A Brand New Start

Hello again! I know this looks funny right now. It is a Hummel piece called Girl kissing doll. Now I hope when it's finished the doll actually looks like a doll and not another girl. It will go to Sandy Hook project. There are a couple of other Hummel pieces I'd like to do for it too. I just started this piece this morning and it's going fast. I have a lot more done on it than I thought I would. So hope the rest of the piece goes just as fast. To be honest, I have about 5 other projects (3 for Sandy Hook) I am anxious to do plus finish up the golfer I started. Well, until next time Happy Stitching! Happy Easter tomorrow!

So Much Chocolate/Four Basic Food Groups

I finished this piece this afternoon. It was a fun stitch but I'm glad to have it done. Now I have kitted up a Hummel pattern of a little girl kissing her doll. I hope everyone has a good Easter Weekend. I'm going to my parents house for dinner on Sunday. Well....until next time Happy Stitching!

Four Basic Food Groups

Hello everyone! My last post I was debating on rather to add the phrase "so little time" to this piece as the child only lived to be 6. I posted the question on the face book page for the Sandy Hook Project and they all said not to add it. So instead I decided to add The Four Main Food Groups only will leave off the wording. It goes with So much chocolate. I received a message from my cousin Toni that she received her quilt and really likes it. Before I go any further I better tell you Saturn is on my desk being my little "helper" actually he's playing with a pen that has him entertained for now until he decides to help me. My brother bought me two new winter coats and I received them today and much to my dismay they were too small! So he said to donate them to charity. First I'll take them to my mom tomorrow and see if they fit her, the one I'm sure will but the other I don't think so. Just because a coat says a certain size doesn't mean it is it. I looked at the price tag and wow winter coats are expensive. He said he did not pay what the tag said. Good! Our snow is S-L-O-W-L-Y melting. We are finally hitting the 40's and the sun is out. Well until next time Happy Stitching!

Progress on Chocolate!

Good afternoon! I have made progress on this piece, actually I am a little further than this as I have the word Chocolate all in now. Those letters drove me nuts, I'm happy to have them done. I just have to put in the bear's hand and icecream cone. Then on bottom instead of having so little time I'm going to put in a small cake, pie, and candy on the bottom. Because the little boy died at age 6 so little time seemed cruel to put on the piece. Saturn had his Vet visit yesterday and got his rabies and distemper shots. He did really good. But I think it was more upsetting to him then I thought as he got sick 3 times last night, one on my stitching bag, the other on my coat which will be thrown away since it is about 15 years old and not washable. And he got the couch and carpet. Today he is sleeping a lot but he slept very little yesterday so I expected him to sleep a lot today. My brother called me this morning and this afternoon. Him and his wife went and bought me two coats. I should get them Wed. I hope I'm home when they get here! He said one was black and the other dark green. One is more for church he said. I hope they fitr me! It looks like Spring will come after all. The next few days calls for no snow and low 40's. A little cool but will melt the snow anyway. Besides we don't want it to melt too fast or we'd have floods. Well, I'm going to read some more blogs and drool over everyone else's stitching. Until next time Happy Stitching!

So Much Chocolate-So Little Time

I started this piece about 3 days ago. I needed a break from the golf piece. I thought this piece was cute. I'm doing it for the Sandy Hook Project. One of the little boys shot and killed that day loved chocolate and the group was wondering if anyone could do at least one chocolate piece for his quilt so I am doing this for him. It is a fun easy piece by Linda Gillun of American School of Needleworks. Speaking of quilts I had requested a quilt for my cousin, Toni, who has stage 3 ovarian cancer. (Has had it for several years now). I requested it a few months ago, and we all stitched the flowers for her quilt. But the owner got sick and never mailed her quilt. Knowing the owner was doing better and mailing out other packages I point blank asked her about Toni's quilt, and said I wasn't stitching anymore squares until she got the quilt. She e mailed back saying she was still ill and her husband was out of town until Easter. Fine, I understood that. But today I got an email with the tracking number so I figure finally Toni's quilt is in the mail. I can't wait until she gets it. She was told she'd have it before Christmas, then shortly after the New Year. And now it looks like she will get it the end of March. Toni's had a rough year as her cancer returned, then her mother died, and then her step father who raised her as his own died very suddenly Thanksgiving Day. So I was anxious for Toni to get her quilt. Toni, herself, never complained or said anything to me so she is more patient then I am. Monday my niece, Michelle, and her baby, Chase, along with my sister came to town for a couple of hours before Michelle and Chase flew back to CO. We had a nice visit with them. Chase is so cute. He hung unto Michelle pretty much the whole time but he saw a lot of people he didn't know over the weekend. He's 20 months old. They will be back in August with the other half of their family (Scott, and 3 year old Nick). They are camping at a camp ground near here for a week in Aug. My mom is doing okay at home. We are all getting after her to be nice to dad. She tends to be mean to him. And he's 84 and his heart is not very good at all, in fact he was told to avoid stress and take it easy. Yea right with mom, yea right. Part of it is though we don't know if she completely comprehends the seriousness of dad's heart. She still gets confused and mixed up a little. It is the first day of spring but you would never know it by all the snow on the ground. It snowed some today and will tomorrow, then it's suppose to be dry and cool in the upper 30's low 40's for several days. Good enough to melt the snow gradually. We want to fire the ground hog for giving us false hope saying spring will come early. It's not they say mid April may get 60. We'll see when it gets here. Well...until next time....Happy Stitching

Start on Golf

Hello! I started Golf the other day and it's going fairly well. It's really detailed and keeps me on my toes but it's a fun piece. It's about half done now. And yes it is another piece by Stoney Creek! I seem to like those patterns! I had problems with my scanner so had to scan in a different mold so hopefully it turns out clear. My niece and her youngest son are visiting my sister for about 4 days. They'll be coming in to town Monday for a few hours before flying back to CO. I could have gone to my sister's for 4 days. She was at our parents on Thurs. and asked me if I wanted to go to her house, but 5 days and 4 nights is an awful long time to leave my cat unattended. Had she asked ahead of time I could have made arrangements for my cat. That's okay....I'm not sure I could handle 3 small children for 3 days as another niece is there with her husband and children. I'll see all of them this summer. Kay is camping a few days, but Michelle, Heather, and their husbands and children will be there the whole week so I'll see them a couple of days then. We can't wait to see Michelle and Chase we haven't seen them since Christmas 2011 and Chase was 6 months old then. Tommorrow I'm going to my brother's for my niece's birthday. I can't believe Melissa will be 31 and has 2 children of her own now. The first piece I ever did was a birth sampler for Melissa. She still has it only it's been taken out of the frame and made as a center piece for a quilt her mom made along with other pieces her mom CS for her when she was really young. Next Saturday is the annual Easter Egg Roll at church. Usually we have it outside but there's too much snow on the ground and even if a lot of it melts it would be nothing but mud so it's being held inside the church this year. The next day we have a spaghetti dinner to raise funds for camp scholarships. We like to have as many kids go to camp as can and many can't afford it so we have a special fund to send them to camp. I remember going to camp every year as a child. A lot of great memories of Center Lake Bible Camp and it's an experience any child should have. Well....until next time Happy Stitching

SMILE Finished

I finished this piece earlier today. It was a fun stitch. I had to improvise just a little bit. This piece will go to Love Quilts featuring Inspirational Words. I started a Golfer by Stoney Creek for a Sports quilt at Love Quilts. I thought it would be a different sport to do. So far it's going much better than the skier did and it's in the same book. I never posted progress on the skier because I figured it would end up in the garbage and it did. Tomorrow my mom is going home. Her and dad are so excited. We just hope things go well. Tomorrow my sister is coming in for overnight. They also have help coming in like they did before. So we are happy about that. Well--until next time.....Happy Stitching.

Smile!

Hello! I hope everyone had a good week. Well...after several days of stitching on a skier I ended up throwing it away. It just was not coming together at all. So I got out this piece yesterday and started stitching it. It is for a quilt with Inspirational words for Love Quilts. We are seeing much more of the sun the snow is slowly melting. And I mean very S-L-O-W-L-Y but that's okay we had so much snow if it melted too fast we'd have floods. My mom is hoping to go home next week. She has improved so much she's pretty much back to herself and we didn't think that would ever happen. I am definitely getting anxious for spring. I don't know why as I'm already sneezing a lot so hope that isn't a bad omen that allergies will be bad this year. But I love spring. Everything is so fresh and new and the flowers are so pretty! I'm also in the mood to start some spring cleaning in the apartment. I'll start next week. Well.....until next time Happy Stitching!

Finish no. 40

Good Evening! I finished this piece earlier this afternoon. It was a fun piece to do. I am now only 10 away from the 50 mark! I think I am on a Stoney Creek kick as several of my last few have been their patterns and at least 2 in the next few I'm doing is also by them. My next piece is a skiing piece being done for Love Quilts. They are asking for boy pieces so I'm doing this one. It looks like there will be a warm up this week and we will have some of our snow melting. That will be nice. There isn't much to say. So until next time....Happy Stitching!

Start No. 40

This adorable Sea Otter is being stitched for Cross Stitch Addicts for Love Quilts. The Quilt will feature Stoney Creek's Sea Babies. That is going to be one adorable quilt. I love stitching on this and it's about half done now. I may just have to buy this book! I am only 10 away from the 50 mark although I may add a few more as I bought some patters intending to do them for others and so far haven't. Most of them will be done eventurally but some of them were not what I expected them to be We have had so much snow in Feb. we broke the records for the amount of snow fall in month of Feb. That is not including the storm we are in middle of now, but it's not a bad storm. I know it's selfish but I am sort of hoping that BSF is cancelled tomorrow. We'll see. My mom is doing much better as far as her confusion. She's almost back to normal. Unfortunately she has to stay in Isolation until Tuesday because of her infection. Hopefully on Tues. the blood test will show it's clear and she can go back to a regular room. We think she'll be happier then. None of us would like being confined to that room we don't blame her for being unhappy there. Well until next time....Happy Stitching! st

PM PIlot is finished

It is finished! I finished the pilot earlier this morning. It's a cute piece but I'm glad it's done. Now I'm doing the baby sea otter for Love Quilts. Its a quilt we are doing at CSA for Love Quilts. It's going pretty good and I'm so anxious to see it progress. I saw my mom today and she is slowly improving. She isn't nearly as confused as she was and she didn't choke on her food. So it was a nice visit. Well until next time Happy Stitching!

Update on PM Pilot

I stitched quite a bit on this this past week and am happy with the progress. It gets a little tedius at times, especially the plane as there is so much 225 in it but I take a break from it from time to time to do other parts of the piece, that's why it looks a little funny. Typical of PM pieces once I get the hair and face done the rest goes failry easy. I went up to see my mom today not sure what to think. She has been moved to a private room because her bladder infection is back again! We think they need to keep her on the antibiotic longer than what they are. She's also still confused and has a hard time swallowing. She chokes on her food so she doesn't want to eat. My fear is since they don't watch her eat if she chokes when she's eating and no family menmber is there, she may aspirate. She really eats very little. My sister thinks she's being stubborn I really don't know, if I choked every time I ate, I may not want to eat either. I do feel she's sort of mean and I don't like that. But so much of the way she's acting is not her, she'd be so embarassed if she knew what all she was saying. She always was short tempered with dad and I and dad, he just takes it rolls off his sleeve, me, I'll get after her. I sort of did that today when she got mean to dad. Even though we were never close it's hard to see her like this. We never fought or anything but we were never close. We always knew one of these days winter would gang up on us and collect for being so nice to us for one winter and half of the other. We've had so many storms in Feb. We can't wait until winter is over. Is it spring yet? Well....Until next time Happy Stitching!

Splish Splash Pillow

A few months ago I made this piece for two of my great nephews, (Nick and Chase who live in CO). I had my sister make it into a pillow so she did and then sent it out to the boys. My niece says they really like it and like the fact their grandma made the pillow part. Well, 3 year old Nick does. Chase is a little too young yet but he likes the animals on it. Oh I almost forgot it was Valentines Day so Happy Valentines Day everyone. I had wanted to do a Valentines piece for got involved in other projects instead. In the next day or two I'll update the PM Pilot one. It's moving along fine now that the worst of it is done. We moved my mom to the Nursing Home on Tuesday. She's just really confused but doing okay. She doesn't want my dad to leave her but he has to go home and get other things done sometimes. We are hoping the confusion will past but we're not too optimistic. Perhaps once she settles in she'll calm down a little. Well until next time Happy Stitching!

Back to PM Pilot

For now I have returned to the Precious Moments Pilot. There is a lot of 225 in the plane especially since I am revising the plane and not doing the words on it so it'll be all pink. Both Love Quilts and Sandy Hook Project are asking for pieces for boys so I went through my books and found some pieces. I am anxious to get going on a couple of pieces for Love Quilts. Love Quilts is my first priority and Sandy Hook Project comes second. Plus I have until Aug. on the Sandy Hook Projects. I figure if I do 7 or 8 projects for Sandy Hook Project I'll be doing good. We got hit hard by a winter storm Wed. night and Thursday and my sister drove through it from the other side of the state. She said it was nice until she hit Grand Rapids then the weather was terrible and sort of crawled between 35 and 40 miles per hour that's all the faster anyone left. She left yesterday and will be back on Tues. We are trying something new for the Food Pantry at church. Once a month someone from the food pantry will go up front and promote it then tell the people about drawing something from the basket and what ever is written on the card is what they are to bring. It may be 2 cans of spaghetti o's, etc. Oatmeal is just one. We are hoping that will keep the people involved in the food pantry. They come through big time when we have a drive but rest of year they tend to forget about us. Although someone recently gave us $1800 and then we got a grant for a local hospital, and smaller sums of money have come in. The money we save to use at Feeding America as we can get things so much cheaper from them. Our only problem is they only have certain things although this year I've noticed more items. That reminds me I have to put an order in to them tomorrow and it's a big order. Anyway we were really pleased with the amount of cards that people took now hopefully they'll bring the food in. We really need spaghetti o's and raviolli's really bad oh and pancake mixes, so we'll see. Well until next time.....Happy Stitching!

Another finish

Hello! This time I have a finish that really didn't take that long to do. Maybe about 20 hours altogether. It was a fun, easy stitch. A nice break from what I had been doing, and very colorful. More color than I really like but this was a fast moving, fun piece so it didn't bother me much. This piece will go to the Sandy Hook project. Rather it will go to the school quilt or one of the teachers I don't know. Most of the squares I do for this project I'm letting the leaders choose where to put the squares except for the Music Speaks piece, that had to go to Ana. I was so touched by that video of her singing and her brother playing the piano. She was playing to, that it had to go to her family. Then I saw her parents on TV and I knew for sure then. I think I'm going to finish the Precious Moments airplane piece next and then do a couple of pieces for Love Quilts. They are needing boy graphs so I dug out some. Things are not looking good for my mom right now. It's a rollar coaster ride. She'll be okay one day and the next not. She was doing well this afternoon and my dad was getting ready to go with her to PT so they could see how he does transfering her etc. He said the morning went well even though she was weak yet and she did tire out. Then I guess she had a spell in PT in the afternoon and they ran an EKG and some other tests, put her back on oxygen and back on the heart monitor. Her EKG turned out abnormal which it always does. So we doubt she'll have PT tomorrow. My sister was coming in tomorrow but we are suppose to have another winter storm. She works 3rd shift tonight so she has to sleep in the morning or she could leave in morning and be okay. It's afternoon we're suppose to get hit hard and then it's suppose to move east in the afternoon and since she's coming from the east she'll be hitting the storm most of the way here. So she may come in Friday or wait until Tuesday to come. Well....not much else is happening. Until next time Happy Stitching!

First finish of 2013

I finally have a finish! I started this piece in Nov. and laid it down to do some other stitching. It really was a fun piece to do. I love doing these cute animals in Stoney Creek's Farm Babies. I've done about 4 of them now maybe 5. This piece will go to Quilts for Older Children for a Farm Animal Quilt they are doing Now I'm doing a piece for the Sandy Hook Project called Those who Teach. It's moving quite fast so I'll probably just wait until it's finished to post it. It's a fun, easy piece. I went up to see my mom today. She is really confused these days and it's hard to see her this way. We asked the Dr. why her confusion and he said she had an UTI and sometimes an infection will confuse an older patient. Although she's been confused off and on in past and we chalked that up to her low sodiuim and potasium levels. I went to Neurologist yesterday and I'm not sure what to think. Basically he said along with my arthritis and virtigo issues I alos had Neuropathy and Ataxia and basically he said because I was in early stages there was nothing that could be done just call him when it gets worse. Well he was a little more tackful than that. He didn't even explain either one to me. I know some about Neuropathy because I knew a couple of other people who had it. But I know nothing about Ataxia. And as far as Neuropathy went I thought that was associated with diabetes but I guess not. Anyway I looked both up on line. While no, it's not a death sentence and not the worse thing in world, I still didn't like what I read. Anyway I'll continue on with PT and when I seen the ENT later this month I have questions. Especially about Ataxia since I know nothing about that. All the Dr. said yesterday was they were progressive diseases and will deteroate. I guess I'm in for a lot of pain beter arthritis, neuropathy and ataxia in the future. I'll deal with it then. Well....until next time Happy stitching!

Back to the Calf

Good evening! Well.....the rose was a complete disaster and ended up being thrown into the garbage! I kept having to frog and then nothing was turning out right so I just had had it and threw it away. Can you believe I even burned oatmeal because of that stupid piece. I was so concentrated on frogging I forgot about the oatmeal I put on the stove minutes earlier. So I got this piece back out to finish up. I do have to improvise a little and I think the calf looks a little funny so I will add a stitch on to the top three rows as they are one stitch short. I can't find the mistake which makes me mad. Everything coundts out perfectly to the pattern. Oh well...I just have the grass to finish up and the flower to do so probably will be done Friday. We are suppose to get hit by another winter storm tomorrow through Sat. morning. Yesterday and today it rained so much it melted all that snow we had from the last storm and we had like 10 inches on the ground. Needless to say flood warnings are out tonight. My sister came to town yesterday to see our mom and had planned to go home tomorrow but because of the incoming storm her husband told her to go as far as their daughters (outside of GR). He thought she'd be ahead of the storm then and wouldn't be in it as long as this seems to be Lake Effect to start tunring into wide spread. The past few days were eventful. Friday they ran some tests on my mom and decided they would do a heart catherization on Monday so she had to leave one hospital and go to another for 3 days. The catherization turned out okay there wasn't any blockage, a narrowing but they were able to correct that. She apparently had a heart attack about a month ago and didn't know it. Today she went back to the other hospital for rehab. She does seem to be doing better. For a while we weren't sure. Oh just a couple of comments about messenger. I never use it, if I could delete it I would. I keep getting requests to add my name to their list and I deny every single one as I don't recognize the name or they use a fake name. I did accept two or three and ended up deleting them from my list because I didn't like what they were szying at all so I do not accept anyone any more. Any one have the same problem? Well....I'm going to go read some blogs. Until next time Happy Stitching!

And Another New Start

Hello again! I started this rose about 3 weeks ago than mislaid the pattern. I found it early this morning so thought I better get back to it as it is due Feb. 1 Fortunately it is an easy piece and it's not boring for it being so easy and only having 2 colors until I get to the leaves at the bottom. I am really enjoying this piece and refreshing to do. I think I got twice as far today as I did the whole time I worked on it earlier. My sister was going to come in to town tomorrow to see our mom but with the weather as is we don't know. I called her today and told her not to come if it's like this. She's going to call our dad tomorrow and see what the weather's like. Only problem is I think between tomorrow and Sat, tomorrow is best day, and she had committed to baby sitting her two grandchildren on Sat. So if she's going to come, it'll have to be tomorrow. Maybe Heather and Brian with arrange for Brian's mom or sister's to babysit the kids if Kay can't make it in. Heather and Brian live outside of Grand Rapids about 45 minutes from here. In fact we joke there's only 2 roads between our places and Heather & Brian's subdivision. You stay on one highway 30 miles or so and the other one about 12 miles and turn into their subdivion. LOL! I have to admit this snow is pretty to look out at we have about a foot of snow on the ground now. This week is suppose to be cold and some snow, next week it's to reach 40 again. I think we have received more snow the last 3 days then we did last winter and this winter until now. Should help Lake Michigan's water level a little. Well until next time.....Happy Stitching!

Finally getting my Stitching Mojo Back!

Hello everyone! It's been a couple of weeks, I know. I just lost my stitching mojo and no piece was appealing to me and to get into this piece took forever! I think I stitched more today than I had the whole 2 weeks put together! This is a cute piece called Plant Manager by Good Natured Girls. It's in book called Plant Kindness. This piece has a whole lot of half stitches in it and keeping me on my toes. I finally have her head almost done, just a little more to do on the hair. It's going to take a while to do this, it will go to the Sandy Hook Project. I'm still having minor problems with my vertigo but the last couple of days really have been good. My mom is still at the hospital only in rehab and doing a little better than what she was. We are not sure she will be going home at this point, she may be going to a Nursing Home which she is fine with. She is a social butterfly so she will be happy there. It's just rather or not our dad is able to take care of her at this point no. He is 84 and has health problems of his own. Right now it seems like everyone is getting sick. Our church has so many in the hospital right now and some aren't doing too well. Well, after escaping major winter storms last winter and so far this winter, we got hit by this one. We have several inches of snow on the ground like now and it's not leaving any time soon. Well.....until next time.....I think I'm going to read some blogs now. I haven't even done much of that the last couple of weeks. Happy Stitching!

PM Pilot start

Good evening. It's been a few days but I have a good excuse. My start to this PM Pilot is barely a start. I've worked on it a couple hours a day the last few days. I haven't been up to much stitching. My Vertigo or whatever it is is really acting up bad. New Years Eve it got so bad I went to ER and was admitted for a couple of days. I came home with a walker, nebulizer and will get Lifeline set up. Today I went to my ENT and he prescribed more PT and is recommending a visit to a neurologist as he thinks it's more than Vertigo. Problem is yes, there is a problem with the balance between the ears but it doesn't last weeks or months and it's more dizziness, mine is more lightheadedness and weakness. Plus the attacks should only last hours, not weeks. And this has been about 4 months. For a little while a couple of times I was okay but then it came bacvk with a vengence. So we'll see. Only problem is the two best neurologist here in town are not known for their people skills and the ones wife I knew as a child growing up. She was my brother's age and I was just a year or two younger than her sister who I see all teh time at church. There is a third one so maybe I'll see him. I'll know more when I see my regular dr. in the morning. After the apointment tomrorrow I'm going to look at some apartments downtown that are really nice and will have basically everything on the same floor and no steps but if on second or third floor will use elevator. (Guess I'll have to get over my fear of elevators! Well....until next time....Happy Stitching!