Gifted Gorgeousness and it's IHSW!

After days with temperatures in the 80s a few weeks ago, we have been below normal the last week or so.  It has also been very windy - like blow my car around on the highway windy.  I don't drive a high profile vehicle so I am not used to it.  Ah well, I ran all my errands this afternoon, so I plan to stay in all weekend and participate in !! 


 is hosted by Joysze at Random Ramblings and Jo at Serendipitous Stitching.  There is also a Facebook group.  IHSW is a chance for us to be independent together - shout out to Hermey from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer for that.  Coincidentally, the little crab is also called Hermie .  Participation is easy, pop on over to Joysze's blog for all the "rules", but basically, you stitch as much as you can this weekend with people from around the world.  In addition to the outside errands, I almost have the laundry done and have slow cooker meals planned for tomorrow and Sunday so I should have plenty of stitching time available.  The Goldie Stocking is back on the frame for this weekend.  I think I forgot to show my progress from a couple weeks ago, so will do that now.  When you last saw Goldie, she was here:

and today she's here:

This shows the full width of the stocking top.  It starts narrowing down in a couple more rows to start the stocking shape.

It is also time for my  check-in.  Gifted Gorgeousness is hosted by Jo at Serendipitous Stitching.  Yes, the same Jo I mentioned above (she's a very busy lady with all her hosting and blog hops).  Gifted Gorgeousness is a way for us to thank someone for a gift of stitching supplies or to show something that we are stitching for a gift or anything else we can shoehorn into the theme.  Both of my focus pieces are gifts, so fit perfectly in this SAL.  I've shown you Goldie.  My second piece is Japanese Zen Garden by Chatelaine.  It was here when I posted the beginning of March: 

and when I put it away last weekend, I had gotten to here: 

This is on 32-count Summer Sky Jobelan with Martina's DMC conversion.

I also had some progress on Just Nan's Happy Bluebird  

It's a bit crumpled as I'm stitching this one in-hand.  Not as much progress as I would have liked as I found a counting mistake and had to pull out all but about 10 stitches.  Now that the backbone of the piece is in, I should be okay.

Getting very excited, as Thursday I head off to Michigan for my weekend at Camp Stitchalot hosted by Stitches 'n Things.  After the seemingly never ending stress of the last few months, I am looking forward to some quality stitching and family time.