Well, La D Da!

Dear friends,

It snowed like crazy here today.  The sky was gray and the snowflakes were small but it came down heavy and the foggy, snowy air made everything look like we were truly in the midst of winter's embrace and not like we're on the cusp of Spring.  With the snow today, and the sub zero temperature we're supposed to have on Thursday, this will go down as the worst winter on record for the Detroit metro area.  Whoop-doop-de-do!   When Spring does arrive, and the snow starts to melt, we are going to have lakes of mucky, dirty water on our lawns, roads and trails, for quite a while.  Dog feet are going to have to be wiped constantly!

Enough about the weather...

I have finished the stitching on a piece we are doing for a La D Da class in our guild.  Lori is coming in April to teach her name tag bag and a pin keep drum.  I love most of what Lori designs and have stitched several of her pieces.  Sadly, what she came up with for our guild, I did not love.  It just wasn't what I expected. I think she designs a different bag design each time she teaches this class.  I hate to say, I wasn't thrilled with what she came up with.   It just didn't have the pretty, primitive feel most of her designs do and I didn't want to stitch it.   What to do?  I didn't want to spend time stitching something I didn't like so I borrowed a design of Lori's I do love and went to town.  I used her new, limited addition Birdy Stitching Roll pattern, moved the motifs around to fit the bag, and ta-da!    I did add several colors to kit provided for the bag and it doesn't match the Stitching Roll exactly, but I do think they'll be nice together.

Edited to add: Why do my pictures look so crappy, unless you click on them?  Anyone?  I know - they don't look all that great when you do click on them but they're REALLY bad unless you do.

Help!

The picture above is the truest to the linen color and the patterns pictured are the Birdy Stitching Roll on the left, name tag bag in the center and drum pinkeep on the right.

The sage, floral fabric will be the lining of the bag (I think).  The three pieces came pre-sewn together in the kit.

Now I have to get busy on the pin keep drum stitching so I can finish it in class, as well!

Thanks for all the congrats on Ty!  His visit home seemed all too short and he's now in North Carolina at the School of Infantry.   He'll be a great Marine!

Time to stop.  I've gotta go watch "Survivor".  It's a guilty pleasure.  I've watched it since it first came on the air and I would have loved to compete.  I think I could have kicked ass, back in the day.

REALLY.  I BELIEVE.  

The gross food challenges would have been my biggest stumbling block.  Still, I would have loved to try.   My chipper in the morning personality might have gotten me booted faster than anything else!  It seems to me that far more people are not happy risers than are.  Which one are you?  Would my singing in the morning irritate you?  What would you do if I sang out of tune?  I love the Joe Cocker version of that song; it's one of my favorites.

Sing it today, with or without a little help from your friends!

Have a great weekend, thanks for stopping by and thank you for leaving me a note!

You're the best and I'm grateful you've stuck around!

Peace and Love,

Terri

Marines, Samplers and Friends

Dear friends!

     Okay.  I have so much to tell you!  First, and most importantly, allow me to introduce you to the newest Marine in my family!  

Private Tyler Malinovich, USMC.

He graduated from boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina on 2-14-2014. 

Isn't that an awesome graduation date and an awesome official portrait!?

Do you know our young marines have to buy all their uniforms?  

Including their dress blues you see in the picture above.  

Not only do we pay our guys and gals squat, they have to pay for their own uniforms.  Grrrrr....

This next picture was taken on Family Day (the day before the graduation) and Ty got to show us all around the depot.  Marines only get to pass through these doors one time... the night they arrive for in-processing.  

That's when the torture transformation begins.

Tyler was so honored to have not only his dad and me at the graduation but also 

my parents and my uncle Charlie and his fiance, Nelly.  

My uncle graduated from Parris Island in August of 1959 and this was the first time he'd been back.

My dad has a brother who was also a Marine and I wish he'd been alive to see this.  

He would have loved it, I think.

You may notice that Matthew is not in the pictures.  

His flight on Wednesday evening was cancelled due to mechanical trouble and by the next morning, the big snow storm had hit and his flight was cancelled due to bad weather.  

So... he wasn't able to attend.  

We (and Matt and Ty, especially) were so disappointed.

It was a cold and windy day on family day and by the end of the day, we were all a little worse for wear but as you can see, all happy to be there.  

Not sure that Tyler had relaxed enough to smile at this point.

Uncle Charlie and Nelly, my mom, Ty, me, Rob and my dad.

My dad and mom on the left, Tyler and Uncle Charlie after graduation.

Rob, Ty and me.

Before Rob and I arrived at Parris Island, we spent a few days in Savannah.  

What a beautiful place that is with so much to see and do.

We had a most wonderful dinner at The Pink House and just shopped and bopped around town for a couple of days.  

The problem with blogging is that instagram and facebook often get the pictures before I get them up on the blog because it's so quick and easy.

So, all you guys that are FB friends and Instagram followers, 

my apologies for the duplicate pictures.

This was taken at the best store (IMHO) in Savannah, The Paris Market.  

They had this sweet banner hung up for pictures and we couldn't resist.

Actually, some other people that we didn't know were taking our pictures, too.

Why would anyone want pics of someone they didn't know?

This may be my favorite wall of all places I've ever been.  

It is in the DAR cemetery in Savannah and I just love it.  

These are headstones that have floated out of their resting spot at some point and put on the wall for safe keeping.

Finally, some stitching:

This pic is from my friend Lynn's FB page but it's a part of the group of 13 friends from our guild (Kindred Spirits Sampler Guild) that will be stitching a Friendship Sampler over the next year.

Edwina, Lynn, Mary, Pat and Nancy (in back), Julie, me and Paulette.

We all will stitch the same band on each others sampler but because of the rotation, threads and fabric selected by each individual stitcher, they will all look different.  Each person provides their own threads so no two samplers will look the same.  

You may or may not choose to stitch something at the top of your band.  

I chose to stitch something in advance because I know when I get it back in a year, I will not want to put one more stitch in it!  

This is what I came up with:  

The top portion was taken from "A Quaker Pincushion" from A Carriage House Samplings.  Because this is a friendship sampler, I amended her words (a name and removed the quaker medallions) to include this passage from the Bible.

The bees and skep were taken from A Goode Huswife chart called "The Bird Tree" and the flowers are from a Blue Ribbon Designs chart called "Heart of Gold".

I'm pretty pleased with how it came together and can't wait to see what the other 12 bands will look like!  Each band is supposed to be 20 stitches tall and 80 stitches wide.  We are able to increase or decrease the height slightly but the width is an absolute.  Check back in a year for the grand reveal.  

Tonight is Ty's last night with us before heading to the 

School of Infantry in North Carolina for about 8 weeks or so.

I wish him luck and love!

I'm so very proud of him.  

He has worked hard and overcome some major obstacles to get the right to earn the title of 

United States Marine.  

OooRah!

Have a wonderful week, everyone!  Thanks for stopping by and for all the lovely comments you leave.  They make this process of blogging worthwhile.  After all, if no one read or commented, what would be the point?  So a hearty thank you!!!

Check me out on FB and Instagram if you haven't already.

Love and Peace,

Terri