Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Stitching and.... cooking!

Another hot week here in Kansas but it is summertime after all. Our son was home from KU for the weekend and I spent a lot of time in the kitchen. Love spoiling my boy with some home cooking and he sure brought his appetite along, so fun to have him here! Besides cooking I have been busy stitching on my Annies, however with heat indexs in the 100s not outside on the patio this week! My latest Annie design is complete. November Annie has gathered a bountiful harvest in her basket to share with family and friends. I can almost feel the cool crisp air, picture pumpkins and gourds, and smell turkey in the oven!

As I mentioned before I am stitching 2 sets of Annie blocks, one as red work, and one in color work.

Here is the DMC floss palette I used for November if you are interested. The floss numbers are:
black, 317, 414, 3862, 372, 3852, 435, 758, 347, 3777, 938, 921, 702, and 581.
And now it's time to think about preparing dinner. Tonight I am making a pasta dish my son and I saw the Barefoot Contessa make on one of her shows, we were both drooling over it.
Lots of heavy cream, cheeses, mushrooms and ridiccio, now that I have never used before! This recipe is neither low cal or economical, but I bet it will be good :)

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Love to stitch

My favorite spot to sew is on my back porch, natural light to see better by and the birds provide a little background music. A big glass of iced tea and I'm good to go for the afternoon. I love handwork and stitching is so relaxing, choosing colors of floss and watching my design grow and come to life.

I have several storage units to keep my floss organized, however as you can see I don't use any of them lol! I have little plastic cards to wind your floss on, books with individual plastic inserts to keep each color all nice and neat. Plastic boxes in which these little plastic cards of wound floss slide in to. In the end I still carry around my bowl or little basket of chosen floss colors and pick from that. This must drive my friend Patty nuts, when ever she visits from NY she usually sits and organizes all my floss for me while we talk. It looks beautiful for awhile!



Monday, July 12, 2010

A happy weekend!

I've been busy celebrating my Anniversary this past week end. 39 years together for Hubby and I, that is worth a few days of celebrating and most amazing is how quickly that time has flown by! Saturday we spent the afternoon doing a few things we each like to do, eat, shop and visit an art gallery. Our 1st stop was Kempers Museum of Contemporary Art and Design in Kansas City. I could not take pictures of the featured exhibit as it was on loan to the museum, but these are a few pieces I just loved. Each so different and unique in style from the other, so inspiring! Is it not hard to believe the piece below is a painting, amazing detail!!


And just look at this little girl and her dress, watercolor, beautiful!


This painting is huge, so tranquil and lovely.


After getting our art fix we headed to the Country Club Plaza, just a few blocks away. If you have ever visited Kansas City and did not make it to the Plaza, shame on your host! The Plaza was established in 1923 and architecturally designed after Seville Spain. It boasts the 1st outdoor shopping center in the world and is known for over 100 fountains, large and small. Large baskets of flowers hang from all the lamp posts, high end stores provide a shoppers dream come true and a choice of many restaurants to satisfy a wide range of appetites. Even if you just wish to window shop or hang out on Starbucks patio, this is a pleasant way to spend a pretty day.




Ok, so we are strolling down the street, on our way to the Apple store cause hubby wants to show me all the new goodness they have to offer. And we stop in front of Tivol. My heart is fluttering, I'm thinking hubby is going to buy me a big hunk of bling! My nose is pressed up against the window, it's very quiet, and hubby looks down at the sidewalk and says....... look Barb, they even have special water dishes for your dog LOL! After all that walking around in the 90 degree heat we had worked up a thirst and worked our way over to the Cheese Cake Factory. I love eating here, where you can sit outside near the fountain, people watch and enjoy a beautiful day! Order a nice frozen drink......

and my favorite Parmesan crusted chicken..... heavenly!


And now my little weekend is over. It's back to work for me, well this is so much fun you can hardly call it work! Here is my Annie progress in color work, 8 more blocks to go!


Thanks for stopping by, enjoy your week!

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Lazy Days Of Summer

We are back from vacation. When you play you pay and that is what I have been doing all week,
catching up on all of those every day chores that mound up when you are away. Laundry, groceries, a mountain of mail to go through, you know the routine! Hubby and I were in Florida last week, we visit his Dad every summer and co-ordinate our trip with Hubbys sister and her husband who fly in from Pennsylvania so that we can all spend a little time together. I can't believe I did not take any pictures this trip, but when you've seen one palm tree you've seem them all. The boys golfed and we girls spent our afternoons at the pool. We ate dinner out most nights and it was just a nice relaxing time. I did take lots of stitching with me, yes "Annie" came to Florida! I am stitching each block in color as well as red work and will have two little quilts when finished, each with a different setting. One thing I love about Annie is she always has a big smile on her face, she just makes me grin :) My friend Sharon has added kits for my Annie patterns on her new website, go check it out, they are awfully cute!

Happiness is coming home to more fabric. I love this line, "Daisy Dance" by Michael Miller, so bright and happy!

And these kitties on pink, how cute is that!

Well, I best get back to the drawing board, October Annie is in the works!
Have a safe and fabulous 4th of July weekend!