After a lovely morning of stitching with friends at my Wednesday stitching group,  my boys and I headed out fishing.

We have a great fishing spot in the reservoir behind our house.  This reservoir is used to water the cranberry bogs. 

The Bait!

The Catch!

Avery on his first kayak trip into the reservoir.

Caught another one!  In all we caught about 7 fish.  We had a great time on a lazy summer afternoon.

Uneven Evenweave!

Good Morning from steamy Massachusetts.  I was wondering if anyone has run into this problem before.  I am a little frustrated by the fact that I pulled some fabric from my stash to work on LHN August Sampler.  I stitched the border for the design and it should be neat and square but it looked a little off.  I counted and recounted my stitches 69x69.  Ok then I measured, and low and behold it measures 5" x 4 1/2".  What the heck!  It can only be determined that the fabric, 28ct evenweave is not so even.  I would love to hear from anyone who has experienced this.

Just spent some time out in the garden.  It's too hot now to work so I decided I would share these pics.  Top pictures are of the garden and the progress it is making.  We will actually be able to harvest squash this week.  We have lots of beans coming, green tomatos abound, and the first picked carrot goes to. . . . . .   You guessed it  DUTCH.  Boy what a happy bunny!!

A quick finish.  This is LHN July Sampler done on 28 count Pearled Barley. 

Hydrangeas from my many bushes.  As you can see I have lots of different colors this year.  Time to add some nutrients back to the soil to make them blue again.

Everything's in Bloom and it's HOT!!

It seems like everything is early this year.  Everything is in bloom at the same tme.  We have had upper 80's for temps and its hard to find a cool spot.  Yesterday at stitching group everyone was chatting about what temp to put the central air on and I was laughing because I live in a house built in 1876 and there is no central air.  We have fans and every now and then we'll get a breeze. My poor old girl, Jessee, was having a really hard time cooling off yesterday.  She decided to park herself in front of the screen house on the cement slab.  Stay cool everyone!

Sea Glass

A favorite summer pass time is collecting sea glass.  We spend lots of time taking leisurely walks along the beach at dusk.  When the kids were younger I taught them to look for sea glass as a way to get them to walk just a little farther.  Now each trip is who can collect the most pieces, who can find the biggest piece, who can find the colored ones.  This is a picture of what we collected our last trip out.  I have a jar on a table in the front hall and all summer long we continue to add to it.  I wonder if some day we will actually complete filling the jar?

Lizzie Kate Spring Fob

Here it is!  A finish!  Wow.  Anyways,  this is Lizzie Kate's limited edition Spring Scissor Fob with special scissors.  The scissors are so tiny that I thought the fob was too big so I stitched it over 1.  Then I tried ribbon rousching (not sure how to spell that).  For my first attempt it went pretty smoothly.  Only broke the thread once.  It was an organza ribbon so it was a little stitff.  The end result it too cute!!

New Stash

I got mail!!  These are the latest stash enhancements.  My favorite color linen--Porcelain and 3 peacock pincushion designs.  I need to get busy!!  Right now I am finishing up Lizzie Kate's Green Flip its.  I will post a pic soon. 

A Summer Tradition Begins

Not much time for stitching yesterday!  It was a great night for the beach.  Each summer we get our beach sticker and wait with anticipation for a nice night for a cookout.  Yesterday we went from mid-60's to high 80's and snagged the moment.  I packed up the grill, cooler, chairs, towels and food and off we went.  Look at that amazing sunset.  The beach always gives me a sense of calm and after this jam packed week we all needed it. Hope you enjoy the pics.  My talented son Aiden took these shots.

Tuesday evening continued with baseball for Avery. I shared this post of his big hit. In his league they can only run a single but he definitely would have had a triple. On Wednesday, I attended the last end of the year Celebration at the grade school. Our family has been at Chandler school for 10 consecutive years. It was bitter sweet but I made it through the day. From there it was off to a playoff game for Aiden and Austin. They are both on the Braves. Their team was in #1 standing and won their game last night. On to game 2 Saturday. Today, it was off to Ben's field day. I unfortunately can't share any pics of the 2 field days because I drained my camera batteries at the ball games. It is now just about time for everyone to start heading home. Only a day and a half left of school. YIPPEEE!! I am one who loves the summer time with the boys. We have lots planned starting with our adventure wish list. Maybe I will stitch before Averys final baseball game which is tonight. It is beautiful outside, so I'm headed to the deck with some stitching until everyone gets home.

As the end of the school year approaches,  I need to remind myself to smell the roses.  This week is a crazy one filled with end of the year activities.  Today I chaperoned a field trip to the zoo with my fourth grader.  My seventh grader had a beach trip, my second  grader had a power point presentation and breakfast and my freshman starts finals tomorrow.  The rest of the week is more of the same. I hope to sneek some stitching time in to keep me sane.

Love the Spring!

Here is my latest finish.  It is a Shakespeares Peddler design titled "Love the Spring."  It is stitched on 32ct Vintage Porcelain.  This is my new favorite color fabric.  I wasn't able to get all of the silks in a timely fashion so I used a combination of DMC and Thread Gatherers Silk.  This was a quick stitch and was cheerful and bright.  Perfect for the Spring time. 

Keeping Needlework Alive

At a recent ball game for my sons, Aiden and Austin, I took note that I was not the only one working on a stitching project.  I encourage every stitcher to display their works of art.  The more visible we make this craft the more people that will stitch.  Every Wednesday I meet with my local stitching group at a coffee shop.  We get many inquiries as to what we are working on.  I wonder how many people have taken up stitching since they have seen us??

A New Member To Our Family

Ben, my 10 year old has been asking for a bunny for what seems like ages. Every time we walk into the feed store he admires the bunnies. He say what names he would give them etc... Break my heart why don't you. So, guess what, we went to the feed store this weekend to get bird seed and he spied the PERFECT bunny. Oh, mom, please he so cute!! Well, as you can see we have a new bunny. So much for mommy will power. Anyways, he is adorable and his name is DUTCH. (as in cocoa).

My favorite birthday present

I received this beautiful Pandora's bracelet from my mom in the mail yesterday. She wanted to get my something special in celebration of my 40th birthday. She chose just the right beads for it too!! Blue because it is my favorite color, a flower because I love nature, a scallop shell with starfish because I love the beach and a birthday charm for my special day. What an exquisite gift. Way to go mom!!

Here is a finish just in time for June. It is Little House Needlework Monthly Sampler for June. I stitched it on 28ct Natural Linen but changed the red thread to Crescent colours Cupid. I wanted something a little brighter. Happy June!!

A beautiful birthday cake for me to celebrate a special day!

Our peonies have opened. There are more flowers this year than any other year. Absolutely gorgeous.

We were the second customers this season for pick your own strawberries. The berries are small but sweet. On Sunday I got to stitch with Carol. We worked on Jeannette Douglas My Stitching album. This project has taken longer than we anticipated but we had a wonderful day filled with stitching and bird watching. It was so beautiful outside that we stitched on the deck while admiring a great variety of birds. A perfect day!!!