August WIPocolypse #2 - Jeanne

Well I was on the last day before the cutoff for the first August update so now I have to do the second one a day or two later!  Did you know we're having a blue moon now?  It's the second full moon of August hence it's called a blue moon.   And it's a lovely one too....I was taking a walk last evening and admiring the moon and thinking about Neil Armstrong dying.   I wonder what it's like looking up and seeing the moon and knowing you've stood there??  I know a lot of you are too young or weren't even born yet in 1969 but I remember clearly sitting in my living room with my parents and siblings watching him step out and making his famous statement.  The picture was so fuzzy you couldn't see much but it was thrilling.  Back in those days EVERYbody watched all the TV coverage of the space flights.   It makes me sad to think he's gone now.  A lot of our real heroes are quiet, unassuming people who don't want to be celebrities yet have done remarkable things.

Well I don't have a lot of stitching progress to report since my post 2 days ago of course.   I made a decision this morning to trash the ornament I was stitching on the light green linen.  I was getting close to finishing it but the more I saw of it the less I liked it and I began to hate it.  I finally decided that was enough so I've thrown it out and will pick something else.  No sense wasting my precious stitching time on something I don't love.   Onwards!

I thought I'd share another old UFO with you today.  I was reminded of it last night reading the post from Carol over at Stitching Dreams - she stitched a lovely small with a PS birdhouse on it. I haven't worked on this project in probably 2 years but it's part of my WIPocolypse list and hoping I make some progress this year on it.    Remember back when everyone was doing those neighborhood round robins a few years ago?  Well I started my own....and like I frequently do....I went overboard.  I gridded off a big piece of linen with 9 squares figuring I'd have 9 houses in my neighborhood surrounded by trees and other fun stuff.  What the heck was I thinking?!?   Here's a photo showing the middle and lower rows.  There are some PS charts used here and a big tree from a BBD chart. My plan was to have a creek run across the bottom that would end in a little pond at the right at the mill house.

During the height of the 'neighborhood' craze everybody was wanting the birdhouse from Prairie Schooler's Garden Samplers on their neighborhood as someone in France  ("Stitcher Zero" who started the fad)  had done that and everybody loved it. Well 'Garden Samplers' at that time was going for $45 and up on eBay because of the demand...so I adapted a little $6 chart from Michael's instead and put that in the middle. Last year I had a thought maybe I could just finish the lower row of this BAP and cut off the rest of the linen and call it done. I had forgotten about the birdhouse and I didn't want to trash that. SO....I played around in Microsoft Powerpoint and had an idea I could make this arch-shaped along the top. That way I wouldn't have to stitch the entire top row of the 9 squares, and just finish what was left under the arch. I can have arch-shaped mats cut to fit and I think this is a good solution.

 

 

So that's my plan now and maybe I can finish this off before the linen starts to rot LOL.   It's slightly further along than this but I haven't taken a photo of it in a long time.



August WIPocolypse #1 update

Somewhere along the way I thought I missed a WIPocolypse post but I guess not.   I think I'm just under the wire for the first full moon of August which the cutoff is Augu 30th,  and then there's the second full moon this month so another WIPoclolypse post is due shortly for that one. The time is flying by way too fast is all I know!   I've got a few small things to share that I finished in the last week.  The clock sampler patterns have been sitting around for years and years and I finally got one of the 4 seasonal samplers done that fit in this Olde Colonial Clock.  This is "Strawberry Summer Sampler" from C Street Samplers.  (SANQ magazine Summer 2003).   This was a fun little sampler to stitch, some specialty stitches here and there that were fun.  I thought I'd encountered most all of the specialty stitches out there but this is the first time I've ever done the Upright Cross Stitch and it was fun.   You can see it used in 2 lower strawberries in the band underneath the basket, it give a nice interesting texture.  I used an old piece of R&R linen called 18th Century Stone. I just love the color it's so versatile for projects, but mine had some tiny red specks on it. I do believe I've had it for several years and I think those spots are undissolved dye as I've read about that somewhere.  My LNS doesn't stock R&R anymore, mostly Lakeside Linens, but I do miss R&R colors.  Does anyone have suggestions on a good ONS to order R&R linens from, and are you having any trouble with spots??

 

 

I actually laced my piece this time to put in the clock. I really was happy with how it turned out!  I've tried stretchng and pinning before and always struggled with it.  I would get one part done and then it would always seem like I would have to undo it and move the piece.  With the lacing, you can adjust it a bit once it's laced and I found it much easier.  I used this video that someone recently put on YouTube.   Stretching & Lacing Needlework   I plan on doing the other 3 seasonal samplers to swap in and out of the clock frame.

 

 

 

 

I haven't finished stitching my "August" ornament yet...running late this month on that but I did the "finishing" for a stocking I stitched last month -  guess I can count that for August LOL.   It's another of the BBD December stockings.   The linen package said it was 30-ct which is what is called for but this one for some reason didn't quite fit into the stocking template I made for the other 2 I did....so I made the template a bit bigger. I also added a little cuff as I had the perfect fabric to match the piece.  It's bigger than my other BBD stockings as you can see in the first photo,  but I think I like it even better this way!

 

 

BBD "Merry December" stockings leaflet

 

 

 

Here's the ornament I've been stitching this month...not quite done yet.  I decided to stitch it on some 28-ct Waterlily linen I had but it's turned out a bit big for an ornament in my opinion. (already about 4" square and not finished-finished)  I may make it into a little pillow small instead.  Although I like the color, the linen is kind of a loose weave which I'm not crazy about so I will need to find some matching green fabric to put underneath I think.  I don't like seeing through the linen or sparse thread coverage. I just took this photo this evening so it was hard to get true colors. I should finish this up soon and then I can be starting some September projects.  

 

 

 

I guess that's about all I've got to share today...it's still very hot here in our desert climate but hoping in a few more weeks we'll get some relief from summer.  I saw a few grasshoppers on the driveway today and that usually means cooler temperatures are on the way.    I want to get back to a couple samplers I'm stitching and see if I can make some progress on those soon.  I have a lot going on in September but will be grabbing any time I can for stitching of course!









Giveaway winners announced........

I had the husband draw 2 numbers from the 64 entries.......and here they are...
FIRST PRIZE goes to #22 which was Mary of All My Scattering Moments-Mary

SECOND PRIZE goes to #47 - Tracey from I Stitch Therefore I am         

Mary & Tracey - congratulations!  I will be emailing you today to get your snail mail addresses so I can send the packages out this week.

Sorry I wanted to get this posted first thing this morning but I've been dealing with a work crisis all day....aaarrgghhh....I feel more hair turning gray by the moment........

Thank you everyone who entered and I so appreciate all your kind comments!!     Also welcome to some new followers - I've got more blogs of yours to add to my reading list.                                  

It's Blogiversary giveaway time again!

Well really, it's PAST time for a blogiversary giveaway but I don't think you'll mind that I'm late.  My goodness how fast these blogiversaries roll around, seems like it was just 5 years and here I am at 6 years!   I'm so happy that so many of you have chosen to read and follow my blog and I thank you for all your visits and comments.  I wish I had more time to read and comment on all of yours.  Right now I follow about 240 blogs in Google Reader.  I wish there was a magic button that would automatically add all the blogs from followers to my list but there's not.  I thought I would try to go through my list of followers and add any blogs I don't already follow but oh my it's tedious work.  You have to click on each follower, then go look at their Blogger Profile to see if they have a blog, etc.  I know there are probably many of you not yet on my reading list but I do try to add in more as I can.   There just aren't enough hours in the day to keep up with all the interesting posts.  And the more I read, the more I want to stash & stitch!

SO.....on to the important stuff!  

I didn't really have time to stitch gifts for my giveaway this year so I decided to do something a little different.  I've kitted up 2 prize packages.  You don' t have to be a follower or post a link on your blog or anything special...just leave a comment on this post and I will choose a first prize and second prize name from those who comment.  Deadline for entering is Sunday evening Aug 19th.  You must either leave your email address or have your email address in your Google or Blogger Profile.  If I choose your name and don't find an email address to contact you, I'll pick an alternate name.  

First prize:  I've kitted up a sampler I just love called "Beauty & Grace" from Tree of Life Samplings.  Jan designed this for a retreat last year and after a year she released it for the rest of us.   You can see a nice photo of this on the header of the Tree of Life Samplings blog.   You will receive everything you need except a needle!  I've included the chart, a lovely piece of 32-ct "Mello" linen by Picture This Plus (plenty of margin space for framing), all the overdyed flosses, and one of my  sampler project bags.  Also included is a pincushion I made - it's red, white, and blue, backed with wool and filled with crushed walnut shells.

Second prize:  The newest Little House Needleworks ornament has been kitted up for you.  It's called "Hot Chocolate" and you can see it at the bottom of their ornament page here.  I've included a piece of 28-ct natural linen with the chart, plus all the DMC threads called for, and a Christmas project bag I made.   You'll also get a pincushion made by me.  (I love making pincushions!)

I've been stitching away on a few different projects in recent weeks.  I managed to get a tree stitched by Lizzy & Darcy on my Pride & Prejudice sampler.   I did the tree 'free hand' - just started stitching and looked at some trees on charts I had for inspiration.  I think they like it.  :)   Then I started stitching the house I'm calling "Rosings Park" - my facsimile of it that is. It's almost done except for the door.     The house I charted myself on graph paper - houses are pretty easy to chart so by looking at the photo of the house from the A&E mini-series I came up with my own smaller version.  It still needs a bit of landscaping of course  and I want to add Mr Collins & Charlotte who lived nearby in the parson's house.  Feel like I made some good progress on this BAP this month!

Belton House, used as filming site for Rosings Park in mini-series

Rosings Park - my abbreviated version

I finished up another little patriotic small while watching some of the Olympics....it's the "Glory" fob by Shepherd's Bush but I wanted a pillow not a fob so finished it with a few patriotic fabrics. I found a perfect little blue heart button in my button box - love when that happens! I've also made it to the halfway point on the "Strawberry Summer Sampler" for my clock insert. It goes fast as it's only a 3" wide band sampler...hope to finish it up soon I've just been bopping back and forth between projects.

I've got an ornament kitted up from Brooke's Books to stitch for August but not started it yet.   It's called "Eternity" and has a lovely pinecone on it but I think when I finish it I will rotate it so the pinecone is pointing down.   I was picking up a few of the overdyed threads listed for the design at the LNS this week and couldn't find 2 of the Crescent Colours flosses on display.   I finally had to ask someone at the store and found that they were actually Belle Soie silks.  I'll be using the DMC substitutions for those as I can't see spending ~$15 for 2 skeins of silk used in just an ornie!
 

Next weekend my DH is out of town so I plan to have a serious non-stop weekend of stitching and movie watching - I'll probably have stiff hands by Monday morning!

Good luck everyone on the drawing!

More ornie finishes and new starts........

First a big thank you for all the encouraging comments on my Pride & Prejudice sampler!  It sure helps me get re-enthused about finishing this one up.    I'm finishing up a tree and starting on "Rosings Park" now.

I finally finished up my set of Christmas ornaments for July. I'm still on track with my monthly schedule.   I did all 4 of the little tartlet pan ornaments from Victoria Sampler. Even though those are small, it still seemed to take awhile with all the backstitching of pine boughs and the buttons & beads and mounting. I bought my tartlet pans from a local cooking store rather than ordering them from Victoria Sampler.  Mine were slightly smaller than the ones used in the chart so I stitched my ornies on 32-ct fabric instead of 28-ct so they would fit.  I liked these tartlet pans because they were thinner in depth...I punched a hole in the back with a nail and put my ribbon hanger in that way instead of gluing the ribbon on the back per the instructions. I think it looks better and I'm happy with the end product.  

"Woodland Creatures" by Victoria Sampler

I got something fun in the mail this weekend - so much better than bills!  Mary Kathryn of eHandcrafts was selling off a few unframed stitched pieces of hers.   I saw this and it seemed like it needed to come home with me.  This is one of the Dear Diary charts (Elizabeth McGuire) from LHN, but Mary Kathryn altered it a bit to add the wording and make it a tribute to Little House on the Prairie.  What a cute idea!  I have this chart but wouldn't have thought of doing that myself.  

 I'm not embarrassed to admit I have some boxed sets of the Little House DVD's either....Costco used to sell them for about $10 per season so it was a good deal. Sure there are some occasional silly episodes and like most series, it wasn't as good the last couple of years but so many of them are still enjoyable. It's fun to see who pops up as guest stars on that show from so long ago...Ernest Borgnine, Johnny Cash, and many others. I remember watching these reruns back in the late 70's....my roommate at the time and I would take bets on how far into the show Laura would cry- she was always crying about something LOL. (I defy anyone NOT to cry on the episode when Mary goes blind and the one with the big fire where her baby dies....sniff sniff...) I'll need to get this framed but will enjoy owning it.

Are you enjoying the Olympics? Kudos to you Brits...what a wonderful opening ceremony!  I loved seeing the history of Great Britain vignettes and the fun film of the Queen & James Bond.   I picked out a couple small projects to work on while watching but I haven't gotten far enough to take any stitching photos yet.

This one is an oldie.......once upon a time SANQ magazine published 4 seasonal patterns by Ruth Ann Russell to fit inside the Olde Colonial clocks. I bought the clock several years ago and I see the date on the magazines is 2003!!  I had no idea they had been sitting this long waiting to be stitched!  I've kitted up the summer-themed clock sampler to start.

Summer Strawberry Sampler - Ruth Ann Russell of C Street Samplers

(from SANQ magazine Summer 2003)

I also got out this little kit from Shepherd's Bush for the "Glory" scissors fob. I substituted my own linen from the one in the kit...and I will make it into a little smalls pillow instead of a fob. I don't like  fobs this large on my scissors as I think they get in the way.  So silly I've let this sit for a couple years when it's so small.

"Glory" fob kit from Shepherd's Bush

That's about it for today I guess.  Enjoy your week!

July WIPocolypse...and the British are coming!

Seems like I just did a WIPocolypse post but I was pretty late with June's so they've sort of run together.  

You ever get stalled on a big project?  I don't think I've touched my Pride & Prejudice sampler in about a year now.  I just got to where I had to do more planning and things weren't turning out as well as I'd hoped so I was avoiding working on it.  I was inspired to do this sampler when the "neighborhood" samplers were popular a couple years ago.  And as usual, I went a bit overboard because this sampler is pretty big..it's 18" x 16".   Without having charting software it's kind of tiresome to work out what goes where, converting patterns from DMC to silk, reversing patterns I needed to go a different direction, etc.   I had more motifs that I wanted to use than I can fit in, even as big as this piece is. If I had to do it over, I would maybe do it over-1 on 25-count or something like that, and pick a different linen.  But at the time, I was all enthused to start it and the LNS didn't have much in stock that was a big enough piece so I ended up with cream 36-ct Edinburough linen.

(P.S. I always get a few questions about this sampler...it's a composite of motifs pulled from lots of other patterns, I did not draw and design all of it myself.  I do have a separate tab on my blog that lists all the patterns I've used so far, I think all of them are still in print.)

Anyway...I got it out about 2 weeks ago and forced myself to get it going again.  I seem to have gotten past my mental roadblocks and I was able to make some good progress.  Woohoo!!  When last we visited this project, this is how it looked...........

I've added a vignette of Lizzy & Darcy in the lower right corner.  I will be adding a tree next to them soon I hope.  

Then I added the military regiment in the upper right corner of the sampler.  Remember all the women were swooning over the handsome soldiers and of course we must have the infamous Mr. Wickham you know!   I was so thrilled when I found this pattern came out a couple of years ago  - it was perfect timing for me.  It's by Brenda Keyes' The Sampler Company  - it's called the "Over the Hills" sampler.  Before I found it I was trying to figure out how I could chart some soldiers and believe me I hate charting anything - I can't draw and find it extremely tedious.   Don't my British soldiers look great marching with the flag bearer and his Union Jack?   Sometimes, a plan does come together! (oops I just realized I forgot to finish the 2 little trees next to the tents...just the stumps are showing LOL)

And now here is a snap of the total sampler...you can see there's still a lot of blank space where I have to fit in Pemberley and Rosings Park and a few things, but I'll get there eventually.

 

Now I've decided to start a new project...a couple of Christmas stockings for my dogs.  They've had some cheap ones we bought of course but I always intended to stitch stockings for them that would match the ones I did for my husband and myself.  These are the old ones from the Cross Stitch & Country Crafts magazines..I still think they are lovely patterns even though published so long ago.

In my opinion, the designer never got the credit she deserves as the magazine never published her name. I'm pretty sure these were designed by Donna Kooler.   I know if I decided to stitch complete versions for the dogs that it would take forever and the poor dogs are already 8 years old so I better hurry up!  I'm going to stitch the abbreviated patterns where you stitch a nice cuff and just do a wallpaper pattern on the rest of the stockings.  I should be able to get these done easily by Christmas and I bought enough of the finishing materials that I can make them match the other 2 stockings.

 

I've got my mushroom Lugana cloth sitting out in the sun trying to fade it a bit...I noticed the new piece I bought is darker than the cloth I used to make the other two.   It doesn't really matter but I'm giving it a try anyway.

I've overdue celebrating another blogiversary (they come around so fast!) so hope to plan a giveaway over the next few weeks.  Stay tuned to this space..and thanks for spending a few moments visiting me!  

Little finish to honor the day - Happy 4th!

I stitched this Lizzie-Kate freebie up this week and finished it into a tiny pillow.  My group of patriotic smalls is growing!

For all my USA readers I hope you have the day off and enjoy the holiday!

It's all in the numbers - 2117 - a big quilt finish!

First, a big thanks to all those who left comments and stopped to visit. It's such a little bit of excitement when we see a new comment isn't it?? :)

A big TA DA! for me last week. I finally finished sewing down the binding on the edge of this king-sized quilt I've been working on the last couple of years. I'm so happy!! I fell in love with this quilt at a quilt show 3 or 4 years ago - Moda Fabrics reproduced the fabrics and pattern from an antique quilt from the 1800's.

Here it is...........

Moda "Heritage Quilt 1846"

Close-up of the quilting

And here are the numbers.......

784 of these half-square triangles had to be sewn and pressed. Luckily I use half-square triangle paper which lets you make them assembly-line style.

196 small pinwheels were sewn from the half-square triangles...and a lot more pressing and sorting was done......

84 full sized and 28 half-sized blocks were made from the pinwheels and the background fabric.

339 pieces of fabric were used to make all the sashing rows.

Not to mention all the rotary cutting, pinning, sewing, pressing, ripping out and re-sewing, plus laying the rows out for assembly so that the colors were spaced out evenly and everything was kept organized. I also used 10 yards of coordinating fabric to make the backing.

This was too big of a quilt (107" X 107") for me to quilt on my home sewing machine so I had it quilted by a professional quilter with a longarm machine. She does awesome work but there is always a waiting list so I had to wait about 4 months to get it back. Then I made the binding for the edges - it was tough wrestling this big quilt around to sew on the binding.

Whew! 2117 pieces in total but I think it was worth it. But this may be the last king-sized quilt I'll make LOL. (I'm not even going to mention the cost of all the materials and the quilting...that's another big number....) I made this quilt for our master bedroom but at this point I'm a little afraid to actually use it given that my 2 dogs do get up on the bed. King-sized quilts are a pain to wash and dry when they get dog hair and stuff all over them. This is pretty light-colored so I may just use it as a blanket during the winter months and keep the bedspread on top of it. I should make a label for it in case it ends up at a thrift store someday when I'm long gone. Horrors!!

Ornament finishes......June WIPocolypse...stash shopping...and blogging slump!

I haven't felt much like blogging lately....I've been reading and commenting a bit here and there but I've got a lot of worries on my mind and when I'm in that kind of mood I just have a hard time being upbeat enough to post on my blog.  I don't want to bring everybody down nor share too many details about my personal life, so updates have been sparse for awhile.   However, I have been stitching at least.

Ornaments........

This past week I focused on doing ornament finishing.  I'm still on target for completing at least one ornament a month, and in fact I'm one ahead as I currently have 7 done.  Yeah me!   I stitched these 2 LHN ornies in April & May but they weren't 'finished finished'.   I love how they turned out...the beaded edge takes longer to do but I sure like how it looks.

Little House Needleworks - Merry Skater & Happy Skater

June's ornaments are below - 2 of the Blackbird Designs stockings. I'm stitching from their December stocking chart from the yearlong series - there is one more I want to do from that chart this year and I also have plans to do the little stocking with the Eiffel Tower on it from their Joyeaux Noel book.    I decided to do my finishing a bit different than the instructions - I sewed the stockings inside out like a pillow, then turned and stitched on twisted cording I made.  I'm finally getting better at attaching cording with the sewing method.  It's so much easier with 'hard' ornaments when you can glue it on but with soft-finished pieces I like to stitch it on instead of gluing.

from Blackbird Designs 'Merry December' leaflet

So I'm all set to start on my July ornament.  I have such a stack of ornaments I'm wanting to stitch that it's hard to pick just one!   I've decided to work on "Woodland Babies" from Victoria Sampler.  I love these little tart-pan finishes!  I plan on doing all 3 of the these from the chart, plus there is a fourth matching ornament in last year's JCS ornament issue.

I  got a little annoyed kitting this up.   Victoria Sampler sells the tartlet pans in packs of 4 but I already found some at a local cooking store which was great.  VS also sells an Accessory Pack with threads enough to make the 3 ornaments, little beads for eyes, and the little red buttons. I thought the price on the pack was high ($24) and planned to use my own supplies.  I was annoyed that there is no DMC conversion listed on the pattern.  I have about half of the overdyed threads called for, but there are several where there is only 1 or 2 stitches done in that color so I would rather use DMC than buy more overdyed threads.  I found a conversion chart online at least.   I can't find the little beads for the eyes but I'll substitute some from Mill Hill.  The micro-mini red buttons are hard to find!  JoAnn's crafts sometimes has little multi-color packets of these tiny buttons but I needed at least 28 red ones plus I may want to make some of these ornies for gifts.   Finally by Googling I found a quilting site that sells little packs of the red ones so I've stocked up on those.  Hooray for Bunny Hill Quilts!  I think I am finally ready to start stitching now LOL.   I love the birdie ornaments series by Cathy Jean that VS is also selling, but again, in order to get all the cute buttons and things that go with them it runs into a fair amount of money to be spent. 

WIPocoplypse update.....

As far as the ongoing WIPocolypse...I'm still plodding along on American Sampler.  I did finally finish the right-hand border by completing the rest of the flowers and the urn which was fun to do in bargello stitch.  I also made some progress working on the gardens around the house. (no those aren't giant green eggs...just trees without trunks yet...)  BUT...I have started the 'fill-in' around the top verse and I just hate working on that part! In the completed piece, the fabric surrounding the verses appears to be a different color of linen than the rest of the sampler, but that effect is achieved by weaving in a pale color of floss around the verse. (hopefully you can see the difference in the close-up photo below).  You have to go over 1 thread and under the next and so on and so on throughout the entire area.  Since I'm using 36-ct fabric it gets very tedious and even with my Daylight magnifier, it tires my eyes totally.  I'm only working on it during the daytime.  It's not too bad in the open areas where there are no words but around the words it is a royal pain!  You get lost and can't tell where you are or where you're supposed to place a stitch.  I'm making progress (slowly) but there is another verse to this sampler in the bottom border which will need the same treatment - OMG is all I can say!

 

and some Stash Acquisition.......... 

While visiting the Midwest with DH recently I was able to visit 2 stitching shops I've never been to before. Oh it was so much fun!!  (and DH didn't even mind hanging around while I oohed and ahhed over everything)  I visited Stitchville USA in the suburbs of Minnepolis, and Stitches & Stuff in Clinton Iowa - which is about 45 minutes from my hometown.   I spent a lot of money but my pile doesn't seem as high as you would think....amazing how quickly things add up!  I loved that they had a huge selection of linens at Stitchville....many colors I have not seen in person and in the count I like. It's always fun to see models you haven't seen before and get new ideas.  I highly recommend both of these shops if you ever get the chance to visit them!  We must have passed at least a dozen quilt shops on our roadtrip through 4 states but I only stopped at one...where I was able to pick up some of the Moda Blueberry Crumb Cake fabric line - I was coveting this last year when it came out so it was a happy find. Here's the stash items I brought back with me to Arizona......another Victoria Sampler holiday chart (Jingle Bell Tree Farm - gorgeous and WITH the accessory pack LOL), Maxim & Zoya from Plum St Samplers, some more BBD and Lizzie-Kate charts, Fancey Blackett from Pineberry Lane, another Word Play chart from With Thy Needle & Thread, lots of linens, a couple of kits (they had the cutest model made from a Dimensions kit - a winery - had to have it!), hand-dyed chenilles and rickracks, and a touch of quilting fabric to round it all out.   I've now decided to 'be good' the rest of the summer and try to work from my overloaded stash..........

I hope you all are having a pleasant summer.  The heat in Arizona hasn't actually been too bad yet.....the pool is still at a good temperature to enjoy it (the water gets too warm later in the summer) and we're hoping for a minimal forest fire season this year.  The west has really suffered over the past 8-10 years with the drought and so many fires.

Welcome to all my friends and followers - so glad you took the time to stop by!!