Greetings From

The surface of the sun!

Scary how you can actually see the air in this picture isn't it? I'm southern. Heat is nothing new to me. We southerners love our heat. This summer though, I can't remember it ever being this hot. Seriously. You feel the air. It's like walking through a force field. One day this week Pensacola, FL was the hottest place on earth. I believe it. The picture above was taken about 7:30 this morning.


Here's another angle. My favorite view of the beach a spot where there are no humans. Yes, there were people there and in a few hours they will be elbow to elbow but this morning I was able to snap my first quiet beach shot in months. I'm not sure what the rippley things are above the lifeguard stand but I'm guess it's more solid air!

Why Publix is the Greatest Grocery Store on Earth:



They now carry Dunkin' Donuts coffee beans. The nectar of the gods I tell you. All you Northeasterners can't appreciate how lucky you are to have Dunkin' coffee readily available to you. We are stuck with Starbucks and Krispy Kreme coffee. Krispy Kreme coffee is not my favorite. I dislike it so much I drink milk with my hot donuts. Starbucks, if only the Dulce de Leche Latte was a permanent menu item. I might be your BFF but don't lure me in and get me addicted to a certain latte and then decide not to keep it on the menu. That is so cold. So Publix, I love you!

School starts here on Monday. Thank you, thank you, thank you! This has been one long, hot summer. It doesn't help that the 12 yr old has hit puberty and all the B.O. that comes with it. I feel for him. He actually requested deodorant. The brand he requested doesn't appear to be working though. We've informed him he needs the strong stuff. He's also gotten a little hormonal and most of the summer has been spent trying to stay out of his way.

Reading:

I just finished The Woods by Harlan Coban and Tumbling Blocks by Earlene Fowler.

I'm listening to Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

I just started reading The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon.

I love my library.

Hard Core

There are times when chocolate cake for breakfast is the only reason to get out of bed:

The craziness of the past week just dissolves into a gooey chocolate faint, faded, just on the tip of your tongue memory. The best place to hide the crazy:

One version of the recipe for the Texas Sheet Cake can be found here:

The Pioneer Woman Cooks!: The Best Chocolate Sheet Cake. Ever.

This cake has been a family favorite for years and it's truly the best chocolate cake ever!

Monday, a week ago, I got some bad family news. The phone call that my dad was in ICU. Prognosis was not good. (He's home now, so things weren't as bad as everyone thought). In the mailbox I found a package:

Inside was this very wicked cool pincushion from Kwilty Kim--Threadheads Unite! Does she rock or what? It really brightened a very dark couple of days. Thanks Kim, I am so honored! By the way Happy Birthday!

The new pincushion will get its maiden voyage on the Dresden Plate quilt I plan to start piecing pretty soon from the assorted fabrics you see below.

Here's my progress as of today on Blackbird Designs Beneath the Sunlit Sky:

I'm waiting on GAST Antique Rose and Grape Leaf.


Here's a Sonne Spotte update:

I'm truly, madly, deeply in love with this bit of needlework. It's joy, plain and simple. Yes, I'm a dork but I don't care. I tried to take some close up shots of the splashes of color but the sun was too bright and no matter where I stood my shadow seemed to cover it up. I gave up. Trust me it's unbelieveably beautiful.



This big guy has set up housekeeping in the tree outside my kitchen window. The web runs from tree to ground. Lives in a mansion of a web let me tell ya. There would have been a photo of the web but one morning at 4am while attempting to quietly chase the dog I ran right through it. I guess I'm lucky the critter doesn't now live in my hair. ICK!

The One Where

I get to be the stitcher who starts the project as soon as it's released. The only thing better would be finishing it this weekend. Don't hold your breath because that will so not happen! Apologies once again for the yucky picture, we've been having lots of cloud cover lately, so primo photography time is limited. Not that good lighting ever helps where my skilz are concerned. But I did put in the first stitches on Blackbird Designs Beneath the Sunlit Sky. I love this design. It's the new Loose Feathers. I picked this up the other day when I made a trip over to Needle Delights in Pensacola.

For a taste of summer, see above. I restarted my Grandmother's Flower Garden Afghan. I believe I started this as a CAL over at Crochetville a year ago, maybe more. Sue at Good Yarns

finished her's a long, long time ago. I was not at all happy with my previous color choices so I rootled through the good old Red Heart stash and found some brighter, happier colors and called it good. I love crocheting these hexes. The pattern can be found here:

Grandmother's Flower Garden

I can't decide if I am going to connect them with cream/white hexes or black. Once I get more flowers completed I will crochet a few in each color and see what I like best with the flowers.

After reading this post:

Knitting Iris: Quilt Retrospective. 4th Quilt.

I was reminded how much I love the Dresden Plate quilt pattern. I've been digging through the fabric in my bin and pulling out all the bright mod looking prints I can find. Mod might not be the exact right word but it's the one that comes to mind. You know, wild, 1970s inspired prints? I may just start cutting out some plates this weekend. I have a pile of fabric freshly washed, waiting to be ironed and then I'm good to go.

I'm still working on my Just Beachy quilt but have sewing machine issues so until I fix the machine I have or decide to buy a new machine, it's on hold for the time being. I don't see me handsewing through the Heat N Bond.

I finally finished listening to Shrink Rap and have moved on to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

I'm trying to finish Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert so I can then start The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp.

On DVD, I'm working my way through season one of Rescue Me.

Random Thoughts

Life is quiet for the moment. Days spent driving kids back and forth to where ever, not much else.

Stitching time has been hit or miss the last few days. I've been obsessed with Sonne Spotte but feel 13th Colony Bay calling me. My plan had been to have that completed by July 4th. I'm no where near having it finished. Fortunately I'm not one of those people that bases the quality of their stitching life by how many things I finish. If that were the case I'd be pretty miserable.

Don't get me wrong. I love finishing things, I love them framed, I love them hanging on the wall, but that's not what it's all about for me. It's just being able to sit down, needle in hand, and chill. That is IT for me.

Today I started thinking about what is happiness. It's one of those simple yet complex questions.

The vision that popped in my mind was my Mamaw's cinnamon toast and hot chocolate. Then I started thinking about her popcorn popped in an old iron skillet sprinkled with Lawry's seasoning salt and an icy cold Coke. My Mamaw thought she was a genius the first time she sprinkled Lawry's on the popcorn. Then I thought about the swing in her yard, twilight and fireflies. I thought about how she smelled. I guess happiness to me is my Mamaw and everything she was to me. I also think of her as summer. She lived across the road from us so I saw her everyday but she was, is summer, to me. Sitting on the carport talking, watching Johnny Carson until it was time to go to bed. Reading a book sitting in her swing, writing in my diary. I found that old diary the other day, I mostly wrote, "Boring" or "Didn't do anything today". But I did write in it every boring day of the summer between 7th and 8th grade.

Over the last week or so I've read a few books:

Twelve Sharp-Janet Evanovich
On Writing-Stephen King(third time I've read this)
Plum Lovin'-Janet Evanovich
How I Write-Janet Evanovich
Grave Surprise-Charlaine Harris-I really loved this book. Compelling main character. It's the second book in this new series, I need to track down the first one.

I've listened to:

The Beach House-James Patterson
To the Nines-Janet Evanovich

I'm currently reading:

Eat, Pray, Love-Elizabeth Gilbert

Currently in the walkman-Shrink Rap-Robert B. Parker

Anyone see Coming to America-Victoria Beckham the other night? I liked it. She's a lot more entertaining than some of our American celebrities. I thought it was a hoot. But there's no accounting for taste huh?

Scary Friday the 13th!

Okay Friday the 13th isn't so scary, you haven't met my kids! Tonight we are doing the whole Friday the 13th movie marathon. I bet we're the only ones that thought of that!


Old School:

The other day I went to the library in search of some fresh audiobooks. What I found on the shelves were all the books they had on tape. Fine with me but my family was going nuts with me blaring them from the home stereo. I decided to dig around in the garage and see if I could find my old Sony Walkman. No where to be found. I must have trashed it when I discovered the joy that is the iPOD. So I pop into the store who shall not be named in search of a cassette walkman. I felt a lot like Brendan Fraser's character, Adam, from the movie
Blast from the Past (1999). Believe it or not as you can see in the above photo, I found a cassette walkman! Never expected to find one. I was very, very excited. I forgot how much I missed the sound of the tape swooshing through the reels of the cassette player. Comfort let me tell ya.

What was I doing while listening to a book on tape? Why working on Sonne Spotte.

I'm trying to get as much of the outline cross stitching done as along as I can stand it so I can save the filling in for times when I don't want to pay a lot of attention to what I'm stitching. I'm so addicted to this piece of needlework it's just wrong. I don't want to put it down.

I didn't work on it last week because of out of town family visiting. Here are a few random shots:

The child wanted me to take a picture of her with a fry in her mouth. I thought she was Julie the Mermaid but no she's just Laney at dinner. She performed a whole water ballet at the pool where she was Julie the Mermaid, the spousal unit was the evil mermaid monster who turned good when he was under the spell of her powerful mermaid dance. No, really.

Number 1!

My niece said to my middle son as I was taking this picture, "Come on Jack, scoot closer, pretend you like me for a minute!"

Sweetest baby girl in that room!

Inside the Lines

A few days ago I started Long Dog's Sonne Spotte:

Doesn't the picture above look kind of like the page of a coloring book? It's the first thing I thought of as I started outlining the the motifs.

Here's a little taste of color. Not much because the sun was not out the day I took these pictures.

I can see me getting pretty obsessed with this particular piece of needlework. The design is beautiful. Here's a link to the design:

http://europeanxs.com/longdog-/LD20.jpg

And here is a picture of a finished Sonne Spotte. The stitcher is Stitchmaker Lori. Her finished Sonne Spotte made me want to start this ASAP.

Image of Sonne Spotte by Long Dog Stitched using 32 ct magnolia by Lakeside Li

I am stitching mine on 36ct Creme Brulee linen using a mix of Gentle Arts Sampler Threads and DMC. I didn't have all the GAST so instead of waiting to pick up the colors I don't have, I just decided DMC would work just fine.

We've been busy with visiting family this week and having a blast.

I also started Midsummer Night Designs A House by the Sea. I have a made a teeny tiny bit of progress on that. I started it on a whim hoping it would be a quick stitch because I'd like a finish every once in a while.

I'm also getting ready to start the first of 12 Christmas ornaments for an ornament swap this year. I want to get a head start on those, although I really should have started back in January. I was just so over Christmas at that point that the thought of stitching an ornament made me want to puke. Now I'm ready and am going to pull out the JCS Ornament issues and spend a day or two deciding what I want to stitch from those for the swap. Also an excuse to rootle through the stash and see what ornament charts I have forgotten about having.

July 4, 2007

Happy Fourth of July if you are in America, Happy Wednesday whereever else you may find yourself!

My only two patriotic pieces. The pillow was made by Danielle of The Peacock's Feather. I was her swap person for a summer swap on the Needle and Thread BB years ago. This pillow is one of my treasures. The picture, stitched by moi, is Americana by Kathy Barrick-Dieter of

Carriage House Samplings.

That's Polly Prissypants in the background. I thought the pot of flowers might take away from the sand that is my backyard, sand and no beach, that hurts! But because of the heat and our drought, the flowers aren't so perky. Fortunately we seem to have fallen into a weather cycle of the afternoon monsoon, I'm loving it, grass is starting to grow, I haven't had to waste electricity running the sprinkler system. I think it's a waste anyway but my neighbors appreciate the greeness that is part of my lawn, but I've only been running them in the front yard as you can tell from all the sand in the back.

If you're in the USA I hope your day is filled with cookouts, icy cold watermelon, and lots of family love. We have family on the way down from Memphis, they're hoping to arrive before tonight's fireworks specatacular. I'm attempting to get the laundry off the table and kitchen floor mopped.

Coming soon:

Pictures of my current WIP, not 13th Colony Bay for a change but Long Dog's Sonne Spotte. Not familiar with the design, check it out here:

http://europeanxs.com/longdog-/LD20.jpg