Christening Gown Pics

I leave for Jackson Hole this afternoon so I dumped my SD card last night to have room in my camera. Here are the pictures of the finished stitching and the Christening Gown finished as a gown. I started the stitching January 17th and finished it March 13th. I don't usually use the large size photos but I feel it's necessary for this one; just click on the picture to see it larger:





I have been working on Chatelaine's Alpine Seasons since I finished the gown; here is my progress through part 5:



I started Just Nan's Tulip Time for Laura's quilt last night; I'm taking it on the trip and I'm taking another piece of fabric for it so I can stitch it for myself on linen once I finish hers.

Well, that's all I have time to post. I'll write again once I'm home from skiing!

So Busy...

I finished the Christening Gown a week ago and have taken pictures but haven’t yet had time to transfer them from my camera to computer. Soon, very soon… I drove up to Camarillo Friday to get things ready for Maya’s baby shower on Saturday. I bought fabric, ribbon, buttons, etc for the Christening Gown and my mom started sewing. At 10:30pm she said that she thought there was a stitch missing. I discovered, in horror, that she had sewn the gown with the wrong side facing out! I guess it’s a compliment, in a way, right? She woke up early (being a morning person and all, 10:30pm is pretty late for her) and fixed it and it was ready to go for the shower.

The baby shower itself was fine. It was fun to see some people I hadn’t seen since her wedding and bachelorette party. Since the shower was at noon we decided to make it a potluck. One of the ladies who attended the shower brought this incredible pesto pasta dish with toasted pine nuts. She has since e-mailed me the recipe and I’m planning to make it this week if I can find the time.

Work is crazy right now; the next two months I don’t expect I’ll be online much. I’ll still try to update when I can, but I will likely be working some extra hours trying to get everything done. Friday it was decided that we would be doing a new project and the design effort is pretty extensive considering how little time we have to get it done. I am still going to Jackson Hole next week but I will be bringing the laptop. It isn’t such a bad thing, though; I’ll be able to make up some hours which is good. I had to use an extra day last week because I had the stomach flu, ugh.

Well, that’s all I have time to post for now. I will try to get pictures of the Christening Gown up soon. I also finished part 5 of Chatelaine’s Alpine Seasons so I’ll post that soon also. Oh yeah, and I’ve reach 210.5 miles on my “way to Rivendell”.

New Stitching Friends...in real life?!

Last Sunday was the first time that the bell choir played at church since I joined. I was aghast to discover that we had to be there at 8am so that we could practice for 15 minutes and then sit around for another 45 minutes while the praise band used the sanctuary. Seeing that I had no choice in the matter, I decided to make the best of it and brought the christening gown with me. Gosh I had no idea what I would be starting.

I pulled it out at 8:15 and, after we were chastised for being “loud” while the praise band practiced (right, because they were soooo quiet while we practiced but oh well) I moved to the cry room with half the bell choir. Some of them were curious about what I was working on, one girl my age used to stitch and has now been enticed back into it again, and two ladies (a mother and daughter) have been stitching for years. They decided while I was in the second service to meet an hour early at practice on Tuesday and bring their stitching. So that’s what we did! I brought the christening gown (which is so close to being done!) and we stitched and chatted for an hour before practice. The two ladies who have been stitching for awhile, I’ll call them J and K, used to shop at my favorite LNS that closed last year. K brought a Silver Lining flower and J is working on TW’s Fruit Bellpull. I am planning to corrupt M (the new stitcher) with a trip up to the new (to me) LNS at some point soon.

It occurred to me today that this is the first time I’ve met stitching friends “in real life” as opposed to over the internet. I have made several stitching friends online that have become friends IRL. I am so thrilled!

Well, I have to go pick up Luke and take him to soccer practice. Thank goodness it decided not to rain after all. I’ll be stitching at practice; maybe I’ll meet someone else who stitches there.

Soccer and Lent

I have been so busy lately that I haven’t had much time to update my blog. Last Sunday I officially joined the church I’ve been attending for the last four months; Hope United Methodist in Rancho Bernardo. It feels like I am “home”. I have thrown myself into a variety of activities and foresee some pretty full weeks in my future. Tuesdays are handbell practice. Wednesdays are a weekly Bible study group. Choir practice is on Thursday, as is the turbo kickboxing class which I attend. I also acquiesced and signed Luke up for soccer this week; his first practice is this afternoon so Wednesdays will be busy, as well as Saturday morning games. I am really content though in a way that I have not been, well, ever. I have felt for so long like I was waiting for something to happen in my life and so many pieces have come together recently. I even met a friend at church who lives nearby and wants to get together to go hiking regularly and she and I are the same age. Life is good!

Having been raised Baptist, the concept of Lent is relatively new to me personally. My best friend (the one for whom I am stitching the Christening Gown, and I thank you all for your kind comments on the progress!) is Catholic so I knew *of* Lent of course, but it wasn’t really observed in the Baptist church where I grew up. The pastor at Hope UMC stressed that is isn’t just about giving up some thing that you enjoy but about giving up something that gets in the way of things that are really important and replacing it with something meaningful. I don’t know what I’m going to do, or if I’m going to do anything particular. I’ve made a number of changes in my life recently and I think if I can maintain them then I’m in pretty good shape.

I’ve been trying to stay on track with exercising to prepare for our ski trip. It is so hard to make time for everything, but I’m doing pretty well on that front. I’m at 181.5 miles on my “way to Rivendell”. I took Luke to the Wild Animal Park on Saturday (where we walked what I estimated to be 3 miles total) and then we went to the mall on the way home. Robinsons-May is closing since they’ve been bought by Macy’s so I bought some new dresses in yet another size smaller. I actually had to go get a smaller size, and I thought the first size might be too small so that was great. One of them is a killer dress which I may wear to my high school reunion in October. Luke got a cookie at Mrs. Fields so it was a good trip to the mall for both of us.

I’d been meaning to write about the Olympics but I never really found the time. Luke has really enjoyed them, especially the skiing and snowboarding. He spends a lot of time “skiing” and “snowboarding” using pieces of wood in the backyard. When we bought his soccer gear Monday night we bought a pair of ski poles for $2.90 on clearance. I thought they were a steal at the $4.47 marked price. He has been pretending to ski downhill ever since. I may still write an entry related to the Olympics, or not if I don’t have time. I had a few things to say on the subject, but I don’t have time to get into it now.