Woo-Hoo!

Beautiful Fall Weather

We've been having a delightful fall with lovely weather and some nice unseasonably warm days.

One day we drove to the Washington Park Zoo in Michigan City.  It was a weekday right before I came back to work, so the zoo wasn't crowded.  The Budgies were very hungry and we were delightfully swarmed.

We could have stayed there all day, but did walk around the lower levels of the rest of the zoo. I didn't make the climb up to our favorite bench, overlooking the lake. Next time (I'm walking better now.)

The budgies are eating seeds on Popsicle sticks that you can buy at the gift shop. The seeds are really stuck on there and they have to work to get them.  Steve finally put the sticks on the ground and let them have at it.

This past weekend was just glorious. In between laundry and errands, we went out to the Hesston Steam Museum to ride the Hesston Ghost Train (just east of Michigan City).  It is totally hokey and I just love it.  Definitely kid friendly and the grounds were full of cute kids in costume (and parents and grandparents taking photos).  The train in the background of the photo above, just leaving the station, is the same one we rode on.  They had many trains out and running to accommodate the crowds.  The grounds were deep in fallen leaves so there was a lot of leaf play by the little ones. It's become one of my seasonal "musts."  

I think I will "need" to ride on the Candy Cane Express this year.

Back to Work

And not stitching.  :-{  

I'm still doing physical therapy, it's a bit up and down....this leg has had problems since I was a baby and now it's protesting some muscles and tendons being brought back into use. 

I see improvement, which keeps me going.

  

That and a bit of shopping!  

There's nothing like a new project to lift my spirits.

I joined the Shining Needle Society and signed up for this online course with Catherine Jordan.

A few years back I took her "full size" embroidery class. This is a miniaturized version, finished as a pendant.

My kit arrived very quickly and I've been reading it, thinking about it, and planning my forests. Like the model picture, I plan to make seasonal trees. So while I'm too tired at night to stitch, it's never out of my mind!

SNS has a number of other course offerings that are really tempting, but so far I'm resisting. So far...

Staycation!

Since I've been off recuperating, we discussed taking a short vacation before I dove back into work. But a gaping hole in the base of our chimney changed our plans. We now have a brand new, very nice chimney.  

So we've been finding fun things to do locally. We've been having amazing weather and took full advantage of it.

We visited Chesterton's European Market, which is a lot of fun. It goes through October. In addition to farm fresh produce, baked goods, honey, preserves, and maple syrup, they have a lovely variety of crafts.

Hubby bought me the lovely handmade Jewelry Box from Pa's Woodworking as an anniversary present. It's prompted a big clean out of my jewelry boxes, bins, and baskets--I was very disorganized.

Some drawers have dividers, some don't.

Then we went by the Dunes for a picnic lunch. This tree has an amazing load of pinecones at the top...and only at the top.

Dunes Grass.

We also went out to Hesston to visit the Hesston Steam Museum. The trains were running. They have a lot of steam power, a generator, sawmill, and other big equipment that are fired up for special dates. We love their Halloween train and hope to go back for that at the end of October, but the day was lovely so we decided to go and enjoy the fall color and beautiful weather.

Several sizes and styles of train cars were running. They have trains from Brookfield Zoo, Kiddieland, and the Donnelley Estate.

Here's Hubby, checking out a caboose.

Here are tiny trains (that take full size people!).

And here's the view from our train as we start our journey through the woods at the Indiana-Michigan border.

A Finish!

I finally finished the red scarf. The colors are actually darker/richer. I took this outside in the shade, the colors are much different in daylight than indoor lighting. But it's still not quite right. It's shorter than I hoped--the model must have used two skeins. But it's plenty wide and may work better than a longer scarf. Ready for winter!

I completed the final leg of the Hardanger tablecloth border and began cutting and wrapping. I'm alreay at the first corner. Since I began in the middle of a side, I'm 1/8 done! This is going fairly quickly, as I expected. I've made some progress on the other projects, too, but not enough to show.

 Back to work next week, so the push is on to get as much done as I can now.

Working on UFOs

This has been a challenging summer, in more ways than my knee. I completed the Homewood Guild Challenge and the EGA Stitch like a Painter challenge and I'm still working on my local EGA chapter's summer challenge. I don't think this one will be done by the deadline, but I also don't expect to make the meeting (it is right when I start back to work). Now that the first two are done, I've been rotating some random UFOs to WIP status.

World Embroideries and I visited a local yarn shop during my recuperation from Knee #1 and I purchased yarn for this project. It took me a while to get the pattern sorted. You can see quite a lot of variation in the hexagons, but I think these all should work.  I plan to assemble the hexagons to fit a small clasp purse frame.

I've rounded the final corner on the Hardanger tablecloth.  I completed all of the faggot stitches on the final 1/8th of the cloth and have the ships (or half flowers) well underway. 

I completed all of the embroidery on this set of pillowcases.  I bought them with the embroidery partially completed at an antique shop years ago. They are old fashioned 100% cotton cases, woven in a tube shape so no side seams. 

No threads came with them so I dug through my stash for coordinating colors.  I also stitched the end seams (hand stitch French seams) while at Outlander (Starz TV) viewing parties. Now I'm looking for crochet cotton in a color I like to do the edging.

I've done a lot of knitting on the red faggot stitch scarf. You can see the skein of wool is dwindling. It's now over 36". I've been working on this one too long and I want it done so I can wear it this winter.

The last in the rotation is a purse my friend Renee began for her sister.  I took it after Renee's passing to complete.  It's basic basketweave stitch.   Since it's painted canvas, it's hard to see. Most of the motifs are completed and about half the brown background. I have white to complete the background to the edges of the leather.

Getting Back to Normal

I saw the doctor this week and he's pleased with my progress.  I'm heading back to work in two weeks--October 6. Yikes!

This past week was also our 38th Wedding Anniversary.  Big Yikes!

 

We celebrated with a new home phone (ours was a 1980s vintage dial phone) and a rousing game of minigolf--me with no cane!  The weather was beautiful and we had fun.

Today we beat the rain and went to the Park Forest Art Fair early. It was nice but it's sad to see it shrinking each year. We always enjoy it.

I made a small crochet basket to contain the felt acorns. They still tend to jump out and roll around, but hopefully they'll get used to their new basket home.

Fall feels imminent...trees are starting to change, birds are flocking. My husband encountered swarming dragonflies this week while on his bike ride. Apparently it's not rare, but people rarely see it. They were either relishing the plentiful mosquitoes or getting ready to head south together.