As Promised - Although late...

The kids started school yesterday and I am trying to find dig up my old routine.  For those of you not wanting to wade through all the pictures from our castle weekend, I'll post my crafty pictures first.

I finally finished a ancient WIP - when I started this I told my oldests DD "I'll probably have this done in time for you to go to college - she is senior this year.. Sorry, somehow the photo gods won't let me rotate that pic - the fabric is for the finishing.

I am not sure whether I should sew on all the embellishments before I finish it or aftewards... any advice?

Next I finished up an ornie for Olivia ( I bought it in Hawaii, and it was intended for last year... ahem, so I am on the hook for 2 ornies for each  kid this year - thus I have decided to stitch all my Christmas stuff now to be sure its all done, remember I am Miss Superslowstitcher)

I also finished something for my PIC - it was her birthday about a week ago.  Now, I finished it with plenty of time... did I get it in the mail in a timely manner ?? No...  Michelle - this is to let you know that your package wasn't mailed anywhere near your birthday, but its on its way.  When she gets it I will post pictures.

I have also been doing some quilting and knitting, but will post those when I actually get done rather than show a WIP.

Anyway, I am terribly late in posting about all the castles we visited down in Bavaria.  These were the castles that crazy King Ludwig II built -  they are absolutely beautiful, but he was bankrupting the his kingdom building these.  He died young under suspicious circumstances.  After being declared incompetent to rule, he drowned while out on a lake with his psychiatrist who also drowned. King L. did know how to swim fairly well.  He built 3 fabulous castles, two of which never actually were completed.  He lived in one ( Linderhof), staid at another castle for 10 days and never did get to live in the third... what a pitty.  King Crazy also never entertained, never married nor had a mistress - generally was a loner... kinda a Michael Jackson of the time.    Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures of the inside of the castles, but imagine lots of guilding, carving, silk covering the walls, incredible chandeliers made with crystal or totally made out of Meissen Porcelain ( stunning) So without further ado - the castles of King Ludwig with plenty of Steckers mingling about...

Neuschwanstein - the castle that inspired Disney's Cinderella Castle

Front View

Interior courtyard

Olivia & Rob in the entry archway

Behind the castle

This is soooo boring

Better smile - this is for Facebook

This is Ludwig's parent's castle Hohenschwangau - taken from Newschwanstein castle 

Land of fairytales...

Hohenschwangau close up

Olivia in the garden

Cobblestones everywhere

These photos are from Linderhof - the only actual completed castle where the king lived.  This is a  homage to Versailles and the Sun King.  There are statues and paintings of him everywhere inside.

Linderhof - a small version of Versailles & the only castle the King lived in

Linderhof from the back

Some are having a good time, some are not....

Linderhof gardens

What was the lonely, looney king doing with all this fabulous landscaping??

A great view of the grounds

Get away from me - this is for Facebook!!

The next castle Herrenchiemsee, was supposed to be a replica of Versailles but even grander.  Only the middle portion was completed - although in inside sports some unfinished areas ( only wood floors with brick walls....)  It was pretty cool to see on side totally decked out and the other in an unfinished state.  Now this castle had rooms that were exact copies of rooms in Versailles, and these rooms were for show only, and were never used by anyone.  Yes, the king was a bit crazy...

Off to the last castle - Herrenchiemsee

This castle was a copy of Versailles

One of the two fabulous water plays

A close-up of the dragon

Mom, take a picture...

Like it was made yesterday

More fountains - in the background - a place to pull the king's ship close to the castle

Can we go now???

One last look...

Overall we had a wonderful weekend, and at least some of us enjoyed those fabulous castles.  

A few photos of other sights.

Olivia and her new boarfriend

Olivia taking her visit to an abbey seriously

What is vacation without some serious ice cream

Adam checking out the silver lady... and her little dog too

While we were down in that region, I convinced my husband to stop by this shop which is well know for its fantastic hand dyed yarn and impossible to get ahold of - see the sign in window.... perfect timing

Hand dyed yarn Mecca

Did I go overboard??

My kind of yummmm

I wish everyone a wonderful week and Labor Day weekend.  We are headed to the real Versailles as well as Normandy for the holiday weekend.  I can't wait.

Still Here

Sorry for going AWOL on the blog - lots of things have been going on here.  First I got sucked into a book so completely that the family went hungry, any needlework got neglected, the laundry piled up.... you get the idea.

I really enjoyed this book thoroughly, although it deals with the end of the world as we know it, and sort of leaves you hanging at the end.  It is supposed to be a trilogy with another installment coming out in 2011 and in 2012,  and I am really looking forward to reading more.  

My niece from the US was here for 9 days and we were busy being tourist during the day, and she was busy being a 16 year-old in Europe at night.  She is a really nice, intelligent girl, but teens will be teens and she partied hard.  I told her that if her hard partying ways got back to my very protective brother I would post some very incriminating pictures of her on facebook...

I have had a bit of the blahs, where I am staring at my stitching rather than doing any of it.... my very dearest friend for three decades ( before she just went silent without explanation for several years, not responding to e-mails - there is more to that story, but I will spare you the agony, suffice it to say I did some suffering and wailing), her younger sister  suddenly passed away.  It was such a shock, and has made me reevaluate my cold shoulder attitude towards her ( she lives here in Germany).  I have spent quite a bit of time thinking about our time together - from ages 13 - 16.  We had so much fun together, and I spent a great deal of time over at her house.  I really can imagine how they must be feeling, and I am so sad for them.  

Speaking of friends, I have another friend who really has me in a funk.  I considered her a very close friend for about 8 years, but ever since I moved she has made no real effort to keep in touch -  most of it is initiated by me.  I have called and e-mailed,  but she has not bothered to answer my last e-mail.  She most certainly never calls.  It makes you doubt  yourself and the friendship you thought you had.  It's a bummer.  

I did manage to finish "The Evil Serpent Sampler" by EftH.  I decided to fill the peacock eyes with eyelets instead of cross stitches.  I choose my own HDF colors and stitched it on a piece of random 40 ct Zweigart fabric.  It was a fun & quick stitch.

I also made a pair of jammie shorts for Olivia.  She loves them, and I have to take them off of her to wash them.  Its quite gratifying to have someone really like what you made for them.  I really liked the gnome fabric, its very happy.

We also went on a trip to Bavaria and Austria.  Our main objective was to visit the fabulous castles that King Ludwig of Bavaria built.  We saw Neuschwanstein ( the Cinderella castle), Linderhof and Herrenchiemsee Castle.  The last two were smaller replicas of Versailles because the king was quite enamoured with King Louis XIV.   I will cover those in a seperate post - so many pictures.

We also went up to the top of the Zugspitze - the tallest mountain in Germany.  I have a problem with heights so it was a bit stressful for me, but the whole thing was amazing.  We took the cog train up quite a ways.  At the end station  we got off, saw the glacier and did some sledding on the ice.  Since my kids have grown up in Texas, they were hesitant to go sledding until I went down first... so, without further ado here is the Zugspitze.

Taken from the parking lot of the cog train.  The Zugspitze is the peak right by the cloud.

Olivia & Mia reading up on the Zugspitze while riding the cog train

The boys on the train

Checking out the sledding slope - glacier ice ahead.

Its fun going down, but its a long way up

The peak is getting covered by a cloud

On the gondola ride up - NOT looking out the window

Ditto for Alex - see how close the face of the mountain is?

The view down - its a loooong way down

The actual peak - see those crazies out there??

Enjoying some coffee & hot chocolate at 9800 feet

Going down

Looking back

It was a fun trip overall, we had decent weather with only one day of rain.  Speaking of weather, it has cooled off tremendously with lots and lots of rain.  We do have 4 days of sun ahead of us, and I am looking forward to it.  I know all of you suffering from the hot, hot summer in the States would love to have some cool weather and rain, so I won't complain.  I will try and get to the castles tomorrow, if not on Friday - they were fantastic.  

Take care until then.

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.