We are home!!!

Patrick, Nicholas and Jennifer in the Box Canyon, Dinosaur National Monument, Utah

Nicholas, Patrick and Hobbie at the top of Capulin, New Mexico

Hobbie in the pool at the Amarillo, TX campsite. Isn't he a hottie!

What a trip! We drove over 3000 miles, passed through 13 different states and took over 400 photos of the beauty of America. I love this country, but have a much better appreciation of how lucky I am to live here after seeing what a lovely country we have and the freedom to just drive, and drive, and drive some more. The boys had a great time and were very good the whole trip. Hobbie (my husband) and I are very lucky to have such well-behaved young men. We camped 6 of the eight nights and stayed in hotels the last two. Overall, it was such a wonderful vacation.


I did do some stitching. I completed a new project I purchased at Shakespeare's Peddler just before we left. It is HIH's Study Hard. Since I am an instructor at JCJC, I thought this would be great to hang in my office.


I also completed C and D in the Erica Michael's freebie series. I selected DMC colors to substitute for the RG threads and think they look really nice. I can't wait to complete the entire alphabet and make the sampler book.


Finally, I worked on a piece by Paula Vaughan. I love violets and the color purple. This piece is coming along slowly, but I think it will be so beautiful when I finish. The fabric is a solo piece from Silkweaver. The colors are perfect for the piece. I can't wait to finish it and hang it in my craft room. Speaking of which, I have to share some photos of my room soon.

It seems that I have missed quite a bit in the past week. I hope to catch up with reading all of my favorite blogs and making comments. I also need to check in with RR and exchange groups on yahoo. I have two notices in my mailbox for packages, so I assume these are from the yahoo groups. Of course, I have to wait until tomorrow to see.

Family Vacation

The guys and I are leaving this morning for our family road trip. We have loaded our little Scion xA down with camping equipment and we are off for a week's trip west. We are camping in Arkansas, Texas, Colorado, and Utah. Very exciting. I am taking lots of little projects to work on, so I should have some finished projects to show off when I get back.

A quick finish...

Isn't this a cute little project? I decided I wanted to do something that I could complete very quickly and use some of my new fabric while doing it. I had downloaded a bunch of Erica Michael's freebies off Rainbow Gallery web page last summer. I wanted to stitch the month charts and use them to make magnets for my refrigerator to hold a custom calendar with our families activities. So, I decided to start in the middle of the year and stitch July, since I can use it in a few weeks. The charts use Rainbow Gallery threads, which I do not have, so I changed it using the colors I had on hand. I stitched it on a piece of Silkweaver Dusty Blue linen (32 ct). I just received this piece last week in my Surprise Me! Fabric of the Month package. I love the fabric. It was very easy to stitch on and very soft.



I finished the piece as a magnet, backing it with some of the fabric I bought last week. It was really easy, but you can see that I need a little more practice to make it look perfect. This was a really fun project and I am really excited about completing the whole set.

The Beginning of a Fabric Stash

After looking at so many beautiful finished projects, particularly Becky's, I decided I needed to start collecting different fabrics that I thought would look good with some of the projects I hope to stitch soon. So, today, my mother and I went fabric shopping. We went to Hancock Fabrics, Hobby Lobby and Walmart. I picked out lots of different fabrics I thought were pretty and purchased a 1/4 yard of each. I also picked out a few from the remnants baskets. Luckily Hancock Fabrics and Hobby Lobby had calico prints on sale this week. I ended the day with 40 pieces of fabric and a few packs of buttons. I am so excited and can't wait to use these beautiful fabrics to finish some of the many stitching projects I have also collected.

I'm home... and received my May SS...

Well, I am home from a week's stay in San Diego, California. It was a wonderful trip, but it is so good to be home with my boys. I also was so happy to receive my wonderful package for the May SS exchange from Judy. She sent me some really nice items. I can't wait to stitch the LK Christmas pattern. I also am excited about using the different threads that she sent. Thank you, Judy.

Also, I was happy to get home to read everyone's blogs. I didn't take any stitching with me because I knew there wasn't any time. I was going through major withdrawals. I really needed some inspiration to get me going again. Becky always has the ability to awe and inspire me with her creativity. Other blogs that frequently visited (list to the right) also had many wonderful projects to show and inspire. Thanks ladies. Hopefully, I will have some stitching pictures to show later in the week.