Day 309 - Archivers

Well, I had my camera with this evening and forgot to take a photo!  So it is a rare occasion but no picture today.  I spent a couple of hours with my daughter at Archivers, using the die cutting machines, gluing and cutting out designs.  It was productive.  Best thing about it was that I got to spend time with Micaela!

Day 308 - Cross Stitch

Well, more of the same.  It is surprizing how calming this cross stitch is for me.  Today was a hard day at work with some pretty bad news and this cross stitching has mellowed me out.  Sure is good to have some interests outside of work...

Day 307 - Cross stitching

Guess this little cross stitch piece has really drawn me in...photo is blurry but did some more on it tonight.

The other "event" of the evening was my

first 3 way skype call!  My daughter Micaela, my husband Michael

(who was upstairs at the time) and myself- some good laughs...

Day 306 - Cross Stitching

A little bit more done on the project today....

After church today we went to a Church of Latter Day Saints and walked through a beautiful display of 460 different nativity sets.  Here are a couple of my favorites.

Day 305 - Counted Cross Stitch

Did a bit more on the new counted cross stitch piece.

Look what my Dad made for me for the studio!

It is a wonderful place to store/display my quilts-in-progress

and completed quilt tops!

Michael installed it today in the studio.

At this point in time I have 4 quilt tops ready to go and the last rung

is the strips for the 2 church quilts ready to be sewn together.

Day 304 - Counted Cross Stitch & MOA

This evening I worked a bit on the new counted cross stitch.

Michael and I did our traditional day trip

 (we both took a day off work)

to go to the Mall of America for

our annual Christmas shopping day.

Here are a couple of things that we saw today.

They are refurbishing Legoland! 

The official grand re-opening of the store

is tomorrow!

There were these new, beautiful crystal "mobils"

 hung from the light fixtures

that were 2 stories long- shining and sparkling- breathtaking!

A display window outside of the Appple Store.

Nickelodeon theme park.

A chandelier made out of pastel, colored plastic spoons.

This is where we had our dinner.

And finally, interesting colored Christmas trees.

The ornaments are those hollow,

 plastic balls that are at kids playgrounds

where you can jump into a sea of those plastic balls

 and bury yourself...

It was a fun and productive day!

Day 303 - Quilt layout

Had a chance this morning to lay out the strips for the church scrap quilt.  As I was laying them out I realized how big it had gotten!  Decided that I would make 2 smaller quilts out of the one.  Here they are laid out and numbered.

Guess who that is walking across the far quilt??