Spring and LOTS of Other Stuff

This will be long and rambling not like my other posts are any different so as Mouse would say grab a cuppa and settle in. I don't have a kettle and don't know the first thing about making a proper cup of tea but I am willing to try and do always have iced tea in the fridge and despite living in the south it is not sweet tea!

Thank you to everyone on the comments on my progress on Winter Watergarden. I do love Chatelaine designs and just wish I had the time to stitch more of them although looking at my WIP list time is not stopping me from starting them.

Where to begin? Well it is definitely spring here in central Virginia. Not that we had a winter to speak of but there is no question that the season is changing.

The dogwoods are just opening and should be beautiful in another few days. This one is in the woods around our house, so it is just an ordinary tree and not the showpiece you might find in an arboretum.

I have mentioned that I work in Washington DC, so instead of my usual three laps around the third floor the Department of Agriculture building is huge, each lap of the walking "trail" on the third floor is right around 6/10ths of a mile at lunch on Monday I meandered down to see the cherry blossoms.  It was a cool, partially cloudy day but it was so nice to get out of the building.

Unfortunately for the organizers of the Cherry Blossom Festival, the blossoms are not going to be around for the opening of the festival. These photos were taken on Monday, the flowers last about 10 days and the festival isn't due to open until next week sometime.

So where to next? Rebekah at The Stitching Frog kindly awarded me the Liebster Award. Thank You Rebekah.   Liebster is a German word, meaning favorite, dearest or beloved, and the Liebster is awarded by bloggers to other, newer bloggers who have fewer than 200 followers, to spread the word and help the new(er)bies gain wider recognition. The award comes with four conditions that each recipient must satisfy when accepting:

1. Choose five up-and-coming blogs (with fewer than 200 followers) to award the Liebster to.
2. Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.
3. Post the award on your blog. List the bloggers you are giving the award to with links to their sites. Leave comments on their blogs so they know about the award.
4. Share five random facts about yourself that people don't know about you.

 I have done #2 and part of #3, #1 will be a bit more difficult but I will work on it while I write this although I may just guide you all to my blog list (on the left side bar) and invite you to visit all of them. I jump off to lots of other blogs from these and it is so much fun to find a new blog.  And #4, five random facts about me.  I am a pretty random person, so you would think that would be easy, but it has had me stumped for the last couple of days, but here goes:

1.  I hate cooked raisins but will eat them "raw".

2. My favorite word is aardvark. I just like how it looks and sounds no great love for the animal although it is interesting.

3.  Yellow is my favorite color, followed closely by red

4.  I am not a morning person although I have had to make myself pretend to be one due to work

5.  I still watch Scooby-Doo cartoons

I won a give away!! Donna at By the Bay Needleart has been designing Stitch an Inch projects. Each chartpack contains seven designs - six major plus a bonus chart - that can be stitched all as one scene or as individual designs.  If you stitch 1-over-1 on 28-count fabric, they are one inch square.  I won her give away of Stitch an Inch "Winter". There was a slight mix-up in some mailings and she graciously sent me Stitch an Inch "Spring" as well. I am a total sucker for seasonal series and as I already had "Summer" and "Autumn"  I now have a complete set! I can't wait to get these into my rotation.

STASH!!! The remainder of my threads for Serengeti arrived this week!

These are the Dinky Dyes and Wildflowers that I ordered from Stitching Bits and Bobs:

And these are the Glorianas, Waterlilies and Petite Treasure Braids I ordered from Needlecraft Corner:

And yes, I did actually do some stitching this week.  In honor of the first day of Spring, I started Mirabilia's Santa's Magic.

I am stitching this on Silkweaver's 32-count opalescent Ametrine Jazlyn.  The opalescent seems to be showing up but the colors of the fabric aren't - ah well, if I took a good, true photo I wouldn't know what to do with it.  The red bit you see is metallic fiber. I am very glad I switched out the called for Kreinik #8 for Kreinik #4, I can't imagine trying to get #8 through the fabric.

If you made it this far - thank you.  Chatelaine's Hawaiian Garden is back on the frame and calling.  Happy stitching!!