Happy Mother's Day! It's been a couple weeks!

Wow, it's been a couple weeks since I checked in! Mostly due to slow stitching progress, but I did complete an amigurumi I'd had in WIP stage for a while. So I did do something! 

First up, progress on Cedar Hill's Summer Bouquet. 

More sweet little french knots. So much fun to do. The DMC violet color is just gorgeous!  I really enjoyed stitching those violets.

The peony bulbs we got my mother in law two years ago finally bloomed this year. I am so sorry she missed the first blooms. They were her favorite flower. We miss her very much, and these will always remind me of her.

I'd been working on this little elephant amigurumi for a while now. I finally finished her up. I was going to give her away, but I think I need to downsize my hook for this yarn first. When I stuffed her, it made the holes a bit bigger than I would have liked. She's super cute though!

Of course, I have another one on my hook right now and it'll be even smaller than this one! Just too sweet, right?  LOL.

I made a REALLY good strawberry pie last week with some gorgeous fresh picked strawberries the kids brought to me after their berry picking date. You can find the recipe for this super easy to make, no-bake, pie HERE.

Everyone gave it rave reviews, so it must have been good! And it's a really pretty pie too, especially if you dress it up with some whipped cream and a fresh berry on top.

Today is Mother's Day and my son and daughter in law treated us to lunch out at a nice restaurant. We had such a nice time chatting with them and they gifted my mother and I with some really sweet and thoughtful gifts. I love those kids so much. And my husband got me a couple more charms for my Pandora bracelet-perfect gift for me anytime! Very thoughtful and I love them.

My own mother is just the best. I cannot say enough about all the things she has done for all of us without batting an eyelash. I really can't. She means the world to me and I don't know what we'd do without her! Love you Momma! 

Well, that's it from here. It's been nice weather in VA and I am loving it! I hope wherever you are that you are experiencing great weather and lots of stitching time and family time. 

Happy Mother's day and I will see you soon with another stitching update!

Chocolate Mousse Pie and Cedar Hill Summer Bouquet!

Well how was everyone's Easter? We had family over, and had a great time. I made a couple new recipes and they seemed to go over very well! One of them was a chocolate mousse pie from HERE. It earned rave reviews and I wish I had taken a pic like she had on her blog, but here is the full pie before I put it in the fridge for a day.

It was so so easy and fun to make! Hard to tell here, but if you use an 8 inch pie crust or pan (if you make your own crust), this thing is really an impressive height and gorgeous on a place with whipped cream.

Got a bit more progress on my Summer Bouquet last week. It was kind of a slow work week, so I was able to sneak in some stitches after work. 

She's shaping up nicely! This one has also inspired me to do more of those "old" or vintage designs that I've held on to for years in favor of newer, shinier, ones. Don't get me wrong-I LOVE seeing and buying new designs! But I stitch so slow, I think I need to go back and pick out some of my favorites from over the many years I've been stitching and get to work!

How do you feel about older and vintage designs? I have so many that I really love and tons of old magazines too that have great designs in them that I have forgotten about over the years. 

I hope your Easter was fabulous and everyone is enjoying lots of stitching and crafting time! See you soon with hopefully a lot more progress on my Summer Bouquet!

A Little Christmas Spirit and a Fudge Recipe!

What a couple of weeks it has been. My work has just been crazy and I have desperately been trying to sneak in some Christmas sprit amongst all the bad news out there. So I thought I would share some handmade Christmas items I completed over the years. And it reminded me that I need to do more. 

 The Santa cross stitch pillow is from a hardback Leisure Arts book and it's one of the first cross stitches I ever did when I started stitching. The Santa ornament is a chalkware type ornament that I painted and finished myself. I have one with a green hat too. The resin Santas came unfinished and I painted them by hand and then antiqued and sealed them. I have more of them, but these are some of my favorites. I was on a real resin Santa kick for a while in the 90's. The little stuffed snowman was a project my sister and I came up with. She came over for an afternoon and we made little snowmen-probably about 25 or so years ago actually. Fun memories.

Like I said, just trying to get a little festive. I love twinkle lights inside and we have colored lights around the windows and glass door. When you stand outside and look in, it really looks cozy and warm. I have come to love Swedish star lanterns too. I have two and need to add more to my collection. I keep threatening to move to Northern Sweden to a little red house, and I'll need lots of these when I do.

I only managed a bit of stitching, but here's a little update on Fancey Blackett's Brooms.

The nose on this cauldron cracks me up. I don't know why. I can't wait to finish this up. It's been so fun to work on. 

I managed to squeeze in some other crafty stuff lately. I finished my Journey Blanket Scarf.

And I'm making some wooden bead scandanavian star ornaments. You can grab the tutorial HERE.

These are really fun and neat. I made a promise to myself to make 4-5 handmade ornaments every year from now on. I haven't done that in so long and it's so much fun, and so meaningful. Plus I'll have something special to leave to my kiddos one day!

Oh yeah. Also made some rocky road fudge recently! You can find the recipe HERE. It's so easy and it really makes a nice presentation and it is super tasty and creamy! Seriously, it's only gonna take you about 15 minutes or less to make. 

Doesn't that look yummy??!! And it is! 

Well, that's it for now folks. Now it's ordering, waiting for packages, shopping, etc. Still deciding what to make for Christmas dinner, but it'll only be the 4 of us again, like Thanksgiving. It will be so nice when this pandemic is over and our lives can get back to where they were. I'm thankful we are all still here, but so many people have lost loved ones. It's overwhelming. Today we are at over 300,000 lives lost. 

Be back soon with a Brooms update! Until then,

Update on Flag Folk and New Food Tries!

I spoke too soon in the previous blog entry. Maybe a day and a half later, someone in my family was rushed to the hospital with the virus. All I can say is that if anyone thinks this is some overblown flu------boy, they are sadly mistaken. Sadly mistaken. It's vicious, and made all the more cruel because you can't be with your loved one when they are suffering the most. My family member is recovering, slowly, after a week of hospitalization and a return trip to the ER after that with a complication. Please, please wear your masks and use your hand sanitizer. None of us knows if we are asymptomatic carriers and may cause someone, like my family, another life-threatening situation, or worse! Rant over. On to the cross stitch!

I am amazed I got anything done on it the past week and a half after all we've been through. I think stitching took my mind off of it all for a tiny bit. Still plugging along, even after I type this entry up.

The weather has been just glorious summer type weather. And sitting outside just makes me feel peaceful. Soaking up the heat and sun for a while makes everything seem wonderful for a while. We also had a weird storm here last night.

I love that we have so much open sky in this neighborhood. It allows for some great sky watching, which I love to do all the time.

This past week saw me making a couple new recipes. I made a super tasty chicken teriyaki dish, which you can find HERE.

And this morning, I made a coffee cake, which I've never done before. You can get the recipe HERE.

It was just a tad dry. But overall, it's a nice vintage type coffee cake recipe! I will definitely be doing it again. I had the oven at 425 degrees (off of a Bisquick box picture), but the recipe above has the over at 400, so maybe that will help!

Try something new, appreciate what you can in life, and hug your loved ones. All the time, but especially in these times. There so much going on now. We will get through it, but things will most likely be changed.

Until next time,

Memorial Day and Flag Folk Update

Memorial Day was kind of lackluster here. The weather was blah and cloudy, but we did cook out this past weekend. It just wasn't on Memorial Day. My company was kind enough to give us all Tuesday off as well and I really enjoyed it, though I didn't do much. Seems to be the order of the day lately.

Here's my update so far!

Moving right along! I still love this fabric that I dyed. It's not quite as dark or greenish as the PTP Murky, but I still like it. Though not very big, it's the largest piece I've done in a while. 

I wish I had more to report on or share. Our state is re-opening, and it's baby steps, rightly so. I'm trying to fight off being depressed about it all, quite honestly. I am very thankful no one I know has been affected at this time. I miss how things were-being able to take my kiddos out to lunch or dinner somewhere. It's been months since I've been able to do that. Yes, we eat here, but we did love going out too. Who doesn't?

Made myself some waffles with fresh strawberries as a consolation last night. Pretty good if I do say so myself! These are just from the side of the box recipe for waffles using Aunt Jemima Original Complete pancake/waffle mix.

Growing petunias again this year in pots out back. I do love them. I haven't bee able to find true "trailing" petunias in years. I had them ONE year---and then not again. Sure, they may say "trailing", but believe me, they are not. Have no idea what's going on in petunia-world, but someone is depriving us of our trailing petunias, lol. These light purple ones smell so amazing!

Jenny just wanted to say HELLO! This pup is my baby. She's a nearly 14 year old baby, but still! I can't believe she's been with us that long. She makes me laugh, but she can be rotten too, don't get me wrong. Still love her.

Well, that's it! I hope you guys have an amazing upcoming weekend and have wonderful weather and can get outside and get some sunshine! Meanwhile, I'm gonna try and make some more progress on this Flag Folk piece and think about what I want to do next. Until then,

Christmas Catch Up and a Pitiful Pineberry Lane Christmastide update

Here's my SUPER SLOW update on Christmastide. This will be so pretty when it's done. I've switched up the colors already, to go with the gray fabric, and when I'm done, I will make note of those conversions for anyone who might be interested.

The actual fabric color seems to have a bit more blue to it, but I can't get it to read very well with a phone camera. I love my phone camera, but I think we lose something in the translation. I might experiment with going back to my old Nikon for a while.

My kiddos bought me some stash for Christmas! Actually it was my son's sweet girlfriend. She asked about my wish list and I sent it to her and received these lovlies.

Are you kidding me with this sunflower design??!!  My goodness. That is such a happy, warm, sunshiney design I can't stand it. It's just the cutest thing. And the hearts on the chimneys?! Love.

Anyone else have holiday burnout? I enjoyed it, but I'm feeling less friendly towards Christmas every year. So much pressure to buy, buy, buy. We were lucky enough to have the whole family come over for dinner and exchange gifts. It was really nice. I'm sure everyone went home and slept well! As nice as it was, there is something great about getting back to a regular routine, isn't there?

This is one of those gifts that was really meaningful. I ordered this for my mom. It's my grandmother's (her mom's) recipe for a Lady Goldenglow cake. It turned out better than I expected. Gotta love Etsy. I am going to get one for myself also at some point this year.

I made the Flourless Chocolate Cloud Cake for Christmas dessert. It was gone in about 5 minutes. If you haven't tried it, make it this year. You will not be disappointed!

Three days after Christmas, we celebrated my husband's birthday. We went out to our local restaurant with my in-laws and the kiddos and had a nice dinner. The kids bought him a gourmet Oreo cake, for which I was very thankful. They really are sweet and thoughtful.

Overall, good holiday season, but glad to be back to "normal", whatever that is!

I hope everyone gets off to a good start and you crush all your goals, crafty ones and otherwise!

Back soon with a hopefully less pitiful update on my Pineberry Lane wip!  Until then,

Notfortten Farm We Are Flag Folk start and Summer Salad!

Started my next project after looking through some recent favorite things I've kitted up. I actually ordered this PTP fabric a day or two after I got back from vacation (around June 1). It took over a month to get here.

I got it out to begin my stitching and realized I needed some bigger QSnaps, so I ordered extensions. These snaps are SO hard to get on and off! OK, end of complaining, lol.

The fabric is 16 count Murky Aida by Picture This Plus. I had picked it up in linen while on vacation, but I didn't allow enough for finishing/framing. I might use that linen for another projecct down the road.

I made a pretty summer salad this week! Believe it or not, I'd never picked out or used a fresh avocado for anything. I was googling on my phone in the middle of the store to find out which one to pick. Luckily, I found one that seemed to fit the bill. The nice lady at the checkout counter even confirmed it for me. :)  It was really yummy.

Summer Salad

1 can corn
1 can black beans/rinsed
1 carton of cherry tomatoes/sliced
1 avocado sliced
1 package mozzarella "pearls"
fresh cilantro to taste
salt and pepper to taste
toss with cilantro lime dressing (I bought mine at the store)

Enjoy those last couple weeks of summer with this fresh tasting salad!

Until next time,

Stitchy update and CAKE!

Three weeks gone and here is my progress on Goodflorastitchwort's Oh the Miles!

Doesn't look like much from last time, right? Wellllllllll, I STITCHED THE WHOLE DANG THING OVER AGAIN and now I'm a good bit beyond where I initially left offf when the "incident" happened. Yay, me. LOL. My other piece didn't fare too well with the washing, etc. Oh well, lesson learned!

Now to share one of the most wonderful recipes I've ever made. It's called Chocolate Cloud Cake by late author/cook, Richard Sax. My boss made this for our annual holiday meeting at her house and we were all amazed. It's flourless! I'd never made my own whipped cream either and it was so fun!

It's almost better after a night of refrigeration. So make this recipe and impress your family and friends! It worked for me!

I have been so excited to see all the new and fun things coming out at The Nashville Needlework Market. I know of at least 10 things I HAVE to have. I'm sure you have too!  My mom and I will be making a date to go to Woodlawn Plantation for the needlework show, and afterward we always hit up the local shop, In Stitches. Such a fun time!

Enjoy your upcoming week and I hope everyone is getting lots of stitchy time in.