Shepherd's Bush Fa La La

November is well upon us, and I'd rather not talk about Halloween. Shocking as it might be, I'm over it for a while! So, I'm not even posting anymore pics of it and will move right along towards Christmas. A couple weeks ago, I made a trip to Hershey PA for the weekend to do nothing spectacular. Ate, slept and started a new project. I brought my little Fa La La Sheep that I'd bought the year before, but sadly there is no needlework show at Hershey anymore. And no shops whatsoever!!

Shepherd's Bush Fa La La

He is super sweet and he'll have a little striped hat when he's done. I've already begun on the tree that is to the right of him, but I'll update that next time. I'm working so much there is precious little time for stitching.

I'll be honest, this year has been a whirlwind of crap. Lots of good things to be sure, but you know how the few really stressful things can take over? It's been that kind of year. The kind of year where you say to yourself, "Girl, something's gotta give!" But then I think that I have a great deal to be thankful for as well, so why am I complaining, right? Blah! I have a very sweet friend who recently lost her mom, and my troubles don't compare in the least to what she is going through.

Then, there's my blog friend Donna, over at DaisyGirl Stitching and she's my new inspiration. She just amazes me with her spirit and personality. I need to follow her example and get my act together!

Until next time friends, I hope you have lots of time for stitches!

Happy October & Shepherd's Bush Little Witch!

Oh man. I'm so excited it's almost Halloween! This is my absolute favorite time of the year. I love Summer too, but Fall is just where it's at for me. I always have big plans to clean out things and scrub up the house and Fall is a time of introspection for me.

My mom and I recently had some needlework framed. She framed La D Da's Rain Rain, which I made for her quite some time ago. And I framed my Shepherd's Bush Little Witch. I was a bad witchy and never finished the bottom row of pumpkin blossoms. It looked too fussy for my patience level at the time and I somehow don't miss it. It looks great when I see it finished on someone else's--I was simply too lazy to do it for myself. And I forgot to sign the sweet little thing too! Dangit! I'm so happy with it. It just came out gorgeous. The man who framed it actually picked out the mat and the frame. Very intuitive.  I'm sorry for the bad pics, but it's impossible to photograph a framed piece with glass!

We've also decorated for Halloween. I just love pulling all my stuff out and putting it where it was last year. Hey, when it works, it works, right? One of the most fun things that my husband and I do is to go out to breakfast and spend the better part of the morning hunting for a few new things to add to our collection. Every year I say "We don't have any more room!", and every year, we pick up a few more pieces. Ha.  But we made these beauties by hand!  They are each about 9 feet tall.

And he's a staple every year in our upstairs bedroom window.

Has anyone else suffered the loss of a local bookstore? Border's closed and I went on a major book shopping spree this summer. You'd have thought it was the last time I'd ever see a book. But a new Books A Million opened up, so I'm good. It's really a beautiful store, as it took over another book store that closed. They've really done a great job and it's not warehouse-y at all. I just love it. I also bought a simple Nook E-Reader. I love that thing. It will never replace books for me, but it's just another way to enjoy reading.

I hope everyone enjoys the upcoming holiday!  I know we will--we always do!
 

Want to see some Moonflowers?

Would you like to see a beautiful Moonflower from my garden?  I tried these for the first time this year and so far, I'm enchanted with them!  What a great reason to go out into the warm summer night - to sit and admire these lovely things that appear as the sun goes down.

First, they become these gorgeous swirly pods.

Then the pod starts to slowly open (this is looking down the vine from my upper deck)

Then, it opens a bit more.

Then you are rewarded with the most magnificent, large, beauty of a flower!  I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying these.

Have you seen this wonderful new design?  I'm not much on finishing, but something about this just appeals to me.  Gee, it couldn't be because it's Halloween now, could it?  It's from With Thy Needle and it's a must have for me.

I hope everyone is working on great things and looking forward to Autumn.  It really will be here before we know it and I'm looking forward to this one more than I have in a long time!  Some difficult family business is out of the way and we are looking ahead and not behind!  Love and peace to you all!

Sticking a Toe in the Water

Not real water anyway. We didn't head to the beloved beach this year. Turns out my furbaby Baxter is diabetic and he kind of ate up (no pun intended) all our beach money this year! No problem though. He's all regulated now and we're back on track for an awesome vacation next summer.

So, I've been wondering why I got turned off from blogging for so long. I think I just couldn't keep up. There are so many great ladies blogging out there. I was feeling so much pressure to respond to all the great blogs in my reader, and you know what? I just can't, lol. I simply couldn't do it. And I always say I understand if people don't leave comments, because sometimes, it's so overwhelming. At least it is for me. Anyone have any advice in that arena? I'm all ears!

I've not bought any stitching for so long and I'm enjoying getting caught up on what's out there--though I think we all know that I could never live long enough to stitch what's in my stash anyway. But I still love looking. I have begun stitching again, albeit very slowly. I worked more at my "real" job this past year and have some other things going on that just took time away from stitching. I don't like it, but that's the truth.

Anyone else HOT? In my neck of the woods it's 11pm right now and the heat index is still 100. I felt like my face was going to melt off today. I was out for a bit, but to be quite honest, I couldn't deal with being out in the heat for more than a few minutes. It's brutal.

So, like I said, I'm just sticking my toe in right now. I need to get caught up on some stitching and post some updates. Let's see if I can keep to my goal to post more than twice in one year, eh?

I hope everyone is up to some stitch goodness. I have so much to catch up on and look at. Enjoy your weekends, stay cool, and love one another. Thanks for peeking in!

What I did this Fall-Lancaster PA, Amsterdam, Holland and Adam

Well, I've been absent a while. That's mostly because 2010 was a lost year for me as far as stitching goes. Back in October, my mom and my sis and I went to Lancaster for the needlework show. The city was nice, and it didn't rain every single second of the trip like it did last year. I did buy a few things, but was overall disappointed with the show. I know the individual vendors work very hard, but there were even fewer this year it seemed. Apparently, no more needlework shows in Lancaster, so this was the last year for us.

Halloween was great. I broke tradition and went with Bride of Frankenstein this year.

Now for November. November was so fantastic, I barely have words to describe. I made arrangements in September to go and MEET ADAM LAMBERT in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Ha! Yep, I did. Craziest thing I have ever done in my entire life. The opportunity arose and I couldn't say no. I went for 2 days, BY MYSELF, but the overall trip took 4 days. The concert was to be November 24, 2010 at the Paradiso in Amsterdam, and I held a VIP backstage meet and greet pass. Unbelievable. So, here's a couple pics from my trip.

The VIP meeting was incredible and I met some really great people. I wish I could do it again. On my first day there (be damned the jet lag!), I made a full day of it and took a canal boat tour and went to the Anne Frank House. Incredible, the whole thing. Here's a few pics of concert night. The building is the Paradiso, where the concert was held. Then of course, there's Adam in the beginning number. Finally, I had to take a self portrait that night, because he said he loved my eye makeup. Now, people...when Adam Lambert says he loves your eye makeup, THAT is a compliment, lol.  Of the three Glam Nation Shows I saw last year, Amsterdam was the one that rocked the most.  Seriously, it was over the top, insane.

And then this of course.

I hate that my face looks all squishy, but it was squished in that moment, and you know what? I LOVED every second of it. :-)  Remember the scene in "A Christmas Story" where Ralphie goes to the top of the mountain to sit on Santa's lap?  They swirl him around, sit him down, he gets all goofy and then POOF, they send him down the slide?  Yeah, it was a bit like that.  Come to think of it, it was almost exactly like that!

Don't know what happened to me in 2010! Every time I turn around, I'm promising to stitch more, and then I never do.  I want to do so much, however this past year had me occupied with other things.  Here's to more stitching, hopefully! I really hope everyone is stitching away, or whatever you wish to be doing, and making lots of new goals for the New Year. Maybe I'll post later this week a few items I got at Lancaster. Honestly I haven't purchased hardly anything!

p.s. Hey, did they do something weird to Blogger in the past few months?  Seems I had to size my pics really strangely in order to get them all to be full and not cut off!