Arizona Dreaming

I'm back from a trip to Scottsdale, Arizona, one of my favorite places to visit.  Why?  It's warm and SUNNY!  After months of cold, snow and dreariness it's wonderful to sit by a pool and soak in sun.  Lots of it.  They had unusually warm temperatures while we were there which was just fine with me.  85 - 91 degrees.  Sweet. 

One of my side trips was to Taliesin West.  It was the winter camp of Frank Lloyd Wright.  An artist community designed by him.  I had taken the tour a few years ago and it was crazy busy this year so I only took a few pictures of the property.  If you get a chance, it's worth your while to visit.

My DH, Rich, was in Scottsdale for a business conference and I was his tag-a-long.  It was a wonderful Westin resort property.  This was the view from our little balcony.  On the left is a walkway (you can't see it) and it is lined in orange trees.  They were just starting to bloom.  Oh my goodness!  It was a little bit of heaven to walk that a couple of times a day.

One of my favorite stitching store newsletters comes from The Attic.  Stitching enticement.  I map quested their store from our hotel and learned they were only 20 minutes away.  No brainer.  The highlight of the trip for me! (besides the sun)  Imagine my dismay when I reached for the door handle to pull, pull again - WHAT!   IT'S LOCKED!  No WAY!  Yes, it was.  But, slowly the door opened and they let me in!  I found out they restock on Mondays but there was a group in from Canada that had made special plans to shop that day.  When they found out I was from Ohio, they took pity on me. 

Here is a very short tour.  This is the main display area.  Notice the two versions of their sampler of the month 'American Sampler'.  There's so much to see here.  I could have spent a few hours but it was probably better that I didn't.  I did enough damage.

That's the silk fiber wall in the back.  This side of the store's models were not samplers.  Lots and lots of linen to go through and more and more racks of charts.

These two walls are filled with samplers.  So much to see and lots and lots of variety in charts and designers.

This is one of the charts I got.

Here are two more that I couldn't resist.  I love the colors in them.  I got the linen for all of them.

Here's the linen and most of the silks for the Margaret W. Brown #28.  It was their sampler of the month a couple of months ago.  I took pictures of my charts with their linen but can you believe, the pictures were horrible because it was too bright?

This is where I stitched on my last day of vacation.  There were very comfy chairs and sofas under the trees around the fountain.  So relaxing, and warm, and sunny.  ahhhh

There were lots of these little critters hopping around the property.  Cute little Easter bunnies. 

Well, back to reality.  It sure was fun, and warm and sunny.  Thanks Rich.

Marsha

So we went from a cool spring with all the bulbs jumping out of the ground, the promise of warmer weather,

to this scene, this morning. Sheesh. Very happy to say it's all gone now but what a jolt to the senses.

'I Sigh Not for Beauty' is going to be a fairly big sampler and I am really enjoying stitching on it. I started on the alphabet and intend to do some real damage on it this week.

And here is 'Peony Hill' using the DMC colors that were called for. The middle of the big pink flowers are a specialty stitch (not hard) but I'm saving them until later when most of the stitching is done. This has been a fun stitch too. See that shiny thread running through the middle and cross wise? That's a sulky thread on a spool. I have blue and silver and it's impervious to the needle so it slides right out when I'm ready to remove it. I took a chance and started 'Sarah Owens' in the upper left. I've never started that way. It doesn't have a square corner but I figured out where it should be and began. Yeah, that's the last time I do that. Now I'm back to starting in the middle, where it's safe.

I've listened to 'A Fair Maiden' by Joyce Carol Oates, 'The Red Queen' by Phillpa Gregory and I'm almost through 'Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince'. I love to stitch while listening to an audio book. I don't know what I'm going to do when Harry Potter is over. I didn't like 'The Order of the Phoenix' as much as the others and this one is really good. I started listening to books on tape with Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series. I just listened to her 16th and now will have to wait until she writes another and then the library gets the audio book. My DH got me a Kindle for Christmas and I love it. How nice to read a book on a thin light weight device. I really enjoy it. I also downloaded Scrabble so that keeps me interested when I don't feel like reading. Have to keep that mind sharp!



And here are the completed Christmas ornaments. I just happened to pick up a bag of small jingle bells recently and thought it would look just right on the candy cane. I'll finish, finish these in the fall or maybe with Rita's help this summer.

Hopefully I'll get my pictures taken in the daylight from now on.  (Providing we get some sunny days)  These were taken at night so they are really poor quality. Sorry.


Marsha