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Monday, May 30, 2016

Spring Nostalgy

Took my littles for strawberry picking before the season comes to an end... which is soon. Happy that my youngest was able to experience strawberry picking for the first time!
Visiting the strawberry farm brought back many sweet and sour memories.

These strawberries were stitched in 2010. Mom, my oldest (then 4.5), and I went strawberry picking in April of that year. It was a beautiful sunny day, the strawberry season was just starting. We came home and got busy cleaning up the berries and baking a crisp. We also stitched strawberries. 
Mom was in her very early stages of Alzheimer's, she only stitched the seeds... I can't find her work :-( . Those 2 are my oldest's and mine. Thankfully I still have a couple of pictures of that precious day and the many priceless memories treasured in my mind & heart. 
Mom's Alzheimer is advanced. However, she is still able to show love in many little ways, especially giving kisses and hugging whomever is within her reach. Anyhow, I needed to find these today and live that day in April 2010 all over again. 




This mosaic above is from our recent visit... the plants were starting to wither and there weren't many berries to pick. The ones we found weren't as big as the ones from 2010, but they were very sweet... so no complains.
Next time we'll be sure to visit the farm at the start of the season. 
Now we are looking forward to blueberry season! The farm we go to opens to the public in July... can't wait!

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Improvising

Despite all the unfinished projects that must get done, I felt the sudden need to improvise a bit and stitch a cute quick pattern from one of my newest Japanese embroidery books.

This hedgehog was irresistible and couldn't tell my self "no" or "later". Interestingly, this small project gave me the little nudge I needed to make a bit of progress on my current projects.  

Perhaps breaking the routine by working on this unplanned tiny project was exactly what I needed to keep going. As you can see above, two of the twelve stitcheries from the second group of patterns got done, plus the last one of the first group is currently in the process of being hand pieced. It may not seem much for some, but for me is a total success! 

PSA: The Oh Joy! First Aid Bag from Target is perfect for keeping needlework projects ;-)! After purchasing 3 inexpensive first aid items that I normally buy and needed the case was free. Can't beat that... LOL. The one from last year is still going strong, the one for this year is cuter. Sorry for sounding like an infomercial, just thought that some of you may like to know ;-).

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Stash Enhancements: Japanese Embroidery Books

On our recent trip to New York City we stopped by Kinokuniya (Japanese bookstore), at my request ;-). We were just a few blocks away so we walked there.

My husband and kids were so patient. I browsed the entire hand embroidery section and a bit of the patchwork section as well. The kids requested to browse the Sanrio section... which I happily obliged.

Here are our spoils!

Three books for my ever growing Japanese embroidery book collection. Which I may never get to make something out of each one of them... but, hey, collections are mainly for looking at ;-). Right? Like teacup collections, spoon collections, thimble collections, you name it.

The kids also got a couple cute folders for their homework... ok, ok, that top one is mine... LOL. 
It was fun to visit NYC once more! Especially since we got to tour all the Bethel facilities and the Stanley Theater in NJ.
I'm still catching up on things around here, better go! 
Until next time!