Its the last Sunday of July - what happened?

 Wow, where is the summer going?  and why is it going without me?  There hasn't been that much stitching for me this month, so not a lot to report.  

Let's start with the monthly question from WIPocalypse which you can find the host blog sight here:

Measi's WIPocalypse.

the question is:  Have you attending a Stitcher's Retreat?  If so tells your experience.  

I have attending a few the most recent was with the Southern Cal Stitcher - which was a lot of fun, we had a huge room that was well lite and then had our meals served cafeteria style.  Our stitching room had a refrigerator, so we could bring snacks and we could stay in the room as long as we wanted.  The room accommodations were not the best, no TV's, single beds that were hard as a rock and bad lighting.  But then we weren't there to spend time in our rooms right?  I really enjoyed myself, but the last year I opted for only a day and no meals vs. the whole weekend because the cost was getting more than I felt like I could afford at the time.    

If you can go, I would tell you to go, the time you get to spend with other stitchers is so great, and while we all shared our love for stitching, we were all so different in what we stitched.  I really felt as thought I got to see things I normally would not have seen.  The group was so great at encouraging the stitchers who were just getting started and asking advice from those who had tons more experience.  Also you got to see really neat tools that you might not have seen before.  

The first one was with our ANG group, we were limited to when we would be in the stitching room, but the resort had other places we could stitch as a group and stitch.  Our meals were totally on our own, but there was a place to eat on sight, so you didn't need to go and find someplace.  Again, the best part was stitching with all the other members, most of them were doing needlepoint, but again we were all so different in what we stitched, our use of speciality stitches and threads.

So what did I do this month? 

I worked on my Mulipication is a Vex.  I have in all of the squares thought 12 across and 8 down except for the lower right corner.  I am doing red numbers across the top and down the left side.  I will do black numbers diagonally and then do gold thread in the lower section and a blue thread in the upper section.  

I am off :( in the 9 column by 1 and also I think in the 10 column, so will need to figure out how to correct the numbers when they get to be 3 digits at the bottom.  Since I had re-done the grid twice already, decided I wasn't redoing it again.

Next I finished one of my many quilts and it is at the quilters.   I should have it back the end of September.  I told her to just do an overall pattern on it, nothing special.  When I get it back I'll have to do the binding, thinking I'll do red around it, so will need to buy some material as I don't think I have any in my stash.  I don't enjoy hand stitching binding, so it will all be machine stitched.  I know weird that i cross-stitch, but won't hand sew.  

My hopeful goal is to have another quilt ready to be done when I pick this one up, if not two.  I'm working on the center section of one right now, there are 4 rows of the squares and each row has 5 sections.  I would have been done by now with it, but I totally sewed it together wrong, so I had to un-stitch it and re-do.  Then will need to cut border strips, so hopefully I can find the material in my stash.  The other quilt needs big triangles cut from the material and the squares are set on point.  That one I will need to take my time to do as I'm not very experienced.

My daughter came up to Saginaw and my niece came over with her little girl.  The two girls are 20 minutes apart in age.  Sara is on the left, but that is her cousin's baby Rose and Brie (her cousin) is holding Peola.  Rose is older, but about 2 pounds lighter than Peola.   It will be fun watching these two girls grow up, I hope they get to know each other, which I'm sure will happen as we live next door to her Dad, and he has the kids over all the time.

The last picture is a butterfly that we saw at the butterfly house on Mackinaw Island.  I took my granddaughters and daughter there last week.  We did the carriage ride around the island which included the butterfly house.  I had never seen a butterfly that you could actually see through the wings!!  At first I thought there was something wrong, but there were several like this one.  

Not sure how much stitching I will get done for August.  I had retired the end of March, and decided retirement is not for me right now.  So I talked to another company and should be getting an offer letter in August to start working.  I'm looking forward to working again, I really love what I do (which most people's eyes glass over when I talk about it, so I don't) and as long as I can continue to do it, I might as well.  I will get Peola's stocking one!! It is all stitched, just need the embellishments added and then sewn into a stocking.  I've done 10 of them, so it should go quickly.

hope you are all having a great month of stitching!!