Breast Cancer Awareness Giveaway

 Jennifer over at Feathers in the Nest  is having a lovely giveaway in honor of October being Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  Hope on over to have a look!

Check out this amazing giveaway Shelly is having over at Shelley's Artsy Fartsy Life.  She's having a giveaway for a whole set of books!  Wow....what a generous giveaway!

Quick WIP & Exchanges

So I was working diligently on Papillon Castles in the Air and I ended up frogging the same part 3 times so I put it away for a while.  It was driving me nuts!

I have also been working on "Quaker Sampler" by The Workbasket and that's coming along nicely.  I have a picture of where i was in Feb and where I am now.    

 

I participated in a couple of exchanges in the last couple of months.  There was the St Patty's Exchange on the ILCS Yahoo group.   And this is what I received from Georgena.









I also participated in the Pin Pillow Exchange that BeckySC hosted on her blog.  I sent to Francois and this was my first attempt at a Pin Pillow and I failed miserably with the first one I made, so had to quickly stitch a 2nd one and came up with this.  I definitely need to work on my finishing techniques!

This is the pin pillow I received from Sadie.  She did beautiful work!

Update Granddaughter baptism and 12th birthday

So, there's been a lot going on in the last 6 weeks.  My niece was dedicated at church, my other niece had her family birthday party, my oldest son turned 12, Easter came and went, and my granddaughter was baptized.  

My son Devan, turned 12 on March 27.  Hubby and I took our 3 boys and our nephew Silas to the local bowling alley for some fun and then the family came over for cake, presents and ice cream after.  Here is Dev, Caelan & Si at the bowling alley.  And here is is with his cake at home.  

Here is our beautiful Emma Ann all dressed up for Easter in her dress that Great-Grandma Beckie made for her.  

On April 11, she was baptized at the church her Daddy & Grandparents Wolf attend.  My daughter was dedicated as a baby in the Nazarene church, as we believe baptism should be understood by the child when it is performed, but obviously, this was my daughter & her fiancee's choice.  Emma wore a dress that was worn by 3 other generations including myself.  My Mom gently washed it, tacked a few places & you'd never have guessed it's over 80 years old!  This is DH & I with Emma after the baptism.  And here is Emma, Mommy, Daddy & Father.  And here I will end, and start a different post with my WIP.

Brandon's Giveaway

Jennifer over at Feathers in the Nest is having a giveaway in honor of her son Brandon's homecoming.  She's giving away this lovely pattern along with the needed fabric and floss to complete it.  You can go here to enter her giveaway.

Busy, Busy

My Mom has been and gone.  It was so sad and hard to say good-bye.  On a positive note, she DID apply for a job at the company I work for.  She has been contemplating moving back here to Wisconsin where I live, but of course, doesn't want to move until she has a job lined up.    Amazingly enough, the day after she flew back to Colorado, I found out that there were 2 training classes starting in April and May in the department I work in.  NOT the same unit, just department.

 So, now we wait to see if she gets the phone interview and then 2nd interview.  I pray that she gets the job.  I cannot express how amazing it would be to have her close to us again.  She has lived in Colorado since 1997....that's a long time!  I want her to be closer so that she can get to know my boys and of course, my Granddaughter Emma.  We just never know what will happen in this life and I want to take every bit of time I can with her.


I did talk to my Mom about the sexual abuse I suffered as a child.  It was easier than I imagined it would be.  It was also quite freeing....my secret is out.  I told my husband that I feel, now, that everything will be okay.  I know I still have work to do with my therapist and I AM continuing that, but it just feels "right" now.  I don't know how else to explain that.  


I do have some new pictures of Emma, but don't have our printer hooked up to our new computer yet.  Waiting for hubby to take care of that.  She is growing soooo much!  I can't believe she's nearly 4 months old already.  Where has the time gone?  She's smiling a ton, starting to giggle and coo, and drooling like nobody's business!  he, he!


Saturday Therese and I went wedding dress shopping.  She tried on some beautiful dresses, and we're down to just two to choose from.  We're going back Wednesday night for her to try them on again and make a final decision.  One is from the clearance rack for $200 and the other is brand new, custom ordered and over $600.  Biiig difference there!


On the stitchy front, I've been plugging away at my "Castles in the Air" SAL, but it's time consuming.  Also been working on my Quaker Sampler.  I'm nearly finished w/my pinkeep for Becky's Pinkeep Exchange.  I recently won a couple of Ebay auctions for some Gentle Arts threads and also some Weeks Dye Works.  I think I'm coming to the realization that I really like the more subtle overdyed threads like Gentle Arts and Belle Soie.  Since I can't really afford Belle Soie, I've been picking up more and more of the GA.  My goal is to have 2 of each of their threads, so I can work a new piece whenever I want.  I need to purge my floss stash and either post it for sale on the ILCS group or put it up on Ebay.  I had bought quite a bit of overdyed flosses a while back, and have decided I probably won't use it after all.


Well, it's about time to put the youngest to bed, and try to work on my Pinkeep.  I need to have it shipped by April 1 and it's nearly done being stitched and then I just need to finish it.  Hopefully I will get that done on Sunday.  Take care!

It's been a couple of weeks - PICTURE HEAVY!

Well my Mom has come and gone along with the Olympics....  :(   She got here on Friday the 19th and left on Wednesday the 24th.  It was such a short visit, but full of love.  It was everything I had hoped it would be and I was able to finally talk to her about what happened to me during my childhood.  I wasn't sure how I would feel afterwards....would it change how I am or how I feel or react to things.  Honestly....I think it has.  I certainly feel more open with my husband.  Things just feel right.  It's hard to put it into words.

Anyway, while Mom was here I didn't really get any stitching done, but I sure did have fun showing her all my stitchy stuff!  I finally did a little stitching last night during Biggest Loser.  I'm working on a Pinkeep Exchange that Becky from Becky's Bee Stitching Hive is hosting.  I'm finishing it as a Biscornu, so that will be a new thing for me.  After I finish it, I'll post some pictures.  I'm hoping to work on either my Quaker Sampler or Castles tonight...not sure which.

So that leaves....pictures of course.  While Mom was here we drove down to our hometown of Freeport, IL where my niece & nephew live and visited them.  So the group pictures here are of them w/my kids (sans my son Caelan).  We had such a nice time.   Obviously the older woman in the pics is my Mom and the dark haired girl sitting w/my daughter is my niece Andrew who is 6 months younger than Therese.  Please enjoy my pictures!

 The last group shots are of my Mom's last day here.  I pulled the kids from school just after lunch so they could say their good-byes.  This is Great-Grandma holding Emma before she leaves.  It was very sad.