Road trips and Roses

Progress on blackbird trellis, 4 out of 5 roses mostly filled in. I am waiting on two skeins of thread to come in to start on the smaller buds (GA Pomegranite) and the leaves (GA Baby Spinach). I have enough to work on this week though, finishing the roses and the blackbirds. 

I think I have come up with a stitching rotation for this year. I am going to start one new project a month, and not stress so much about getting through my WIP box. So my project for March I have decided is going to be Spring Hare by La-D-Da. I still have Autumn in the Village (January's start) and Blackbird Trellis (February start) and will just divide my time amongst them.

Here is last weekends roadtrip. We drove up through Wickenberg, to the west of Phoenix, and found a nature/hiking preserve along the Hasayampa River. It was so nice to get out of the desert, and hike along green meadows and a pretty creek. 

Here is some of our desert wildlife, a lizard camouflaged against the tree. 

And a desert tortoise, he was right along the side of the trail, and if he hadn't been hiking himself I think we would have mistook him for just another rock!

Not really "wildlife" per se, but some cows resting in one of the pretty green meadows.

A desert ocotillo on top of the hill. It is a form of cactus, in the spring all of the spines bloom and are quite a display. 

My husband hiking up the hill.

And me posing on a little bridge over the creek. 

When we were all done hiking we went a little farther up the highway and stopped at a tiny cafe attached to a gas station in Congress, AZ. It was such a small town it only had one stop light, so imagine our surprise when we walked in and they asked if we had reservations! Well of course we didn't so we had to sit out on the patio, the restaurant itself maybe had 15 tables in a tiny little two rooms. The patio was pretty enough, and our weather has been so nice it was not a big deal. We weren't expecting much, but the food was amazing! Above is a photo of our salads/appetizer (zucchini chips). I had shrimp & lobster tacos for dinner, and my husband had shrimp linguine. If you ever find yourself out West in Arizona, the name of the place was Nichols West. From the outside it doesn't look like much, but the food was better than most you would get in the city.

 So a fun roadtrip weekend, and now I am back to the usual school week/work week, day to day. Hope your week has started off well!

Garden growing

All of my roses are now done on Trellis Blackbirds, and this week I have been slowly filling in the pink centers. You can't really see the trellis in the photo, it washed out, but I love the color I used WDW Baby's Breath, which is different than what was charted. Next comes the leaves and finishing up the blackbirds. 

And here was last weekends project. It has been in the 80's here, warm even for Arizona. So we needed to hustle to get our garden ready to plant before we reached the dreaded heat of summer. 

Here is sweet husband finishing up the fence. He had lots of help. 

My oldest got to use the power tools to cut the boards  for the fence. 

While my middle daughter got to paint the boards.

And my sweet baby helped dad build the step for the garden.

And here are all three enjoying our sprinkler and the warm afternoon. Crazy that it's only February and it feels like summer already here! We planted three different types of tomatoes, which never do well for me in the heat so I am hoping they still have at least two more months of milder temps here, and four different kinds of peppers which I have had really good luck with. At our last house we had one pepper plant that lived for three years and kept producing peppers each summer. So at least the peppers enjoy our heat!

Feet in the dirt weekend

First off Happy Valentines Day everyone! Hope you have lots of love in your life today! 

I am celebrating by working all weekend, yuck! It's ok though I still got to spend time with sweet husband today. I also started a new project, something I think perfect for Valentines Day with the pretty pink roses on it. Plum Street Samplers "Trellis Blackbirds". I love the colors used for the roses WDW Baked Apple and Charlotte's Pink. So not that I needed a new project, but I just couldn't help myself! 

Today my time spent with sweet husband involved lots of digging and painting and sawing. We are working on getting our garden bed ready to plant. Above is an old picture before we moved to our new house last year (we took the raised garden bed with us). At our old house we had it fenced in with chicken wire, until our shepherd decided some flimsy wire was not going to keep her from our delicious squash.  I know, how weird our dog loves squash, we even have to watch our Halloween pumpkins cause she starts chewing on the rinds. So today we worked on building a picket fence around our garden bed. We have one side done, three more to go. It was nice working outside today in the warm weather, but if you ever want to test your teamwork skills build something with your spouse! There were a few discussions on how exactly the whole fence was going together, but in the end we got it done.

And here is my Valentine's day jewelry from sweet husband, a new fitness tracker. I had a Jawbone two years ago, that I purchased used off of Ebay, and the battery died within a few months of owning it. But I really liked their app, it tracks your sleep and daily activity/steps. This one even tracks your heart rate.  I love tracking stuff, and seeing graphs of when I am most active or when I was in deep sleep vs. light sleep and how long it took me to wake up is fun for me. So I was super lucky this Valentines day, my husband knows me so well! I also am still doing Weight Watchers and you can sync it to their app to earn fit points (if you don't do WW fitpoints= more food). I have been working on being healthier this year, I made it to the gym and to a yoga class last week. I have also ran 52 miles already this year. But of course with a full time job and three kids it is hard to fit in workouts sometimes, so anything that makes it more fun or gives me some incentive to do it I love. And no I was not paid to say any of that, I just wanted to show off my new toy!

Blessed by books

 "Thine is the Trick and the Treat" came out of my WIP basket for this week. I enjoy it for relaxed stitching. Just the one color, and the chart is pretty simple to read. I have been slow working on this one, I think it has been in my WIP basket two or three years now. But I enjoy it and am in no particular hurry to have it done with. 

Here is my "blessing of books" I picked up this week. I am already 75% done with "Bellman & Black". It is interesting so far, not quite a fantasy novel, but there are fantastical parts of the story. This is my first time reading this author and I will be looking for her first book "The 13th Tale". 

Next on my bookshelf is "Austenland". A friend recommended the movie based off this book, and I loved it! The movie is so funny and just light, and so far the book (yes I always read a few books at once...hmmm just like my cross stitching) has been as good as the movie! The main character is a Jane Austen fan, and books a vacation to a resort that gives you the full "Pride and Prejudice" experience complete with your own Mr. Darcy. Honestly I have never read any Jane Austen books, but I still really really liked this story.

I also picked up "The Alchemist" which is apparently another classic that I have missed. It is a fairly short book, less than 200 pages so it should be a quick read. I have heard nothing but good things about this book, so I am hoping not to be disappointed. 

And the only non-fiction book of the bunch, "Who, What, Where, When". I love books of useless information, and so far I have found this an interesting read. There is another author Mary Roach, who wrote "Stiff", "Gulp" and "Bonk" which are all books that talk about the little details of death, food and sex. Anyway, I enjoy her books and they give me the feeling I have learned something and actually read something other than just pulp fiction. 

So that is my week, books and easy stitching. This weekend we are going to try and get our garden ready to grow. Here in Arizona our gardening season starts early, it is supposed to be in the 80's already by this weekend!

Apparently they thought I wouldn't notice

Here is my chart for Autumn in the Village, do you see the edges of my chart? I always make a working copy to highlight (and enlarge --my eyes aren't what they used to be). Well, someone in my household of three kids and three dogs spilled something all over my chart. Instead of telling me, or spreading out the pages to dry, they quietly tucked my chart back into my sewing basket and this is how I found it. Luckily the original chart is still usable, just all of my working pages that I high lighted are water damaged beyond use. Oh the perils of living with children and pets!

Here's my progress on Autumn Village. I worked mostly on the tree in the middle this week and the grocery store (the yellow/green building. Soon will come all the back-stitching, YUCK! but I know it will make it really pop once it's done. 

This Prairie Schooler went off to the framers last week, and I get it back this Friday. I am excited to hang it up for spring. It has sat in my finished box all year. I wanted to go with the frame on the right until they told me it wasn't actually a frame but a spacer for underneath, So the green/blue on the left it was. As my husband pointed out we have yellow walls in our kitchen/dining area so the wood frame really wouldn't have stood out against them anyways.

And our latest foster Kenzie went back to the Humane Society. She was recovering from the loss of her front leg, and was such a cutie pie! I really loved having her (i'd keep all of them if I could). In her place we are now fostering a shepherd puppy that is missing about half his hair. He is going to be such a handsome dog once it grows back, but for now he just looks awkward. I'd post a photo of him but puppies just don't hold still long enough!

Calvin also turned 2 last month! For his birthday we go him a basketball hoop, and guess what he wanted to play with? The box of course! So here is our sweet baby standing in his birthday box. 

A tiny bit of stash enhancement

Finally my exchange piece arrived that I stitched for Rosa, so I can show photos. This was for the Christmas exchange on the Hooked on Exchanging blog, and it had to be a Prairie Schooler design. I loved the fox riding on the sled. Though I think if I stitched it again I would use more of a reddish or orange-brown for their fur. I love PS Santas, and I most likely will stitch this again for my own tree. 

And here is my early Valentine to myself. Just Another Button Co. "Lovebird" chart, a fat little cardinal perched upon a spool of thread. Also Hands on Design from the Year in Chalk series "February". I have stitched six other months of this series so far. And I forgot to post my favorite Christmas present from my sweetest husband, a pair of Gingher scissors, "Emily" a pretty pink design that are just perfect for spring.

 Last but not least, I am trying something new with my stitching a little bit of Thread Magic. Though I do have a question for my blogging friends. I tore it out of the packaging too fast to actually read the directions (totally not like me at all is it?) So if you stitch with this how do you coat the thread with it? Do you poke your needle all the way through the wax (cause I would think this would make the needle slippery) but there are holes on the side of the lid that kind of look like that is what your supposed to do. Or do you just swipe the thread along the outside of the little wax ball, cause that doesn't seem to coat all of the thread? Any comments are appreciated, also if you use it if you have noticed a difference in your finished pieces, like does the waxy coating make any difference in colors (they say it won't but i'm pretty risk averse when it comes to my stitching).

Making up for lack of talent or skill with sheer enthusiasm!

This is my project for my weekend, the pattern is "Venetian Windows" out of Easy Quilts magazine. The fabric is "In Bloom" by Quilting Treasures. I really wanted to showcase the poppy fabric and the beautiful blues/yellows/and reds in it. But the quilting pattern got the better of my limited skills. Apparently "Easy Quilts" was not quite easy enough for me! The first block took me several hours to put together and still came out an inch too small with none of the corners matching up. So that one will become a pillow or something else. I seem to be on track now after figuring out that an accurate one inch sashing with 1/4 inch seam was too much for my limited skills. I have been  quilting for maybe ten years now, and I love it! But a detail person I am not and cutting exact sizes and sewing exact seams is well....not exactly my strong suit. So I have had to add a 1/4 inch to all of the measurements and that seems to be working for me, i'm glad I bought plenty of fabric.

And still stitching along on Autumn Village. I think it is stitching up quite quickly. I am trying to work on one building at a time, from left to right. So the needlework shop, the barber shop, and most of the bakery in the center of the piece are all 90% done. Now for the grocery store and the red school on the far right and then all the confetti trees and EEK backstitching!

Hope your New Year is off to an awesome start! I have been a good girl so far with most of my goals. I've even been managing to fit a 2 mile run in each day, and it's been raining cats and dogs here all week!