Secret Stitcher and a Giveaway Win

I am currently fighting a whopper of a summer cold which I managed to share with most of the family.  Temperatures here have  been HOT - high 90's, and we are making due without the comforts of air conditioning.  The mornings are cool, thank goodness, so I can get some housework done.

The guild I belong to Tudor Rose Sampler Guild had a secret stitcher program going which concluded in June.  We were to stitch two things for our secret stitcher during the year - here is what I stitch for my secret stitcher.

I apologize that I do not have a better picture of it - don't know what I was thinking.  Its a freebie from A Mon Ami Pierre, stitched on 40 count linen, trimmed with a silk ruched ribbon.   The second thing I stitched was a floss tag to match an Olde Colonial kit that I knew my secret stitcher had bought because she really loves turtles.

I attached a large skein of silk floss that matched the colors of a turtle as much as possible.

Here is what my secret stitcher stitched for me.  A BBD Strawberry and

And a lovely BBD House which was one of the extras in the Loose Feather series of from last year.

I love both of them.  

I also won a  wonderful, patriotic giveaway from Jules.  It arrived here right before Independence Day - how very appropriate.  I really was tickled by the items Jules included, all packaged in a beautiful box:

The theme of the giveaway had to do with the armed forces,  so Jules included candy from the USO, dog tags and a fantastic biscornu of which I have close- ups below.  The candy was gobbled up by the kids, I got to hang on to the mints, the wonderful hand sanitizer ( can't have enough of that these days), and the scissors - although it the girls really wanted then.  My oldest daughter collects postcard, my youngest got the cute charm bracelet and the boys wrestled over the dog tags .  The fab biscornu now sits in my DH's office and you will see why.

Top

Bottom

Side - It says "Army" so cool

Jules, thank you for such a wonderful package, we all had a lots of fun with it.

My three large projects are coming along - Catherine Theron's Americana Sewing Roll & my Peaceful Kingdom Sampler and ATS.  I also started stitching EftH Evil Serpent so I can actually finish something.

It is stitched on a piece of 40 count Zweigart linen that Margit gave me with my own selection of HDF colors.  I accidentally reversed the border and alphabet colors, but it is staying this way.  

Please give your air conditioners a kiss from me and stay cool.

A Zip Through the Woods

We had a great family fun day yesterday.  We went to a place called Kletterwald ( which  means climbing forest).  Its a zip line/ obstacle climbing place in the woods, and we had a blast.  To start, we had to get harnessed in.  The guy in front was quite cute, and that is Olivia in the back making sure my rear is secure.

After a short course in safety & a practice run about 3 feet of the ground, we set off on the first course.  Here is Alex getting ready for his first zip line.  I am really proud of him because he is quite afraid of heights.

Erika made the whole thing look easy, you can see me in the background starting on another zip line. 

Here Erika, Alex, Adam and I are working our way through Course #2.

Skateboarding through the trees was way more fun than skateboarding on the ground.

Obstacle course #3 was quite the challenge.  These suspended bars were not steady at all but swung and wobbled all over the place.  Olivia looks like she is just zipping across these, but in reality it took a good while, with some panic thrown in.  I was covered in sweat after these and I had to check to see if my arms were still with me.  

Shortly thereafter we encountered this...

Actually, Olivia and I were there first, but just could not get across, so when Adam got there, he demonstrated and we followed.

The a slight misshap - I say slight, I am sure Adam felt differently.

While swinging across the treetops a la Tarzan, the saftey rope was caught between Adams legs, and brought him to an abrupt halt in mid-air.  After giving a not so Tarzan-like yelp, due to the sensitive location of the rope, his faithful sister reeled him back in.

He needed a bit of time to recover, but finished the course and went on to conquer the expert course.

BTW, that Tarzan swing was almost too much.  Although, my arms are used to the rigors of almost daily stitching, they were in no way prepared to haul my body weight from tree to tree on a rope.  

Here is Erika giving her audience a dazzling smile.

 

Now that my arms and legs felt like noodles, I decided to skip the expert course - thank goodness.  Alex & Erika kept me company.  My DH said it was one of the hardest things he has done... and it was really high ( I too have a bit of thing about heights).

Here is Adam climbing up the rock wall - note the height, and Olivia starting the longest zip line

Here we are at the end of our adventure.  It was so much fun, but I don't have to tell you how many of my muscles are sore today!

I did a great deal of work towards organizing my stash - I spent several days on my fibers.

I now have a database of most of my stash - I have found a number of chart doubles ( very aggravating) and charts missing that I could have sworn I had... but I am almost done with the whole process, which should eliminate at least the doubling of charts... those missing charts will remain a mystery.

I also sat down these last two days and hit the ATS cloud hard and am happy to report ( to the tune of "The witch is dead" from Wizard of Oz  : "Ding, dong the cloud is done, the cloud is done, the cloud is done, ding dong the boring cloud is dooooone!"

That wraps up last week with the exception of the lovely giveaway I won, but more on that next time.  Hope all of you had a lovely Independence Day weekend.