Hello Everyone! It is going to be a hot one here in Vancouver, Washington. Totally California weather with it hitting upper 90’s (maybe) for the next 3-4 days. Update on the daughter and her husband, they left Thursday for their honeymoon at Yellowstone/Grand Teton National Parks. They were excited to be going. Caitlin has been before but that was back in 2001 so she doesn’t remember much. This will be Jannes first time! Original plans were for last year and I was going with them. Since I decided to move, I didn’t want to make a committment to going this year. Now I am glad they have a the next two weeks to themselves doing what they love.
As promised on Tuesday, I will give you a quick update on what I did with my guests ( grandson Shaun & my sister Dorothy and her husband Jesse) while they were here. It gave me an opportunity to do some exploring in my new home.
The first day after the wedding was spent recovering.❤️🩹 LOL!😆. The next day I took everyone down to the Vancouver Waterfront for a few hours and a nice walk and lunch afterwards. The Columbia River always hits me as being so awesome! I forgot to take pictures that day so here is a pic from my first visit to the Waterfront July 2024. The moment when I knew I was moving to Vancouver.
The next day I had setup to meet my nephew Ian and his fiancee Sarah to check out the cute little science museum in Portland, OR (across the Columbia) called Oregon Museum of Science & Industry. The natives refer to it as OMSI. It is really a great place if you have elementary school age kids. Lots of hands on activities. We happen to be there with the special Jurassic World Lego Exhibit. Since we are fun loving lego enthusiasts, we really enjoyed this exhibit. The other normal exhibits were interesting as well. It just took a few hours to see everything. I wish I had gotten a picture of Ian & Sarah but I didn’t #sigh. They live in Portland and I hope to see them often.
Shaun left to go home the next day, so there was not much sightseeing happening. We did squeeze in a walk to the turtle pond at Salmon Creek Park which is close to my house. A moment of nature so close to home. We also had coffee with the new husband so Dorothy & Jesse could meet Jannes. Nice relaxed day.
Per Jannes suggestion, we did the Hood River Fruit Loop next. Unfortunately it is very early in the season and there is not much fruit ready for harvest. But not to worry, we got to see the Hood River area where we visited and Hard Cider Brewery/Distillery, Draper Girls Farm Stand, a lavendar farm, and Apple Valley Country Store. Along the way we went to the recommended BBQ restaurant called Apple Valley BBQ. The expert BBQ on staff (Jesse) gave it 5 stars. LOL! We had a great day.
Their last day in Vancouver was spent prepping for them to hit the road early Saturday morning and we decided to BBQ. Just one little problem. I didn’t have a BBQ. Off to Home Depot with Jesse I go. I am now a proud owner of a BBQ. Food was delicious. I was sad to see everyone go even though not much creative things happened with family and events for the past 10 days. Hence, no blog last week. But I have things to share this week. Let’s get to it.
June WIPGO picks
Project 21: A Field Guide to Dragons by Climbing Goat Designs
To say I was unprepared for this random new start to pop is an understatement. So I was very conservative in my WIPGO Goal – 1000 stitches. This week I found and trimmed the PDF file so I could import it into my app Markup R-XP. Easy import as it was automatic which was nice. I made my floss list so I can go through my stash of floss (which I found this week!!!) then I will be placing my order for anything missing. I know I purchased the fabric, I just need to find it. I have not actually looked for it but I am hoping it is in the fabric stash I found this week as well. I am looking forward to starting such a fun project.
Project 23: Pop of Patriotic by Bent Creek
When this project popped up, I panicked. Can you imaging how thrilled I was to actually find the kit yesterday! Now I am just relieved to have found it. I have finished all the seasons (Autumn, Winter, Spring, Summer) and am now doing the “other” ones that come out. I decided on Patriotic because it felt right. Plus who wouldn’t want to stitch that cute little bald eagle? My WIPGO goal is to start & finish this month.
Starts & Finishes
Turns out that I didn’t have any new starts or finishes in the last two weeks. Surprised me too. But when I looked closer they all happened before all the fun!
WIP Updates
While I normally would be giving you my May WIPGO results, because of the length of this post with all the non stitchy news, I will save the results to next week.
WIPGO Project: Crescent City Velaris by Woven Wild Crafts
My goal was 2000 stitches and here I am sitting at 1600. While I have done really well, still want to finish up the final 400 and then do 400 more for June. I learned a little more about my app I use that should make it a little easier. I am so close to being done with my first page. It is starting to feel like something.
September Calendar Crates by Stitching with the Housewives
I am really flowing with this particular project. I have finished the big sign and the center with the house/truck/stack of pumpkins. I am now working on the winding “sides” before starting the “top” border. Love these colors. After working on so much 18 ct, working on 14 ct seems so … nice and easy.
Shabby Winter Calendar by Cuore e Batticuore
It took two nights but I was able to finish Day 13 of my Shabby Winter Calendar. I have elected to work on this and my Christmas Calendar all year in 2025 until it is finished. The winter Calendar only has 20 days so that means only 7 left then the bottom title section. If I keep doing one day per month, I won’t quite finish it before December but that is okay, it will be finished by February for sure.
Spring Baskets by Hands on Design
I enjoyed working on this 16 ct project after working with some crazy small 18 ct work. I focused on doing the tops of all the orange/yellow flowers now that I have more than half of the design done. Then I realized that I could finish off a few colors so started working on that. This is the first chart of 3 in the Spring designs. When I finish Spring, I will have completed stitching all of them. Summer is a FFO and I put it out last night to admire for the next 3 months. I will need to get back to working on the Autumn ones soon.
November Snapshot by Pine Mountain Designs
When I downloaded my photos, I realized I didn’t take a picture of the whole design last night after working on my turkey. So you get to see the last full picture and a closeup of my turkey I worked on last night. I plan to finish this one this month and after last night, it is a shoe in. This is my final project in the series, then I will need to get serious about FFO all of them. They finish so as to fit into an 8×10 frame so it really should be very simple.
Reflections
Sorry about the length of this post. So much to share after two weeks. Probably should have made all the travel stuff a seperate post, but oh well!
With the move, I have a lot of WIPGO projects to catch up on now that I have found 95% of my stuff (for cross stitch anyway). I have the following WIPGO projects to catch up on:
- MARCH: Project 9: 2025 SJ Temp Moon Phases through March: This one has been tough because I am having a hard time being motivated. The moons 🌒 are harder than one would think and take a lot of focus unlike my library last year. I find myself skipping it often.
- APRIL: Project 4: Prairie Schooler Santa 2010 start & finish: Now that I have found it, I can’t imagine this not happening quickly. If I don’t finish in June, surely July is reasonable.
- MAY: Project 5: Crescent City Velaris 2000 stitches: I finished over 1600 in May but I still have another 400 to go. So as to not lose out on the momentum I set a goal of 800 for the month of June. Wish me luck!
- MAY: Project 19: Winter Camper work on 5x: I am not going to lie. I was disappointed that I found this one yesterday but I am determined to finish it anyway. So, it will stay out until I work on it 5x before December. I am to put it away by end of summer.
That catches you up on the WIPGO “catchup”. What to do next week? Here are my thoughts:
- Find my dragon fabric
- Order my dragon missing floss and pull the ones I have. Start kitting it up.
- Finish November Snapshot
- Work on Winter Camper one night this next week
- Start Prairie Schooler Santa 2010. – Got it loaded last night. Ready to go!
- Work on The Shepherd one night this week
- February Month 2 Month – 400 stitches
- Start February Square Dance (small stitch for 2025 which I am soooo behind on)
- 400 stitches on Crescent City Velaris to finish up the May WIPGO goal
Stay cool everyone and good luck on all things creative! Thank you for stopping by. Until next Tuesday….
Peggy Stockwell in Vancouver, Washington