Going home -- and London stash

Sunday the 14th was travel day for the father type and I.  Father type flew on to Dublin for business, while I flew home.

There were so many duty free shops at Heathrow!  Pretty amazing!

This was the fancy schmancy part -- with Burberrys and Harrods and other fine stores.

Goodbye, London.

I missed International Knitting in Public Day by a day.  Does knitting on a plane count?

Eastern tip of Long Island??

And now pictures of my purchases in London.  Not tooooo many.  :D

An old Elizabeth II tin, a Buckingham Palace ornament, and a piece of Liberty Tana Lawn I've had trouble tracking down (in this colorway at least).  I love how everything matches!

A needlepoint kit from Liberty London.  I've drooled over this for ages.

And a sweater's worth (there's more in the bag) of Eden Cottage Yarn Bowland DK from Loop London.  I had to try some British wool!  Yes, I have a pattern picked out, but I don't want to jinx myself so I won't say which one.  (The bag isn't a purchase.  It was used as my bag for my purchases -- which I love!)

I also picked up this Banksy t-shirt.  Don't you love it?

The father type has his own souvenirs (much less than me, of course), and we also picked up some souvenirs for the kids.  But that's it!  I toted a suitcase to London that was empty on one side.  That side was pretty full on the way home!

I have started both the Kiss kit (which turns out to be in cross stitch -- hooray!) and started my sweater.

The father type also brought back a scarf from the Book of Kells Exhibit at Trinity College in Dublin for me.

I hope you've enjoyed my posts about our London trip.  It was a wonderful trip for us, to a place I've always wanted to visit.  I was in London only once before, as a small child, and I was sick most of the time and didn't care a bit for the place back then.  What a treat for me now though!  I loved how different London is from the US, with beautiful old buildings, cool chimneypots, and of course the ever present double decker buses, phone boxes, mail boxes, and London cabs.  I hope we get to go back someday.  I would love to visit London again, plus other parts of the UK.

Thank you, father type, for a lovely anniversary present.  I will never forget our special time in London.

It's been 16 years....

I did finish my Guernsey Wrap from Brooklyn Tweed.

I still have to block it, but I will get to that.  Sometime.  lol!  I used Brooklyn Tweed Shelter in Soot.

I started a new project -- it's the Messalina Shawl by Kay Jones of the Bakery Bears Podcast.  I love their podcast and I love knitting this shawl as well!

This is my progress so far.  I'm using Clara Yarn Cormo 2.0 in Sky -- I'm enjoying knitting for the first time with Cormo wool.

If you enjoy knitting podcasts, do check out the Bakery Bears.  :D

Something exciting happened this weekend.  The father type and I bought a car!  My old car was 16 years old, and I didn't trust it for much besides very local trips.  So this is a wonderful happening for me!  A rare treat!

Here are a couple of relics from when the kids were tiny that I found in my car.  Proof of how old the car is -- and how often I thoroughly clean out my car.  lol!

Here's my new car!

I love my new Honda CRV!

Love the color so so much!  It's called something like Mountain Air.  lol!

The father type and I took the car for a drive Sunday.  And where else would I elect to go but a yarn store?

We went to White Barn Farm,  and what a lovely store it is!

And it turns out there was a Hudson Valley Yarn Crawl going on.  I would have loved to go on the yarn crawl, but I figured one yarn store was tempting enough!

Here's my stash from White Barn Farm -- all locally made yarns, and all lovely!

We also went into the "downtown" area of New Paltz, wandered into book stores and chocolate stores, and had burritos at a yummy place.

It was great to take a drive in the new car on a lovely, sunny (if chilly) day.

While the father type and I were enjoying the weekend,  the girl child went to visit her brother in Boston.  They kept me somewhat up to date on their ventures, but not entirely -- of course.  lol!  Here is one picture the girl child sent me, from Newbury Street.  Can't remember the name of the store with the window display of sewing machines, but my girl knows I love that window!  See my babies in the window?

I recently moved things around a tiny bit and put a bench in front of one of Mia's favorite windows.  She seems to enjoy it.

Thanks as always for stopping by and saying hi.  I hope everyone has a great week.  I'm still rooting for spring!

Freedom, stitching, stash and etc.

We spent the day yesterday helping the girl child pack up her belongings at college and bring them home for the summer. I think this says it all for the students at the end of the year:



This is me and my large behind going into the girl child's dorm. So flattering!




The father type all set to help with the packing. (He tends to be the camera guy on adventures like this.)




Packing.





I took the following picture. I thought it was rather symbolic. The last things to leave the dorm room: the girl child's wallet -- complete with iphone, id, money and keys, her laptop, and her two most loved stuffed animals from the time she was tiny.



In other news, because of the packing, I didn't get much stitching done. At least I got that bottom vine done.




And a bit of one tree.




I feel like these trees will be my downfall......




But enough of those trees. Guess what was waiting for me in the mail when we got home from the college move? My lovely quilt scraps from Kim (KwiltyKim)! I won Kim's scrap fabric giveaway! As you can see, she gave me huge scraps of fabric -- I bet I could make a whole quilt out of them! Plus a little fabric bundle of wool, a little journal or notebook, and -- AND! -- the pattern for the eagle applique that she made a while back (which also contains patterns for some other little quilts too!)!!!


Thank you soooo much, Kim! You're the best! And BTW, Kim has a great ebay thing going if you're looking for fabric. There's a link on her blog. I'm already planning on buying at least 3 different fabric lines that are coming out -- not a good thing, especially since 1. I haven't made a quilt in 3 years, and 2. I don't have a working sewing machine at the moment since mine are busted. :( But that hasn't stopped me yet!

A last little picture here that I'm rather proud of. Rechelle, the Country Doctor's Wife, whose blog is now called My Sister's Farmhouse, is having a fun giveaway. Really fun to do. I shouldn't be telling you about this since you all will decide to enter too and ruin my chances of winning. But what the heck. :D You get a group of similar items together, name the group of similar items, and send the picture in to Rechelle. Here's my entry, of which I am rather proud, as I have stated.




It's -- ready? -- a Flourish of Musical Instruments! Isn't that great? The father type helped me come up with the name. Now what do you win if you win, you ask? Truth to tell, I have no clue! lol! It was just such fun to make something up! If you want to see what Rechelle and those who have entered the contest have come up with, go to Rechelle's blog. There are lots of fun ones. And I would go to Rechelle's blog anyway. It's one of my favorites!

Now I'm off to tackle the 3 huge garbage bags of laundry which came home in the car with us from college. The girl child would be doing it all herself if it weren't for this thing she has coming up late next week. More on that later...... Sigh....... Enjoy the rest of the long weekend!

Brightneedle class, stash, and more Rachel

Just got back from a class at my LNS! I went to Where Victoria's Angels Stitch to attend my second in person Brightneedle class. (I've taken some online classes as well.) This was the class piece, Good Fortune.





This is what the kit looked like (along with my Little Gem scissors by Kelmscott Designs that I picked up today).




It came with a nice little wooden ruler to stick in the ruler case.

I was so excited to meet one of my online friends, Karin! She's very nice in person, and has this lovely accent. (I love cool accents.) And she had a nice cosmetic bag from Vera Bradley that was perfect for carrying stitching tools in! I swore I wasn't going to buy anymore Vera Bradley! lol!

Anyway, Ann Pettit of Brightneedle taught the class. Liz Knudsen wasn't able to come, but I did get to meet her last fall when I took another class from Brightneedle at the same LNS. The fall class was Cape Cod Passport.




While I didn't put a single stitch in today's class, I can show what progress I made on last fall's class. Nope, I didn't finish it, but if you want to see some Brightneedle class finishes, go to my Photobucket album (there's a link on the sidebar to the right).







Hopefully, I'll finish both these projects, plus the Dreamkeeper Etui which I also haven't finished, sometime in the future.

While there, instead of starting the class piece, I did some stashing! lol! I hadn't been to my LNS in so long, so I went a bit crazy. :D Had to pick up a few of the pieces I hadn't gotten yet from Nashville market.




The DMC is for a freebie I'm planning to stitch up sometime. A few more market items.




And some classic reproductions that I just had to have. (Ok, so Ewe and Eye and Friends doesn't fit into this category. Sorry!)




Ann was also teaching another class in the afternoon, but since I'd already stitched that one, I came home and am now blogging.

On a different subject, I haven't posted any progress pics of Rachel Hyde recently, so here she is in all her glory.



I think she's just soooooooooo pretty!!!





I think that's all the news. Except that I've already signed up for the next Brightneedle class to take place in the fall at my LNS. And I hear that another designer will be there on another day -- and I will definitely sign up for that as well! lol!


And finally, as per request, here is a picture of the Blackbird Designs fabric that I picked up last weekend in Rhode Island. The picture is a bit washed out, but hopefully you get the idea.




It's sunny and warm today -- finally feeling like summer! Of course, I would have preferred staying with spring, but whatever! lol!

Thanks for visiting -- I love reading your comments and knowing you're all out there! Have a great weekend!