Cathy's Birthday Tribute

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!  We are spending the day with friends and family, just relaxing, eating, and enjoying each others company.  It is rather chilly outside, but it is better than a super hot, humid day.

 

Cathy is a good friend of the family and her upcoming thirtieth birthday deserved special recogonition.  Facebook is a great place to find out about a person's life and to download pictures.  The kids now know that facebook pictures are fair game.

The planting of a vineyard combines high-tech and good old sweat to get the job done.

 

From Darkness Comes Beauty

 

 

 

We are still anxiously waiting for baby girl to make her presence in this world.  My poor daughter-in-law looks absolutely miserable, so swollen.  I think I only have 131/2 days left of school, not that I am counting the days.

 

 

 

For this project, I took the time to plan out the stitching for the background.  I wanted the background to be as much a part of the overall piece and not just a second thought.

Again, everything just seemed to fall into place.  The stitching seems to be complimenting the flower.

Here is another close up.

 

Another view

Here is the pattern I did on the border.

Here is the finished product. I have titled it, "From Darkness Comes Beauty".  It turned out much better than I expected.

 

 

Here are some more pictures of our trip to the Rockies.

 

 

 

This is a view of Grand Lake on the west side of the Rockies.

 

 

Another view of the Rockies, from the west side.

It is Coming all Together

 

Happy Mother's Day!  We just finished having a fabulous brunch with friends and family.  It was a pleasure to prepare and serve the food this morning.  I find staying at home is much nicer than the hustle and bustle of going out to eat.

 

I decided to go with a black border to set off the gold trim.

 

In order to make the petals a little more pronounced, I took a black fabric marker and outlined them.

I know there are other ways other than basting with thread and needle to hold the three layers together, but I find this the easiest.

I decided to keep the stitching on the petals  simple; I outlined them.

 

Next, I stitched the stem and bulb.  Again, I kept the stitching on them to a minimal.  On the background, I have decided to treat each square as a separate piece with its own stitch free motion stitch pattern.

 A I mentioned last week, I really enjoyed our visit to the Rockies.

Not only was the wildlife, spectacular, so were the flowers.

 

It's a Flower

 

My brother was redeployed, again.  Everytime, I hear of news from overseas my heart drops.  Luckily, he is only there for six months, this go around.

 

 

The flower is emerging.  This project is coming together a little too easy.

Now the flower looks balanced.

 

 

 The pistens, the bulb and the bud just make it all come together.

 

The material for the bulb had gold in it.  I orignially wanted a gold metallic ribbon trim.  Luckily, I found this open weave gold trim that compliments the flower, yet it is a good contrast to the background.

One of my favorite places was the Rockies at Estes Park in Colorado.

 

The views were breathtaking.

 

 

The wildlife was everywhere to behold.