Stitching and the Military Ball

First of all, I want to tell you how much I missed all of you!

This week, I finally got a chance to stitch. Yes, you read it right. I. STITCHED.
I worked on my 2 pieces that "Shall Not Be Shown" (exchange pieces) and I stitched on Bea.

Below is my progress (click and it'll get BIG):


As you can see, I am nearing the finish! YAY!!! I love Bea and I will be sorry to hang up my needle with her but honestly, Bea, you are quite the demanding girlfriend!! Every time I sat down to stitch, YOU cried the loudest and then pouted until I picked you up and stitched on you. And if I left you alone, you unleashed the frogs just to let me know that you were upset to be neglected. Because of you, I have 2 exchanges to complete in 2 weeks, you Vixen!

Now on to family stuff...you can stop reading if you don't want to hear about the Military Ball.

Two weeks ago, we attended the Cadet's final Military Ball. We had such a great time. It's such a special evening, filled with good food, an engaging speaker and awards. This year was no exception. Even though the Cadet didn't receive any awards, we are still very proud of him.

Here we all are..

And another family pic:



The DH and the Cadet:


And the Cadet and his lovely bride-to-be:

The Cadet received his assignment, upon his commissioning as a Second Lietenant in October, he will be going to Intel school in Texas for 7 months. From there, I don't know...one step at a time.

Right now, we are planning graduations, the DH graduates with his Masters in Education, the lovely Jenna graduates with a BS in Elementary Education and the Cadet will graduate with a BS in Criminal Justice. I am also hip deep in planning a girly-girl bridal shower in July and getting together a bunch of things for the happy couple. I started the wedding sampler (just basting guidelines cause I am waiting on thread) and I am putting together a scrapbook for them. Also, I am trying to gather recipes for a cookbook too. Somewhere in the midst of all this, I have to find a dress for the wedding, a restaurant for the rehearsal dinner and so much more, I just can't remember. Before you know it, the wedding will be here!!

Busy times!

So, I hope all of you are well and are finding more time than me to stitch. I promise though, I'll be posting more pictures soon. I actually put ALL my wips together in one spot (and I won't tell you how many I have...let's just say I have Stitcher's ADD) so I can pick and choose what I want to work on. I know the focus piece will be the wedding sampler but I hope to finish up some of the pieces that are 3/4 complete. This year, I haven't finished one thing except for a few exchanges! What's up with that!!!

Take care everyone, and to all you Mom's out there...Happy Mother's Day! I wish you a wonderful day surrounded by the love of your family. For me, it's going to be a quiet day...we will go to church and just spend the rest of the day at home. The David will be grilling steaks, the Cadet will make a phone call and so will my sweet MIL. And I'll be thinking of my Mom.

Have a sweet day, Mom's everywhere!

Military Ball and Stitching News

On Friday night, David and I attended the AirForce ROTC Military Ball. It was a dinner/dance/awards ceremony for the Cadets. We were all dolled up in our evening attire:


Mike really cleans up good, don't you think?
Dinner was scrumptious and Mike was awarded 2 certificates for leadership. We are very proud of him. There was a dance following the awards ceremony, but of course, we didn't stay long. We didn't want to embarrass the kids with our dancing...LOL!!!

On Saturday, we took Mike's motorcycle to the repair shop (what an adventure that was!), made the rounds of the stores in the Mall because Mike needed some things for when he goes to Combative School at the end of May. Did I tell you that he's going to learn the fine art of hand-to-hand combat? I can't wrap my head around that at all.

We met Jenna's parents at one of the local steakhouses for lunch. Jenna's parents are so nice and we felt very comfortable with them. I have to say that I was sorta nervous about the whole thing, I am not a good conversationalist and Mike made me promise not to embarrass him too much. I think I kept that to a minimum and I think Jenna's parents thought we were ok too.
We got home in the early evening. All in all, we had a wonderful time with our son, his girlfriend and her parents!

On the stitching front, I finished Blackbird Designs, Their Song.

I want to get it framed right away and the week I put the last stitches in it, Michaels had a 60% off coupon for framing. Against my better judgement, I decided to give it a go. Well, I won't be going back there to have anything framed. The puppy behind the counter was pretty condescending. I asked him a 100 questions and he insisted that I put a mat on the piece because he told me that they wouldn't be able to stretch it evenly and the mat would hide it. Are you kidding, I thought? If it's stretched crooked, how will putting a mat on it straighten it out? I sorta raised my eyebrow at him and he stammered, "You know something about framing, don't you?" Yeah, I do and I told him I knew he was bullsh*tting me. He turned crimson and said, "Well the average person doesn't know anything about framing". So I politely said to him that I would stretch the piece myself and when the materials come in they can call me to bring the piece in to finish framing it. I only brought it to Michaels because I knew it would cost me less than $50 to have it framed. But never again. It's worth it to take my needlework to the real framer, even though it costs much more than the local arts and crafts store. I guess trying to pinch pennies doesn't mean much when compared to the amount of time I spent stitching it. I've learned my lesson!!

Next is my progress on Nellie's Garden Revisited and 2 new acquisitions to my ever growing stash. I love Stacy Nash! The left photo is her 1802 Biscornu Pinkeep and the right is Emma & her Pony needleroll. Sorry for the blurry pictures, the camera is refusing to focus if I zoom in.

I haven't worked on Nellie since last week. I am not in the mood for big pieces so I am concentrating on stitching smalls. They are giving me instant gratification so there's instant satisfaction. But I am surprised how long it's taking me to stitch them up too!

Right now, I am in the mood for quick finishes. I have the attention span of a gnat right now so large projects aren't holding my attention. Soon, I will have a new mattress style pincushion and 2 pillow type pincushions. I am piecing together the Mary Garry's, Raining Pins and Needles right now. I hope I haven't ruined it though cause I got the bright idea to angle the corners instead of making it a rectangle. The corners are coming out rounded. We will see how it comes together. I took a picture of it but true to my crappy camera, the photo was so blurred you couldn't make it out. Now the camera refuses to come on...grr-rr so I can't take another picture of it.

The weekend is beautiful, it's like summer here. We planted (or I should say, the David) planted 4 forsythia and 2 lilac bushes for me this morning. I know how he hates digging holes for me cause he thinks it's going to be more work for him. I bought these plants at the Christmas Tree Store and didn't pay more than $3.99 - $4.99 for them so if they don't make it, I'm not out much money at all.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and I am so thankful that you stopped by to say hi!