.  We celebrate our fathers, or we remember our fathers or we try to treat our children’s fathers to a special day.  So I decided that this month’s SBQ was going to have fathers in it in some way.

And here we go:

Tell us about something that you have stitched or plan to stitch for any father in your life.  Maybe it’s for your father, your father-in-law, your children’s father, your grandfather, your godfather, or someone who was or still is an important father-figure in your life.  Why did you choose this particular piece of stitching?   Tell us the story behind it. 

And because a simple one part question is never adequate, let’s go some more:

Often times we identify our love of needlework and our skills with our mothers or grandmothers or other women.  It’s understandable because often they were are first teachers or role models.  Now let’s think about our stitching life as it relates to our dads.  Is there anything about our approach to stitching that we can recognize as traits of our fathers?  For instance, does your dad (or any other important man in your life) have an approach to one of his interests that you can observe and think, “Hey….if I substitute the word “needlework” for “fly fishing”, we’d be pretty darn similar!”  So tell us about it.

Coincidentally, today would have been my PopPop’s 101st birthday.  He’s passed away almost 30 years ago, but isn’t it so odd that I always remember his birthday?  And I can barely remember my own phone number some days.

What next...what next?

So, LoHaR is waiting patiently on the couch in my office for its skein of thread.

Spring Violets is waiting for a frame.

And now I'm between projects.  Well, I know that I have some half finished stuff around  (remember Tree of Life?)  And I have loads of great stuff already kitted up and ready to go, thanks to some No Holds Barred shopping trips last summer and this spring.  But right now I feel like I need something small and quick and topical.  Like a palate cleansing sorbet, but in a stitchy sort of way.

I've seen this Patriotic Freebie from Aury on more than a few blogs.  It may be just the thing.

Don't forget to look for the June Stitching Bloggers Question of the Month this coming Monday (June 7).  The May question required your thinking caps.  June's question will be easier.  Unless I make it a two-parter.  Or three-parter.  Because we loves the deep thinking.