Thursday Morning

I'm happy to report that the stitching is done on Amid Amish Life. Part one. Which is not to imply I will ever stitch parts three and four. I have a feeling this experience is going to be like childbirth though, and in a year or two I'll forget what a pain in the patootie the fractional stitches were and I'll start staring wistfully at a piece of wedgewood blue Lugana. I'm way past popping an ovary every time I see those cute little newborn sleepers in Target so stitching it will have to be!

 

I still have the back stitching to do, of course, but I'm going to celebrate that the cross stitching  is done for a day or two (or three) and then get back to it. Otherwise it'll find it's way to the bottom of some pile and get buried for months. Or years. You do not want to see the state of the daybed in my stitchy room!

 

Thank you for all your encouragement on this project! It definitely helped me to stay focused!

 

 

 

Tuesday Afternoon

The youngsters are playing quietly on the quilt but they have requested a cat to keep them company, and not one of the Cheshire variety as he appears (or doesn't appear!) to be. The little girl also pointed out to me that chickens' beaks are supposed to be yellow and not green. Oops.

 

Still Amishing

Our Amish lady now has a basket full of laundry to hang on the line. She's not exactly thrilled as her only job before was to stand there with her arm in the air. The phantom boy has a hat now. I had to frog a bunch in that area because somehow I had managed to stitch the top part of his hat about three stitches further to the right than it should have been. I kept looking at it thinking to myself that something didn't look right. The page from the magazine with a photo of the finished sampler is rather beat up so I don't take it out very often. I should really have it in a page protector at this point! I finally took a quick look at it and saw my mistake right away. Grumble grumble grumble! I did some ripping on Saturday and restitched on Sunday so we're back on track now! I'd like to concentrate on finishing the girl today and possibly the boy as well but we'll see how far I get. It's tedious to say the least, with all the fractional stitches. I'm thinking I might have to take a break from this before tackling the backstitching.

 

The Paisley of today is looking at Past Paisley and wanting to wring her neck for ever starting this in the first place! I'm sure Past Paisley would say, "Hey, you're the one who wants it finished! I hid it at the bottom of a box so it might never see the light of day again!"

 

I hate it when she's right!

Progress Continues!

Things are starting to fill in. You can tell those are chickens on the right and left, and two children are sitting on a quilt. I was concentrating on finishing the Amish woman and except for a couple of stitches she should be done. I have a sneaking suspicion she puts her arm down when I'm not looking! She has to be tired of holding it up like that! 

Getting Serious

I'm hopping all over the place and I've been doing my best to avoid the fractional stitches but I think it's time to get serious about finishing Amish Life. I got my magnifier lamp out so I can stop squinting at the pattern. I'm going to use my Bitsy Bob to organize my thread. And I'm going to make stitching a priority this week instead of getting distracted with the usual nonsense.

Signed and dated on this nineteenth day of January 2021!!!

Now You See Me

Forgive my absence on the blog! My daughter was having surgery last week so I hopped on a plane and went back north to help take care of her. (She is doing great, by the way!) I was there for a week and now that I'm home I'm already packed up and heading out on another trip. We are going up to Tampa for the Florida RV Supershow this weekend and will be camping for a couple of nights. We are not actually in the market for another trailer so soon but it's always fun to look, not to mention there's tons of swag! We're sure to come home with a bunch of pens and can koozies and chip clips!

Sarah sent me a picture of her cat, Harry, camped out on the guest room bed! Apparently someone is missing me!

Don't worry, Harold! I am saving up tummy rubs for you!

Amid Amish Life

Remember Cross Stitch and Country Crafts? I swear, if it wasn't for that magazine I might never have fallen in love with cross stitch the way I did! I couldn't wait for each issue to show up in my mailbox, and would read it from cover to cover! When I saw this pattern in the March/April 1987 issue, I knew I had to stitch it! I had to order the Wedgewood Lugana from a local shop but as soon as it arrived I got busy stitching! I bought enough fabric to do all three patterns in the series so yeah... BIG plans! 

How far did I get?

I took this photo back in October 2019 after finding at the bottom of my box of finished projects when I was looking for fall pieces to finish finish. How it got in there I'll never know, but I pulled it out and decided I'd try working on it again. As you can see from the first photo, I got quite a bit more done, but as soon as I hit the fussy half stitches... surprise! I lost interest! 

It's sitting here next to me now, and I know if I can just push through those chickens and hats and arms I'll be home free! I'm going to throw a Hallmark movie on and see what I can accomplish this afternoon!

I hope you are having a wonderful Wednesday! Thanks for stopping by!

2020 Year in Review

 And what a year it was!

January saw us back in Florida for the winter months. We fell into our old routine pretty quickly, going dancing on Wednesday nights, playing Trivia on Fridays, and even joined a gym so we could both get in shape.

We went to the Florida RV Supershow and met one of our favorite YouTubers, Traveling Robert! Phil and I really enjoy camping in our pop-up trailer and wanted to look at some bigger "couple's trailers" because one of us wanted to upgrade to something with it's own bathroom. I won't say who.

 

 

February saw the arrival of this guy, and by March we were stocking up on toilet paper and hand sanitizer and isolating ourselves from others as best we could. No more dancing, no more trivia nights, no more working out, no more dining in. 

 

My daughter and I had been planning a big trip to Colorado in July to hike Grays Peak but that had to be canceled. We were both so disappointed but vowed to try again next year.

 

May saw us back in Michigan, a month later than originally planned. We had to get used to wearing face masks in public places which hadn't been required in Florida at that time. Phil continued to work from home and we did our best to get out of the house as much as possible.

When Indiana opened up their state parks, we hooked up the pop-up trailer and went camping at Turkey Run and Brown County. 

Even the trees look like they're maintaining proper social distance!

Since our Colorado trip was canceled, my daughter and I decided to do the Lake Michigan Circle Tour. We spent five days driving from one point of interest to another, visiting lighthouses, hiking trails, dipping our toes in three different Great Lakes, collecting pretty stones, and acting like total goofs.

Phil and I had narrowed down our trailer search to the R-Pod 180. We had fallen in love with the blue exterior that was only available for a couple of years, but finding one in our area was next to impossible. Plus people seemed to be buying up used trailers as soon as they were listed! We'd all but given up when Phil spotted this one online. It had only just been listed so Phil contacted the seller right away to make him an offer. He accepted it, and we started making plans to go pick it up... in Rhode Island! We turned it into a week of camping and had a great adventure!

In September, during a mother/daughter camping trip, I lost the battle with a picnic table and fell and broke my hip. People keep telling me I need to come up with a better story but that's exactly what happened... I tripped and fell. Hard. On my hip. But me being me, I did not want to ruin a camping trip, so I held out as long as possible, roasting hot dogs and doing crafts with my daughter for several hours, until I just couldn't bear the pain any longer. They put three screws in my hip and had me stay off of it for six (long) weeks, but I am better now. Much better.

I know there's been a shocking lack of cross stitch here but whilst recuperating from my injury I worked on the Women of the Mayflower by With Thy Needle and Thread. I didn't complete the sampler during the 60 days that the Mayflower traveled across the Atlantic to Plymouth Rock, but I brought it with me to Florida and do plan on finishing it soon.

I'd been upgraded from a walker to a cane by November so it was time to head out camping again! We spent two weeks on the road, traveling to Branson MO, Hot Springs AR, Crater of Diamonds State Park, Mother Neff State Park in Texas, Fredericksburg TX, and finally Hickory Creek Campground near Dallas where we spent Thanksgiving with a couple of our kids who live in the area. We also "moochdocked" at my brother's house in Louisiana before heading down to Florida.

Phil took a couple of weeks off from work for the Christmas holidays, so we headed over to the east coast of Florida to visit family for a couple of days and camped at Lion Country Safari where we were woken up every night by the roar of lions! Some people might not care for it but we were thrilled, and I actually missed it after we'd left! We also went down to the Florida Keys where we got to hang out at Sloppy Joe's, and then on to Midway State Park in the Everglades to round out the trip.

You would think we'd be a little gun shy about making plans for 2021 but we're already off and running! (Well, one of us is running, I'm still a little slow!) I'm heading up to MI for a visit at the end of this week and then as soon as I'm back we're heading out for another camping trip and the Florida RV Supershow. I'm also hoping to get back into the stitching groove soon! I brought a bunch of stuff with me and for the most part it's all kitted up and waiting!

If you made it this far, thank you so much for visiting!

And Happy 2021 to everyone!

Hello Old Friend!

I've officially thrown in the towel on my Wordpress blog! It was waaaaaay too complicated for this bear of very little brain and heaven knows I like to keep things simple! I was spending more time trying to figure things out than actually "creating content" and when I finally stopped to think about what I was doing, I realized I didn't want to "create content", I just wanted to blog the way I always had! Once I made the decision to come back to Blogger it took all of ten seconds to dust things off and start writing!

Woohoo!

We're back, baby!