Scrappy!

Well, this is a test to try to figure out why my posts don't seem to show up...
I just posted a BIG post before this itty-bitty one, but the large post does not want to show up on any reading lists.  Oh well...

Oh, and Scrappy says "Hi baby!".

This Weekend in Pictures

This weekend was crazy busy and I did not get one single stitch in!

Late Friday evening, June-bug and I shamelessly used her 8-year old son as an excuse to go watch the movie Hop, which is a film that combines live action and animation just like "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" or "The Mask".  It is absolutely amazing how far this technique has come - the movie was really comfortable to watch and the interaction between real and animated characters was truly believable.  The story was all right and it was fun to watch, but I don't feel that I have to buy this DVD as soon as it hits the market.

I went out shopping and running errands for a few hours after noon on Saturday.  Ironically, the one errand that I really wanted to get crossed off the to-do list ended up left...  It is almost impossible to find shoe repair shops nowadays, isn't it? 

When I got back home, I got to open a few USPS delivered packages containing "must haves" that I had ordered online.  Here below, Henny is showing off our new neat egg-crate and roomy bread jar.  The bread jar is pretty neat; the lid doubles as a cutting board.  I also got some sweet measuring cups in form of vegetables and measuring spoons that look like sea-shells.  Now I just need to start cooking.....

In the evening we went to a business meeting/pot luck and we had a really nice time.   

Sunday was working-on-the-yard-and-the-house pretty much all day.  In the morning and afternoon we spent time replacing three of our (really expensive) rhododendrons that died over this past winter.  I got out early and bought a verbena, a maple-leaf hydrangea and a third bush that I can't recall the name of.  Fire bush, maybe?  The planting process took a lot of time and thermometer showed over 80 degrees, so we got hot pretty quickly.

Here are the "Before & After" pictures.  Check out the cool curved walls - aren't they just great!?  DH built these for me and I love them!

 

After hours in the yard spent on weeding, pruning dead branches, cutting down withered perennials and cleaning up leaves, I swore that I'll never skip the fall yard clean-up ever again...  Everything looks pretty nice now though - here are some photos of blooming tulips in front of a happy looking peony:

White lilacs and a pink almond tree (ignore the sad state of the lawn, please):

Japanese cherry and grape hyacints:

My new "garden bling" - stepping plates in form of cast iron turtles and a rain gauge.  The latter was bought through inspiration after the first set of very heavy spring storms.  We have had a turbulent Kentucky spring already - golf-ball sized hail in the east on Friday evening and 2 tornado touch downs during Saturday afternoon!!!

Some flowers are surprises.  I guess that I planted this last fall, but I have no idea what it is...  :-)  I am guessing anemone. 

After that, we got tired and had a break.  Some of us had coffee (me - check out the tiny fox sticking his head up of the drink).

Some of us got really, really, really tired and felt the need to hide in a cave in the bed (Scrappy...).

The last effort of the weekend was to hang some stuff on our very naked walls.  The bird-cage mirror was a must-have form an on-line store about 6 months ago - t has been leaning against a wall ever since.  We hung it in our itty-bitty master bathroom. 

I found the little wooden bird at a coffee shop on Saturday.  It gets to live next to my bird bell-pull from CeVeC. 

Finally, we spent a lot of time swearing over this decorative wall drape set from IKEA.  This set has been waiting to get up on the wall for about two years now, so once it was finally up, we were pretty happy.  At least I was, I have a feeling that DH is just happy about having me off his back...

Have a great Monday!

Stitching Along

Wow!  The weather was amazing here today!  All the trees are in bloom and it is just gorgeous out.  DH had today off to make up for his very short weekend, so we had time to see each other.  We went for a walk in the neighborhood - he wore short and I sandals - can you believe that it snowed here just 2 weeks ago!?  I love this time of the year!
After we checked out the neighborhood, we took a stroll around our garden.  Well, I had no real plans for the weekend before we took a peak at the mess surrounding our house; now I know what to do - weeding, pruning, digging, cleaning - this weekend will fly by!  DH is already whining about mowing the yard...  (the part I don't like about this time of the year!).

Yesterday my stitching-buddy Pink came by to say hi and to get some stitching time in.  We wandered down to Starbucks and sat there for a couple of hours.  She was working on our SAL, the Bent Creek Snapperville.  She is on the next to last square, which means that I'll have to get down to business so that I can keep up with her.
I did get a couple (almost) more half medallions stitched up on the Quaker pocket.  I really do enjoy stitching  this design and the last couple of medallions, or wreaths, are very pretty so they will be really fun to work on.  After that, I just have to sew up the back (the back panel is left open to give space to stitch on the front) and it is done!  I am enjoying it so much that I'm not even too worried about stitching it one more time.

I have finally figured out what letters to use instead of the charted ones.  I am going to stitch my mothers "maiden initials" on one the right side and mine on the left side.  That will give it a special meaning, I hope.
Especially with my mom's mother passing away just a few weeks ago - I thought that something to tie her and me to our past may be nice.

Other news on the stitch front; I joined a new board this week.  See, I am slowly coming out of my shell and joining other groups.  Fun!  The board in question is the Carriage House Samplings, Goode Huswife & Barrick Samplers gallery.  I have enjoyed looking at all the beautiful projects that other stitchers have submitted in the past, so I thought that it was probably my turn to contribute.  I have two more projects to share there, but my photos were terrible so I'll have to take some new shots before posting anything.
I really miss all three companies, but I was lucky enough to have moved to the US before they retired, so I did get a chance to buy some of their designs before prices rocketed.
Since I love blog pictures, I'll throw one of the ones that I posted in here.  This is Hester van Dorn by Goode Huswife.  I changed the initials and the linen & silk colors (for more background info, have a look at the board-with-the-name-too-long-to-spell-out):

Other stuff; I was absolutely thrilled earlier today when I discovered a new-to-me on-line needlework shop that carries some very hard-to-find French designers.  I have  been trying to find this one designer in particular, Zaza Picque, here in the US and finally got lucky today.  You can have a peak at the wonderful designs, materials, and photos on the Zaza Picque blog or go to the US retailer, The Thread Basket.  (I am not recommending this store yet - I'll let you know how it pans out.)  I am excited!!!  This is the chart that I have been searching for high and low on the Internet; En Catimini:

How cute is that!?  (Birds, what else...?  Note the cages - yep, let me tall you, cages do come in quite handy!).  I did get an assortment of extra stuff that I am looking forward to drool over in person.  One of the other charts I got is the Tea Travel Bag:

Cute, practical, probably a quick stitch - great to give to friends!  I have at least two recipients in mind (other then myself)...

Hmm, what else?  Well, I have been thinking about posting about one of my favorite sites on the net for a long time now.  This is not stitching related in any way, but I find it hilarious enough to write about!  It is called Awkward Family Photos and I just love it.  Some days, when work is just too depressing and I need to reset my brain, this is the site I go to.  I look through the newest photos for 5-10 minutes, get happier pretty much instantly, and get back to work in a much more positive state.  There are a lot of jazz-hands, "artistic" photo manipulation, big hair, "funny" family situations, and veeeery strange costumes.  Love it!
One of the best memories from my last Sweden trip was when Herr Slusk and I were lying in bed looking at awkward family photos together.  We were laughing until we were crying (at least I was, maybe she doesn't have the same weird sense of humor that I do?).

Well, I think that I have talked your ears of for now.  It still feels like something is missing.  Oh, now I remember!
I did get a really nice response back from Maureen Appleton in regards to the Sampler Bits Sewing Clamp comments I sent her.

• First off, she e-mailed me back not many hours after I contacted her, which I really like - great customer service!  
• The "missing" border chart should be found on page 12 (my bad - I have yet to look it up too - way to be on the ball, Jenny...).  
• This is the part that really impressed; Maureen offered to send me a whole new piece of linen and the floss to go with it, since I commented that the tent stitch would have probably have been the better way to go. I did decline her kind offer, since I do believe that I have enough linen to stitch the top part one more time - I should be all set.  Still, it is really good to get such a nice and generous response back.
• She did also thank me for the feedback, which I appreciated very much.  I think that sometimes business owners don't really get that if a customer takes the time to give feedback, many times it is because the customer is satisfied and just wants to help make the product/service even better.  If I am not happy with the product, I seldom say anything, but I sure don't come back again. 
• What do you guys think?

And finally, DH came back home less than a minute after he drove off to work today.  When I asked him what he was doing back so early, he told me that he forgot his wallet (he is rooting through the pockets of a pair of jeans while sharing this info with me).  Well he finds it, we kiss each other good bye (again), and as he leaves through the door I hear him mumble to himself "let's see, I've got my pants on...".  That man cracks me up!

Well, off to bed with me!  Have to get into work tomorrow so that I can make money for bird-seed and cross-stitch (not necessarily in that order...)
Good Night and Sweet Stitching Dreams to All!

First Monday Morning of Spring!

Hi everyone!  I hope that you had a great weekend.  I did!  I had a crazy week with late nights at work and I also managed to squeeze in some social events even later in the evenings..  I know - what is going on!?  One of the "after work activities" was simply stitching with my friend Pink at my house on Thursday evening.  She didn't leave until 11PM!!!  Who said that stitchers can't go wild and crazy...?  It was a lot of fun as always and we did get a bunch of stuff done.
The other event was a more unusual type of meeting - a friend from Sweden, who now lives in Switzerland, sent me a message that she was in KY for a couple of days and wondered if we could meet for dinner.  We did and had a really nice time!  We have actually never met in Sweden, but she was here as a guest researcher over a summer while I was working on my PhD, so we hung out for a few weeks over that summer.  That was 10 years ago!  After that summer, she went back to Sweden, graduated with her MSc and proceeded to Switzerland for her PhD in Engineering.  She "got stuck" doing a post doc there and was hired on by the company she did the research for after the post-doc work was completed.  Anyway, it seriously felt like no time had passed - I know that it sounds like a cliche, but it was absolutely great!  She looked exactly like herself and we reconnected instantly.  We talked about work cultures in different countries, women in engineering, dating in a foreign country, language (both of us had a bit of a hard time to switch over to Swedish), and home, missing family and friends and other pretty serious topics.  We did have a lot of fun!  It sounds like she will come back more frequently (on business) for a while, so I am hoping that we will see each other soon again!

Other than that, and after a seemingly short weekend, I feel well-rested, calm, and pretty satisfied with life.  Before showing you the calming projects I got to spend time with over the past few days, I wanted to share a couple of photos depicting a couple of sleeping beauties: DH and Scrappy. 
Scrappy is our tiny little snuggle bug.  He craves warmth and he will do just about anything to get some.  If I sit on the couch with a blanket over my shoulders, he flaps over in an instant and looks at me with his enormous eyes.  I usually lift up the blanket a tiny bit and he runs right in under it.  He generally does not come back out on his own, but he can sit there for hours without a problem.
The other day when I came home, he was looking pitiful. I had chores to be done, so no sitting on the couch under a blanket for me.  However, DH was sleeping in bed and I took scrappy over to the bedroom to see if that would suit him.  Yup, he ran straight in and nestled himself up right under DH's chin.  He is just too cute!  I took the photos with flash on, so that is why he is giving me these less-than-happy looks.

Here is what I can report on the stitching front.  Since I can't seem to help myself when it comes to starting new projects, I have to show what I picked out of my stitching room on Friday evening.  This is the Sampler Bits Sewing Clamp kit from The Heart's Content.  As you may already know, Maureen Appleton designs pretty much exclusively over-one designs.  This itty-bitty pin-cushion clamp was just too cute to pass up.  I do believe that she has one or two additional designs in her sewing clamp series, Floral Monogram and Bird of Colour.  Here is the progress as of Friday evening:

And here is the finished top section early Sunday morning (yep, I was a bad, bad girl and stayed up until 3.30 in the morning, just to get that final stitch in....).  I have placed the finished piece on top of the cover photo so that you can see how the finished clamp will look.

I do have a few comments and thoughts about this kit, if anyone is thinking about stitching it in the future.

1)  The instructions refer to a border design that is supposed to be included in the kit (for the side of the cushion), but I can't seem to find it.  It looks like it is a pretty simple design, but maybe the chart would be helpful in indicating the length of the border.  (I am already thinking of potential options, to "spruce up" the border design!)
2)  First AFTER I completely finished the top piece, I realized that the model on the cover is stitched in tent-stitch and not cross-stitch!!!  However, I am pretty certain that the instructions call out cross and not tent stitch...   Now I realize that
a) I seem to be running low on floss, especially if I am to stitch an entire border piece  - even though Maureen uses DMS, so it shouldn't be a problem to get more.
b)  I feel that some of the details "disappeared" in my piece...  One example is the reindeer's and parrot's eyes that do not show well in my piece compared to the model (the photo above is clickable, if you would like to have a closer look).  The details in the fruit in the basket did also disappear somewhat.
3)  I was really missing a linen lay-out diagram that many designers include with kits when 1 linen piece is to be used for several separate stitching sections...  I am not patient enough to read through a booklet to try to figure out the smartest way to lay out the sections.  I am generally very anxious to jump in and start with the fun stuff - the stitching - right away....
4)  So, if I ever decide to stitch this design again, I would use tent-stitch and also switch the DMC for a gorgeous dark color over-dyed silk.  Yum!  Maureen sells the clamps separately and they were not too pricey - below $20, I believe .
5)  The linen is absolutely great - a 40-count hand-dyed in color "Muffin".  This linen actually allows the stitcher to stitch the over-one cross-stitches the same way as over-two; complete an entire row of half-crosses and then cross them on the way back, instead of completing each x before moving to the next.

I did e-mail Maureen most of these comments earlier tonight, so it will be interesting to see what she has to say.

I did also stitch on one of the projects that I really should be stitching on - the Goode Huswife pocket for my mom.  I really like how this one is turning out!  I must say that I am less than impressed with myself though - I have done countless errors and I have not been ripping this much in a very long time (I seem to write this type of statement about once a month though....).  I would say that I am over 1/3 towards completion now. 
I was lying in bed the other evening thinking about this design and suddenly it hit me.  I realized, I do find it ironic, that I absolutely love samplers, but I very much dislike stitching the alphabet.  Blah!  I have no idea why, but again - Blah!  I love to stitch repeats and borders and filling in large areas and pretty much anything that many stitchers find incredibly boring, but I can't seem to handle alphabets.  Yep, there is one such included in this design.  Not looking forward to it... 

Finally, before jumping into bed, here is a greeting from my very happy Hoya.  She is doing really well, I must say.  

One of my colleagues gave me a stickling from one of his house plant last week, so I am very excited about taking care of this new cutie.  If I recall correctly, it is a Jade plant (a succulent) that will turn into a hanging version once it grows bigger.  My mom has a beautiful Jade plant back home.  It is not a hanging one but it pretty much looks like a small tree.  I have always wanted my own Jade and now I have one!

 

Well, bed-time for me.  It is already Monday and I have morning meetings at work in just a few hours...

Good night,

TUSAL - April Report!

It looks like the progress is pretty slow right now...  I have found that I really do enjoy looking at my orts and remembering which project they came from. 

Well, here it is: TUSAL update:

Take care everyone!

Belly-flop!

Brrrr - it turned freezing as soon as I came back from Sweden.  From being in the 80s, I hear, we went down to below 32 in just a few days.
Spring did a belly-flop this weekend.  The ground was covered with a thin layer of snow on Sunday morning and the outdoor birds were complaining loudly and repeatedly about the lack of seed in the bird-feeders.  My hyacinths looked accusingly up at me - almost double-bent in the chilly air.  Even the daffodils looked less than amused.  The snow melted away pretty quickly though and the spring bubs stretched back out again.

Note the seriously impatient clematis and peony plants in the last garden pic below...  Boy, I thought that I had issues with patience..  ;-)

This last pic show "the big birds" haning out in my kitchen.  See the blue stuff on the right in the door-way?  That is a drape, hung there specifically to keep the little monsters out... they like to hang in the kitchen, isnce the sliding glass door makes this room so bright and since there is a hot air vent right below them.  They are so cute that it is hard to get really mad.  And they know it!  Oh, and yes, my ironing and sewing machine stations are placed smack on the kitchen table....  I guess that I ought to feel bad about that...  :-(

Well, what better excuse to stay in and stitch than freezing weather?  I got time to stitch up a storm this weekend!  I started off on Friday evening with finishing up as much as I can on the PS Birth Sampler.  Now the baby boy needs his full name to be decided and we are ready to get this sampler on the road!

Saturday got interrupted with taking care of the fuzz-balls.  I was left as the single parrot parent on Saturday, since DH had to work (I keep forgetting - I think that I am married, but I am not sure if we actually live together anymore...)  and to be nice to him and the birds I had fun leaning over the bath-tub for a couple of hours.  I have probably mentioned it in the past - 6 large bird cages take time to clean...
Anyway, it's definitely worth it - as you can see below, Rocky and Hugin are quite pleased.  Rocky is munching away on a large chunk of apple.  I remember that I thought that it was absolutely fascinating the first time I saw a bird eat like this! 

Rocky and Hugin have had 19 babies together and they are out only mating couple (thank goodness!!!).  Rocky (Rock) is the female and is quite a little overachiever, laying up to 10 eggs per clutch.  There is not a chance in the world that she can sit on all 10, so generally about 4 of the eggs hatch.  That keeps mom and dad quite busy as it is...  The first time Rocky sat on her eggs, she was so devoted that she refused to come out of her nest-box to eat.  Hugin  did actually have to go in to the box, chase her out and guard the entrance until she had eaten some food and drunk a bit of water.  She was really skinny when the eggs finally hatched and I am sure that she would not have survived without him taking care of her.
After the babies hatch, she is generally not too interested in family time anymore.  See, she loves DH and probably wishes that she could have married him instead of Hugin.  She does not even bother trying to keep it a secret.  :-)  She will sit and kiss DH on the forehead and tell him "Hi baby!" for hours.  Luckily neither Hugin nor I are the jealous type! 
Hugin is a great dad!  It is pretty cool to see how birds are taught how to fly in your own living-room.  He will line up all the babies beside him on the top of a cage, look them all over to make sure that he has the undivided attention of all babies and then he will fly over to another cage or object close to where he started from.  Then he turns around and all the babies fly after, one by one.  Then he makes sure that they are all lined up, paying attention, and it is off back to the point of origin.  It is quite a sight and he has the patience of a saint.  And I must say that the concentration and discipline of the babies are simply awesome!

Well, after bathing birdcages for a while, I thought that it would only be logical to finish up the final stitches on Just Nan's "Birdcage"/  I had some beading, back-stitch and charting to do, so I opted to do that at home instead of at work.  I switched out the text on the outside back for my initials and a large egg.  I like the egg, but I am not certain about the letters just yet.  (They are taken from the PS Birth Sampler book btw.)  After that, I read that finishing instructions about three times and fell asleep...  Snore!

I did also finish up a small stitch for Littelest Sister.  I always used to call her my little piglet, since she is very blond, has a beautiful rosy complexion and has the cutest little button nose (oh, how I wish that I had gotten that nose...)!  I think that it is only fitting that I could be called a chicken, so this design is  dedicated to her as a symbol of the two of us.  If you surf the on-line stitch stores as often as I am, you probably know that this little square is only the part of this design.  I am sorry that I can't show all of it to you, but LS, "Herr Slusk", follows my blog regularly.  I promise to show you as soon as I have handed it over to her.

I was a tad tired on Sunday, but managed to start on a brand new kit; the LH 1818 Quaker Pocket, which is an old kit from The Goode Huswife.  This was the very first kit that I bough by contacting the desiner directly.  I got two kits - one to sticth for my Mom and one for me.  I have been thinking that I'd better stitch on these ni parallel, or I have a feeling that only one will be done...  Supposedly, the pre-finished pockets that came with these kits werer accidentally made with the wrong count linen, so I feel a bit like I am living on the edge...  It will be very pretty when it is done and I think that it will stitch up a lot quicker than I originally thought.

So, since I can't stick to just one new beginning, I started on yet another kit tonight.  I have the opportunity to take the Hare Pyns finishing class with Sherri Jones of Patrick's Woods through the QCSG in October.  I took this class at CON back in 2007 and never even opened the kit.  I even missed the class!  I do have a good excuse; I took Forget-Me-Nots-in-Stitches "A Victorian Melon Bag" that year too and the classes were scheduled during the same time slot.  Well, Sherri's class was jam packed and there were only three students in Lauren Sauer's  class, so it was an easy pick of which class-room to sit in!  I think that Lauren is the sweetest person, by the way!  Oh, and Sherri is also a lovely lady.

Anyway, I have told myself that I am not registring for the finishing class unless the stitching is done.  Basta!  It is a lovely design, but the vast majority of the stitching is over-one I think, so nothing that I will whip up over a weekend...  ;-)  Here is the beginning of the needle book.  Herringbone stitch and over-one..... 

Before I say Good Night, I guess I'd better post a picture of the Melon Bag!  It was a fun prooject and the first one that I ran amok and redesigned a big part to be more personal.  I will have to go back and change out all the rings that the drawstring goes through.  The keep snagging the string and it drives me batty!!!!
The secon pic shows my monogram - that was the panel that I redesigned.

So, Good Night all friends - talk with you soon!

Back and Jumping Right Into Spring!

Hi Everyone!  It feels really good to be back home!  I am not tired at all and could even keep a pretty high tempo at work today - I figured that I'd better use this energy to my advantage and get a post out of it!  ;-)

First off, big thanks to all of you for the kind words about my parents' home.  They certainly appreciate all the sweet comments too.
The seriousness and sadness of this trip was embedded in fun and relaxation too.  My Littelest Sister, from now on also known as Herr Slusk (which is truly exceptionally hilarious, but you may have to be Swedish and grown up in a home with ample access to child literature to understand why...), moved back to my parents' while I was in Sweden.  We even shared the gigantic pull out couch.  No pictures from that room... it looked like a closet explosion!  As I already reported a while back, we did have time to schedule a craft session, but she is much more determined than your average duck and managed to get an additional number of things started and completed.  She made 4 fabric rose brooches and almost finished a mountain climber pouch to keep chalk in during the four evenings we spent together. This is her craft tote BTW.  I am thrilled that she uses it, since I made it for her I few years back (I love, love, love Charley Harper!!!).

We did also keep Little Sister company most of the evenings.  She is at home with a wonderful, happy and very energetic 2 year old girl and a baby brother that was less that two weeks old when I arrived.  I tell you, the newborn babies sure spend a lot of time eating....  Anyway, the dad was studying for an exam and had to go to the library in the evenings, so the rest of us came over to play with the girl, keep sister company, bring food, and all that other good stuff.  I must say that it is pretty easy to be an aunt - you just figure out what the niece in question loves = dolls, and you bring her a package with a gigantic doll that you hand over as soon as you meet.  Bribing -> easy-peasy!  :-)  Anyway - she is simply super-charming and I will miss her a lot!

Other great memories;
The funeral, with a fantastic female priest, beautiful psalms and flower arrangements in the absolutely breathtaking Tibble Kyrka. 
This is the church from the outside - a boring and bleak box:

But this is the inside - fabulous, isn't it!?  I used to go to church here when I was a teenager....

 

 

 

Mom served both coffee and dinner after the service and it was wonderful.  Quite a few family members that we have not seen in years or, in some cases for "us kids", have never seen came to pay respects.  My God Mother came with most of her family and it was a lot of fun to reconnect with her.  She is both a seamstress and a stitcher and is, just like me, crazy about vintage Clara Waever/Eva Rosenstand cross-stitch patterns.  She also shared that she has been researching our family history and learned that our fascination with textile crafts lies in our DNA; we are decedents of silk traders.  How cool is that!?

I woke up at 5.30 AM on Sunday and it was already light outside.  I left the house for a walk in the forest around 8, while everyone was still in bed.  It was just wonderful to walk in the woods.  I listened to the silence, the bird song, the dripping of the melting snow.  I laughed as I almost landed on my back in a slick and icy area and I cried just 10 minutes later because it felt like I had come home, safe and welcomed back into open arms, right into nature.  I ran here every evening for years, to keep my feelings and thoughts down and the mounting stress at bay.  We swam in the little forest lake, dark, deep, quiet, mysterious.  I watched and learned to love the light; the long shadows in the early hours and the gold in the tree tops just before night begun.  We took cross-country ski trips in the winters and mom would bring hot chocolate and snacks as a bribe to get us to come.  I walked here with friends that I no longer know, back when I was a person I can't remember.  I look at the bird houses that someone has nailed to the tree trunks, far far up and I think to myself that good and caring people really do exist.  Tranquility.

Herr Slusk (bwahaha), mom, dad, and I going to City to shop for clothes and eat lunch at the Dance Museum in Stockholm.  All three were so sweet and helped me choose from all the cool clothes - it probably took about an hour to go through everything...   We got to walk through Old Town and enjoy the architecture and the beginning of spring.  (When DH saw my purchases, his comments were "That is colorful.  ....And artsy.".  That's what I get for trying to dress less in muted browns, blacks, and whites...  Here is a link to the Gudrun Sjoden web site "main entrance" if you would like to take a look at her style.  GS is a Swedish designer who is not afraid of colors in the least!)

Littelest Sister and I having a lot of pretty serious and deep discussions about life, work, family.  It was really great!  Here is a beautiful flowering spring basket that we passed by while out shopping & talking.  The basket belongs to the shop Oleana, which is a Norwegian sweater designer - check out the fantastic knitted beauties here: catalog (this pdfwill take a while to load, I am sure...  I was bad and bought the long shirt on the right side, page 2.  Yeah, I know.  It is colorful.  ...And artsy.).  The designer gets her inspiration from old wall paper, textiles and so on.  I can swear that one of the patterns she has was definitely inspired by Ruskin Lace! 

I got a fair amount of stitching complete on the way home.  Sitting 8 hrs on a plane works wonders for any stitching progress!  I am out of the dark gray floss, so I need to hit the store before long.  Other than that, it is pretty much done.

Another wonder was one of the feature movies on the flight back to the US, Black Swan! I won't bore you with my interpretations of this movie, which is a flick that is complicated and clever, deep with terrifying symbolism, scary, thrilling, exciting, and simply pure art.  Just go and watch it!  I saw "The King's Speech"  a couple of weeks ago.  Great movie, but I did not think about it a whole lot after it was over.  The Black Swan is a movie that I will carry with me for a long time.  I am even contemplating going to the movie theater to watch it all over again, just to get the full effect!  (I watched it twice on the flight... that is how great it was!)

Once I came back home, I noticed that Spring did not dip her toes in the lake this year, she found the highest trampoline and jumped off canon-ball style and splashed everything!  There are flowering trees, bushes and bulbs everywhere.  Before I even grabbed my purse from the car coming back from the airport, I got the camera out and took a few pics:

 

 

And finally, Herr Slusk (hihihi) showed me a couple of really awesome music videos that are a bit in the same line as Sledgehamer.
Here is "Mad World" by Gary Jules

and the really beautiful and impressive "Her Morning Elegance" by Oren Lavie 

Well, time to go and stitch or something... ;-)
Thanks so much for stopping by and talk with you in a bit!