Oh, Baby!!

Our granddaughter has arrived!!  Of course she's the most beautiful baby I've ever seen.

My babies were all 8-9 lbs at birth (the last one was just over 9 pounds born 2 weeks before the due date!) so we were thinking she'd be a big baby, but she's a little "peanut" at just under 6.5 lbs.

Her first name comes from the street where my DD met our sweet SIL met (they feminized it) and they honored my mother by using part of her name for the middle name.

We haven't gotten to hold her yet (she lives a plane ride away) but will go see her soon.  She's precocious...already is using Facetime with us.  ;-)

I finished up the lettering on her birth "sampler" and took it to my framer Monday, asking if he thought he could get it finished before we leave to see her.  He's such a sweet man!  He put it at the top of his pile and finished it that afternoon for me.  The design is Gabrielle Rose by La D Da with a few changes I made.  DD prefers simple designs on things I stitch for her and I'd always wanted to stitch that design.

If that isn't exciting enough, DH is in the process of retiring at the end of this month.  His last day is March 31 and he'll enjoy a long weekend....before he goes to work Monday full time somewhere else.  lol!  If you knew him, you wouldn't be surprised by that.  He's very excited by what he'll be doing for the new job so I'm excited for him too.

Stitching has taken a back seat lately as you might imagine but I'll get back to it soon.

Happy stitching!

Ta-Da!! A Finish

I put the final stitches on LHN's Virtue Sampler on Saturday.  This is my first project mostly stitched on my new StitchMate floor frame.  I can say I've fallen in love with this frame and wonder what took me so long to get one.  lol!

Next up is an older Lizzie Kate...I think it's called Harvest Blessings.  With it so hot, I'm thinking maybe thinking of fall might cool me off.  It's worth a try, anyway.

We had our first football game Friday and the band did well.  The football team won the game too.  GO BUCS!  It was so hot that day that we really worried how the kids would tolerate the heat...esp. since they wore those hot uniforms.  Only a couple had problems but we were able to cool them down.  Today the high will be 104 (I don't even want to know the "feels like" temp today as humid as it is.)  UGH!

Catch up

Things have been pretty busy around here lately.  I volunteer a lot with DS's HS marching band.  We've finished our second week of band camp.  I work with some other wonderful women who support the band by trying to keep the kids hydrated, dispensing bandaids, etc., and generally helping out where needed.  We've been under a heat advisory since the beginning of camp and the kids so far are doing pretty well tolerating the heat.  We moms have been "working out" a lot by lugging cooler after cooler of ice water out to their practice field so they can refill their camelbacks.  This week they started putting some music to their drill, always exciting to see it begin.  Go, Buc Band!!

Yesterday we drove to Austin to move DS into his college apartment.  It's almost a 4 hour drive from here so, as you can imagine, it was a long day.  We discovered in Austin that we'd left part of his futon here at home so we'll be making another trip soon.  At least he can sleep on the mattress on the floor until we can make it back.

On the stitching front, a model I stitched for Nikki at http://www.countrycottageneedleworks.blogspot.com/ and http://www.countrycottageneedleworks.com/  has just been released on her blog so I can finally share it.  I loved this one!  My kitchen has an apple theme and I suspect I'll be stitching this one again for me.  Nikki seems to really be "on a roll" lately with lots of beautiful designs.

My birthday gift from DH this year was a StitchMate needlework stand and it just arrived Friday afternoon.  I think I'm going to love this...and wonder what took me so long to ask for it.  You can read about the stand here:  http://www.cozycottage.com/

I also finished and sent another model out to Nikki this week so I'm back to personal stitching (when I have any time or energy left from band.  I'm working on LHN's (Dianne Williams, Nikki's mother) designed this piece, Virtue Sampler:

I finished the Moonwalking with Einstein book (very interesting) and started another Erik Larson book,  IN THE GARDEN OF BEASTS: LOVE, TERROR, AND AN AMERICAN FAMILY IN HITLER'S BERLIN and am finding it very interesting.

Until next time, happy stitching!

Friday update

Summer is pretty much over. Percussion camp started yesterday (I spent the am scrubbing out band coolers. Luckily I had some great helpers so it was done much sooner than it would have without the help.) Full band camp starts Monday so I'll be there every am helping out.

I worked a bit on One Nation.

I picked up my neice's birth sampler again. Note the date...at least I hope to finish it before she starts high school. I started with a base design and made a lot of changes. I wasn't happy at all with the lighthouse I tried to design so frogged it all and just stitched the original design's lighthouse. I'm awaiting some buttons I ordered and will stitch on a couple pairs of mama and baby fish and a sea turtle on the bottom. I need to stitch on a shell button in the beach section and then I think I'm finally finished.

I have a small finish...a teapot from a CEC leaflet. It's for the teapot theme at the Brides Tree Ornament sal blog.

Until next time.....happy stitching!