Another one back from the framer :-)

I picked this up yesterday. I stitched this a couple of years ago and just now finally got it framed. I am on a mission to get this framing pile down to something reasonable! This truly was a wonderful piece to stitch - it's "Sanctuary" by The Drawn Thread. I'm thrilled with how it came out.
One corner closeup below.....
I also dropped off 2 other pieces to be framed so since I've been spending so much lately I really held off from buying stash. I just picked up one pattern from Little House Needleworks called "Peppermint Lane". I love little pink houses so I couldn't resist it.

DH is off fishing this weekend so yesterday I did some errands and spent the afternoon sewing wtih my quilting buddies. I worked on some applique and again on my Just Nan "Autumn" piece. I have only one more band to go on this, then add the beads and I'll be done! This is my oldest UFO so you can imagine how psyched I'll be when it's done.

Keep on stitchin'!

Fall House Exchange

My partner Ulla has received her Fall House exchange finally so it's okay for me to post it now. This is a pattern from The Drawn Thread, made into a flatfold. I like how it came out and Ulla says she likes it so that makes me happy. I was in a hurry to finish it up the night I took the pictures and you can see my glue hasn't even dried yet! It had to go all the way from Arizona to Finland and it took 3 weeks to get there. I'm just thankful it wasn't lost.


And here is the exchange I received from Suzanne - isn't it cute? It's my very first pinkeep to call my own. I'd love to have a basketful like some of you but I guess it's going to be awhile especially with my slow stitching.

Halloween is almost here - I have all my Halloween decorations out to enjoy and the candy is ready for the little munchkins when they come trick-or-treating. We always sit on our front porch and hand out the treats to prevent the kids from ringing the doorbell all evening and making the dogs go crazy.

I had to spend some time last evening straightening up the stitching room. Between birthday gifts, stash shopping etc things were literally piling up. We spent 4 days last weekend in the Chicago area for a family function. The weather was absolutely gorgeous. Thanks to a tip from a fellow stitcher, I visited a needlework shop in Orland Park called The Country Cupboard. What a cute shop it was! I loved it and helped myself to some new stash of course. I love visiting other shops and seeing different models and patterns. One of the patterns I picked up was "Prancer" from Nora Corbett - I had seen her reindeer patterns before but until I saw one actually stitched up I was able to resist them. They really are cute though, I love all the beads and sparkles on them. I also visited 3 Chicago-area quilt shops. I had a blast but will come down to earth when the credit card bill arrives! Sorry for the poor picture, I'm having camera issues.

I have been trying to put some thought into my neighborhood I'll be starting in January. I decided to do a Jane Austen neighborhood but I'm running into a few issues. Some of the house patterns I hoped to include are just too large so I'm going to have to swap out for smaller house patterns and I think I will just focus just on "Pride & Prejudice". Otherwise I'll end up with something so huge I'd never afford to frame it. I'm realizing I have no desire to be a designer - I'd rather stitch anytime and let someone else do that part!

Ready for October

Well I just taped up my exchange package to be mailed tomorrow -whew! I had wanted to get it out last week but couldn't do it. It's the "fall house" exchange on the SBEBB board - I hope my exchange partner likes it! I'll show pictures after she's received it.

I also picked up a little frame I had made for set of 12 Shepherd's Bush charts by month. I finally finished the last one of these up earlier this year and was having trouble finding a moulding I liked that would work with many different colors of linen. I finally found one and had a frame made like a photo frame you buy - with turnbuttons in the back so I can swap out the stitched piece each month, and with both horizontal and vertical hangers as the stitched pieces include some of both direction. I'm happy with how it turned out and October is now up on the wall to enjoy. Here's also a picture of November - I won't bore you with all 12 of them!




We finally are getting cooler mornings and evenings. Yeah! Summer is on its last legs and I won't be sorry to see it go. I'm ready for pumpkins, fall leaves, and Halloween! I always look forward to seeing The Great Pumpkin with Charlie Brown - "I got a rock......". :)

I'm participating in the "Let's Stitch" blog and this week will try to put a little time in on my oldest UFO. This is "Autumn Haze" by Just Nan. This is one of a set of 4 seasons she designed. I took a class and finished up "Winter" in 1992. I think I started "Autumn" in 1993 or 1994! Yes it's sad but true. It's also on my UFO list to complete this year hopefully. I actually like Just Nan's older designs better than her new ones, and I have the "Summer" and "Spring" patterns to complete the series. Considering I'm worked on this one for 14 years, I figure I'll finish the set of 4 by 2032. Good grief!! At that point they'll probably be considered antiques.


That's all for today........

Finally framed :)

This is not a new finish - I finished stitching this over a year ago but I finally got it framed and hung. I'm quite happy with it. This is "Wild Roses" from Carriage House Samplings. The model stitcher at my LNS modified the original pattern slightly to spell out "Bless the Beasts and the Children" along the sides and adding a bit more at the bottom to match the top of the piece. Customers were able to obtain her changes as long as we bought the CHS chart along with it. One more thing off the framing pile and onto the walls!

Hope you all had a good weekend. I spent most of mine doing "spring cleaning" with DH. That might sound odd to some of you but here once the worst of summer is gone, we feel reborn like other parts of the country do in the spring. Everything gets so dirty during summer with the ceiling fans going constantly and the house shut up. I still feel like I have dust in my nose from all the dusting but it's a good feeling to have everything ship-shape. Also, I have family coming to visit this week and that was added incentive to get it done. Maybe they need to visit more often so I'll be inspired to clean!

Stitched a little tonite on my fall exchange but can't share any pics of it yet. When I picked up my framed piece at the LNS a few days ago I picked up the newest Prairie Schooler charts, the latest Loose Feathers chart that was waiting for me, and "The Daughters of Longbourne" by the Stitching Parlor. That's going to be part of the new neighborhood I'm planning. It's a wonderful chart and as luck would have it, a stitcher that was at the shop for "open stitching" and she was working on hers which was about 80% done - it was just beautiful! I'm still trying to figure out the easiest way to plan this neighborhood by mixing together pieces from several different patterns. I was hoping to get some stitching software that would let me scan in the patterns I want to use, then cut and paste pieces of those into a new design, however, I don't think most of the software I've seen really does that, or at least not well. Seems like the software packages available are designed more for scanning in photographs and then turning those into cross-stitch. That's not really what I want to do. So I may have to do my designing the old-fashioned way and just start cutting and taping graph paper etc together.

Cheerio for now........

Two finishes - woohoo!!

I finally got time today to photograph my Merry Cox "Flowers in the Fall" set. This was from a class I took last November - I finally put the last little details on the bag this weekend. The set contains a pincushion bird mounted on a little painted box which is lined with satin, a small needlebook and a matching silk bag. It was fun but a lot of work. I probably won't ever use any of it except to enjoy looking at it! There was supposed to be a tiny thimble cup mounted below the bird's beak but after I finished stitching it, it was so small it would only hold a child's thimble so I decided to mount the little stitched piece inside the little box instead. I'm very glad to mark another project off of my list this year. Here are some views of the set, one with a quarter in the picture to show the size.






I also finished up LHN's "Sampler Lady". This was a fun stitch and went along real quickly. I need to make sure I get it framed soon so it doesn't sit forever like some of my pieces. I dropped off a few things to be framed on Aug 2nd and anxiously awaiting them to be done.


I'm so excited to join Vonna's neighborhood sampler SAL! I have a neighborhood I started over a year ago that I may pick up and continue with, or I might start something new. Officially the rules are you can't stitch anything but the border before Jan 1st, but since mine was a UFO it's okay to start on it again if I wait until Jan 1st. Here's a picture of it so far - I think I may have to just give in and do two - this one and a new one!


Well I have to go get ready to meet some friends for dinner. It's been a busy weekend with a birthday party on Saturday night, football party today to start off the season and dinner tonite out with friends. Not much time for stitching but hopefully this week I can get started on my Fall House exchange. I have kitted everything up but not started the stitching yet.

P.S. The Bears just won - GO BEARS!!

Colorado Trip Stitching :-)

I just spent 4 days on a trip to Durango Colorado with some work friends. What a great time we had. We rented a minivan and drove up together and rented a condo. We took the Durango-Silverton Train which is an all-day trip along the Animas River on a coal-burning vintage train. It was just gorgeous as you can see from my pictures at the end of this post. It was glorious to experience cool mornings and evenings although mid-day was hot in the sun. We also drove up in the mountains to visit Ouray, played poker, and generally enjoyed a few microbreweries. :) Didn't visit any LNS's or quilt shops this trip as my companions weren't hobbyists like me. I got the usual comments you get from non-stitchers like "How do you know where to put the stitches?" and "How can you sew while you're riding in a car?" It's hard to explain our passion to other people. Since I wasn't one of the drivers though I got a lot of stitching time in while riding on the way up and back from Phoenix. (about a 7-8 hour drive) I started Little House Needleworks' "Sampler Lady" as I thought it would be a good "travel project". I'm stitching it on 32-ct R&R Creme Brulee and substituting colors here and there. Here's my progress so far:


I've decided I don't like using overdyed threads on big areas of stitching - I don't like the striated effect you get. I had to go back and frog some of the blue blouse as it appeared there was a light streak all across her chest. I like overdyes for leaves, lettering, and things like that, just not large areas. I'm going to do the skirt in a solid DMC to avoid any issues. This is a fun stitch and it's moving along pretty quickly, at least for me.

I'm just about done with my Merry Cox project. I only have the cloth bag left to make. I debated about even making it, because I'll probably never use it but I have all the kit pieces so might as well. I hope to have pics of my finish after this weekend.

PS Wreath finish

I didn’t meet all my July goals but I did make progress at least. I finally finished the last of the Prairie Schooler Santa Claus ornaments I was making. Last year Tanya (The Sampler Lady) had a Prairie Schooler wreath SAL. You picked a PS ornament design and made a set of ornaments to put on a wreath. I don’t think too many people finished their set for Christmas last year as I saw only a few finished postings. Tanya has removed the blog she was keeping for it but at least my completed wreath will be ready to hang up this Christmas! I bought a wreath on sale last year but you’ll have to imagine how they will look on it – it’s stored up in the hot attic and believe me – the attic is not a place you want to visit in July in the southwest. I didn’t want to make all my Santas red so I stitched a variety of colors. You can see them closeup by clicking on the picture. I’m happy with how they turned out and it’s one more item off of the UFO list I’ve been working on this year.

Now I want to thank Sherry for nominating me for the KreativBlogger Award. Thanks very much Sherry! It’s nice to know someone out there is reading my blog now and then and I’m not talking to myself! I love reading blogs and there are so many I read and enjoy that it is very hard to just pick 5 to nominate but here they are. This is a nice way to get to know and visit blogs you may not have on your list.

Wendy - Home At Work

Carol - Just Carol

Margie – Three Cool Pugs & Me
Chris – Chris Cross Corner
Cathy B – Needle & Thread

Here are the rules:

1 The winner may put the logo on her blog.
2 Put a link in your blog post to the person you got the award from.
3 Nominate 5 other blogs.
4 Put links to the nominated blogs.
5 Leave a message for your nominees.

I recently made a purchase at the online Fat Quarter Christmas shop. If you like to buy quilting fabric (or just browse) it’s a great website with very quick service. I saw this Christmas line by Moda and just had to have it. It’s called S’mores. I bought a 40-piece “layer cake” sampler pack (10” squares) and some yardage as well for a quilt. I just love the cheery colors and the S’mores motifs. Now to find a pattern that will work for the fabrics. I don’t know where I’ll find the time to make it but when has that mattered before when buying stash?!


DH and I just got back recently from a 4-day trip to San Francisco with another couple. We had a great time and I’ve posted a couple photos at the end of this post. We took a limousine wine tour of Napa Valley – stopping at 5 different wineries and having an outdoor lunch at one of them. We toured Alcatraz, visited Chinatown, and drove up to Muir Woods to see the giant redwoods. It was wonderfully cool and breezy – I loved the weather and what a nice break it was from our summer heat here in the desert. We have a lot going on in the next few months – I’m going on a trip to Durango Colorado next week for 4 days. There’ll be 5 of us – all girlfriends of mine from work that I’ve known for 12 to 15 years. We’ve been through thick and thin over the years - especially with the crazy place we’re employed at (which shall remain unnamed to protect the innocent). We’re renting a minivan for the drive up to Colorado and then renting a condo. It’ll be a fun “girls getaway”.

My focus this weekend is working on the finishing for the Merry Cox class project from last November. Yes, it’s been sitting since then my friends. The stitching is all done but I still have some assembly to do. I picked up a couple of stash items today - Needlework Shop by Country Cottage, Quaker Christmas from ByGone Stitches, Strawberry House from LHN and a handmade threadholder/ruler with the name of my LNS on it.

Muir Woods - Giant Redwoods
Coppola Winery

Jail Cell at Alcatraz!

View of San Francisco from Alcatraz Island

Back in the groove again

Whoa! Can’t believe it’s the middle of July already – summer is flying by. It’s been awhile since I updated my poor neglected blog. I had my arthroscopic shoulder surgery in mid-April and am doing well. The surgeon removed 2 large bone spurs and cleaned out my whole shoulder joint making twice as much room in there as there was prior to the surgery. It was pretty painful the first 2 weeks but after 2 months of physical therapy I’m almost back to normal now. I can stitch and sew again finally – yeah!! I just have to not go too long at one sitting or the shoulder gets sore.

I have been busy the last month. I took a wonderful class in early June with Jane Timmers. It' was the "Madeira Tin Set". We lined a Moda jellyroll tin and made matching smalls. I love Jane’s patterns. She is so nice and brought wonderful things for us to see and patterns to purchase. Here is my finished Madeira Tin Set below. It includes a pinkeep/needlebook, biscornu, and folding ort jar. I loved learning how to make the ort jar - it's not included in the pattern but she was able to show us how to do it. I’m amazed at how creative people are. It twists up and looks like a little pyramid when closed. The set also included a pattern to make a tote bag and a cloth scissor fob. I didn't make the tote bag and decided to do a stitched fob instead using some design motifs from the other pieces in the set. In the front of the tin is a photograph of a matching sampler that Jane stitched. The whole set is just darling and it's one of the most fun things I've done. All the pictures are clickable if you want a closer look. Jane will be publishing this pattern maybe next year but for now it's just a class piece.

I also have been busy catching up on the “book quilt”. This is a quilt my friends and I are designing to go with a book we all read called “Like Water For Chocolate”. I got behind on the monthly assignments when I couldn’t sew for awhile. This was my month to present a design and I’m so glad my assignment is done. I’m quite pleased with how it turned out. Here is the quilt so far. It's been fun doing something a bit different and seeing the different color palettes each person used. Everything in the quilt pertains to something in the book so of course you wouldn't know unless you've read it but it's interesting anyway.

I haven't been doing any exchanges yet this year but just signed up for the fall sampler house exchange on SBEBB so I can get back to exchanging. While my shoulder was healing I had my sewing room painted and am doing a bit of redecorating in there as well. It used to be decorated in "primitive" style but I am trying to do a bit of shabby chic now. I hope to get some pictures up on my blog soon. Other than that I have a severe case of cross-stitch start-itis! I've been holding myself back trying to work on my UFO list but it's hard. I promised myself I'd get half of my list done before the end of the year and I've still got a lot to do. There are so many wonderful things calling my name though from my stash drawers! I'm convinced that many of you don't sleep - you just stitch all night. Either that or you have the Keebler Elves coming over to help you!

Getting my last stitching & sewing in for a bit.....

Tuesday I get my shoulder operated on so wanted to post what I've been doing lately. I won't be able to do too much for awhile depending on the extent of the surgery. I made this bag this week from a kit I picked up at a quilt show in January. The pattern is "Charm Party Tote" by Penny Sturgis. I just love it - the pattern was written so you could use the charm packs everyone is selling these days but of course you can cut your own squares just as well. It was fun to do - I did it all except the buttons last Saturday. I'm a big fan of pink and love the combination of colors and prints that were in the kit. It has a quilted lining and 2 nice inside pockets. For those of you still having a bit of winter, maybe the flowers will cheer you up a bit - we are having wonderful weather - today was breezy and about 80 I'm guessing. We're enjoying the last of "spring" as it starts to get hot sometime in May.


I also picked up a UFO the past 2 weeks to work on. This is "Sampler Gameboard" by The Drawn Thread.

I probably shouldn't say this....but.....this was my project from an RR a couple years ago - I only really had the bottom 2 rows of the gameboard to finish when it came back to me. HOWEVER........once I got it out to take a good look at it, I was dismayed about the quality of some of the stitching. Mind you, most of the piece is looking great, it was mostly one row that had a lot of problems and a few other spots here and there that needed a touch-up. I don't expect things to be perfect but I just could not leave in some of what I found - I'm talking knots, totally wonky stitches, missed threads, going over too many threads, I even found sections where the stitcher must have used the wrong color and then decided to just stitch over it in the correct color so there were 2 layers of stitching! Now I can see doing this for a random stitch or two but I'm talking about areas that were like 1" square. I plan to have this framed and just could not have lived with it like that. So I have been frogging like you wouldn't believe. The problem areas are very hard to take out because of all the problems - I just keep snipping and pulling and snipping and pulling....... I am down to the last square on the row I'm removing - it's actually not too bad and could probably stay in, but since I already removed the rest of the row I might as well be consistent. I will be re-stitching that whole row and I also already fixed up several other problems. I don't know....I've had some good RR's and some not so good. It seems like so many times there is some kind of issue with someone dropping out and not communicating, keeping people's projects, taking forever to do their parts (like 8 months for a few evenings of stitching!), doing poor quality work, etc. I have no problem if someone needs to drop out for personal reasons, everybody has things that happen in their lives that are unexpected. But just tell the group and mail the pieces back - that's all that is required. I have been in groups where we begged, begged, and begged some more to get pieces back. It's really frustrating. I just can't understand why anyone would treat a fellow stitcher or quilter that way. Anyway, at least I'm finally getting this done. I always did love this pattern and look forward to completing it and having it framed and hanging by the end of the year. The little blocks really go along pretty quickly.

I made a quick trip to the LNS this week to pick up the latest Loose Feathers pattern and a few others of course! I bought this nice scrap bag - I've had one for years but when I saw this one made out of the Moda sampler fabric and in a color I like, I just had to have it.


I also picked up a pattern from my wishlist called "Peaceful Garden" from The Stitching Parlor. I love the medieval look of this piece and especially the castle. I noticed after bringing it home that it uses 48 skeins of Crescent Colors over-dyed floss. Yikes!! I'll have to think about whether I want to invest that much in cotton floss or perhaps just convert to silks. However, the overdyes look really nice in the picture (of course!).

I'm happily anticipating the season premiere of "Deadliest Catch" on Discovery next week. That's the show about Alaskan crab fishing. To me it's amazing anyone can do that job - makes me less likely to whine about my own! I watch a lot of shows on Discovery and A&E. Now if '24' would just hurry up and come back on - can't believe we have to wait until January. I don't really watch very many TV shows so I really miss my favorites when they're not on.

Closing with a couple pictures of my 'kids' out playing in the yard today. Abby is the little one and Buster is the Sheltie. Thanks for stopping by my little world. :)

Another UFO bites the dust.....(and a few rants)....

Well things are still chugging along here. I have been fighting a case of bronchitis for over a month which caused me to have to reschedule my shoulder surgery to the middle of April. I'm on my second round of antibiotics and finally starting to feel better.

On the good side, I finished up another quilting UFO. This is a scrappy strip quilt which I made for DH's car - he likes to keep one in the back which serves a multitude of purposes. It was fun to do and I like it. I have been trying to finish off at least one UFO per month and this was #3 so I'm on schedule so far. (That's the husband's feet peeking out at the bottom - I made him hold it up).


I also finished off the last of the Shepherd's Bush (2003!) monthlies, so I can wipe out 2 UFO's on my list. This week I picked up Brenda Keyes' "Plymouth Sampler" and did a bit of stitching on that but I haven't gotten very far.

The husband and I have busy doing some work on the yard. We had 3 ficus trees die off the winter before last because we had a bad frost here in the southwest where a lot of trees are not frost-tolerant. We had them taken out last fall and then built a raised area in our yard. We planted 3 new trees (frost tolerant ones!) and I have a place to plant flowers which is nice. Here is corner of the yard in 'before' state showing the dead trees, and now the 'after'.


It sure looks a lot better! We also are putting artifical "pet turf" in the area on the side of our house that are dogs use. We had real grass there first that wouldn't grow (not enough sun), then we tried 2 different kinds of rock. So this is our 4th incarnation of the area and I think the doggies will be very pleased to have something grass-like again. Supposedly this turf is pet-friendly, very durable and drains well. (Maybe your'e wondering why our dogs aren't using this nice patch of grass in the picture? Well that's in our backyard and our dogs can't go out there when we're not home because we have an unfenced pool. Even though they both swim great, we don't need the worry about an accident or having wet dogs tromping through the house all day!)

I decided I'm going to sound off on a few of my stitching pet peeves today. These are not huge issues in my life, just little annoyances. Maybe these bother some of you as well, or it could be that I'm the only one! I'm not going to name any names because this is not meant to bash anyone, I love stitching and the designers. I have no creative sense myself so I'm amazed at the things they come up with. But....sometimes I just get a little bit peeved......

• Certain designers need to move on a bit. When they have a successful theme run of designs, they seem to keep it going too long. Am I the only one who notices this? For example, they'll have Spring Tree, Winter Tree, Summer Tree, Autumn Tree, Valentine Tree, Christmas Tree, Blue Tree, Red Tree, Teacher Tree, Nurse Tree, ad infinitum. Know what I mean??
• I'm not real fond of patterns you have to buy in pieces. In the quilting world, this became popular several years ago - once one designer tried it, everybody else started doing it. You would often have to buy one block pattern per month, so that you ended up frequently spending upwards of $100 to just get the pattern. Now of course it's a free world and they can market their work any way they like, but I really don't want to spend that much on some of these projects, let alone the cost of supplies and framing. After all, I can buy a book from some designers for $25 or $30 and get several great designs in it!
• I wish patterns would list the alternative thread choices like Homespun Elegance does. Of course it's up to me to check it out myself I suppose, but I've had a lot of patterns where they used an overdyed floss for like 6 stitches! Great if you have it already but not really worth buying just for that. I know that this generates sales of thread which is good but it would be nice to have the alternatives listed for you.

Thanks for stopping by - can't believe more than a month has gone by since I blogged. I don't know how some of you have time to keep yours up so often!

Getting my mojo back..........

I went on a fabulous quilting retreat last weekend with 11 other friends. We couldn't have had a better time although we had to drive through a snowstorm to get there. Actually I quite enjoyed the snow as I was driving up in northern Arizona and the snow was beautiful in the tall pine forests. I stayed up past 2:00 am three nights in a row, and sewed and talked and sewed and laughed and ate well all weekend. It was so invigorating for me - I've been in a bit of a slump lately and it was just what I needed to get my sewing and stitching energy back. I worked on making scrap quilt squares (68 of them!) which I am going to sew together into some quilts to keep on my couch where my dogs like to lie all the time. That is just mindless fun sewing where you don't have to pay a lot of attention or read any directions. :) Here's all my finished blocks waiting to be sewed up.



While I was there I worked on an old quilting UFO. I hand-appliqued this entire top and finished it about 5 years ago but never got the quilting done. I finally sat down and basted it all together so I can start hand-quilting it. I would love to have it finished by Christmas this year - I put so much work into it that it's a shame I haven't finished it. It's titled "Welcome to the North Pole". Excuse the wonky picture, I just had it hanging on some drawers in my sewing room.


I also started another quilt from a beautiful pictoral fabric I got on sale years ago,and began another quilted bag. Neither of those got done though. It was depressing going back to work last Monday and I had a very busy week. I finally sat down today and did a bit of stitching -first time since January. I finished up another on of my little Shepherd's Bush monthly pieces. I'm getting them done slowly but surely but it seems like it's taking forever.


I want to get started soon on my PIF's but I need to sit down and decide what I'm going to make. I made a trip to my LNS yesterday for the first time in a long time. I looked at all the goodies from Nashville market but I wasn't all that tempted by too much. I am still debating on the Shores of Hawk Run Hollow - I like some of it but not all of it so I didn't purchase it. I did buy a few patterns that weren't new that I had been wanting by LHN, and I got a half yard of a gorgeous Colorscapes linen - it's the most wonderful mottled sky blue and it was my favorite count - 36. This picture doesn't do it justice at all!


I didn't know that LHN had published a pattern honoring my LNS - Attic Needlework. Of course I had to buy that one! I also picked up Cherry Hill from Country Cottage, Country French Rooster from JBW, and a couple of Loose Feathers that had been waiting for me at the LNS for awhile. I was so inspired by the Rooster pillow that Mary Kathryn made - it's awesome! I love French toile fabrics so would like to make somthing similar.

I was strolling through Fry's Electronics while my DH was buying some computer hardware, and I came across some little lighted magnifiers. I've been wanting something small I could take to a class with me - this is a 30 diopter magnifier with a little flap on top so you can use it just as a light or as a lighted magnifier. It was only $30 - called a Mini Mag-Lite. I love it. The field of vision is smaller of course than my big Daylite lamp but it will be great to take places or when I want to sit out by the TV and don't want to take my big lamp with me. Unfortunately, I can rarely stitch anymore without some sort of magnfication - age has gotten to me.



My orthopedic surgeon has decided it's time to get my shoulder fixed so I'm having arthroscopic surgery on March 7th. Not sure how long it'll be after that before I can stitch again, hopefully not long. I'm looking forward to eventually being pain-free!