Matt's Graduation Day

Congratulations to my beautiful boy. Today was your 18th birthday and high school graduation all rolled into one. You have always been comfortable in your own skin and not ever afraid to be exactly who you are. I can't wait to see what the future will hold for you. You are one smart cookie as evidenced by all those cords hanging around your neck. You are loved beyond measure - what a lucky mom I am.

Jen's Wedding Dress

Here's a little look at the wedding dress I hesitantly altered and highlighted a section of in an earlier post. I just love this dress. Jen is my neighbor and I've known her since she was about 10 years old. She has grown into a very stylish young lady and I think the 1950's fitted silhouette looks fabulous on her. We put our heads together to come up with the style of the little cropped jacket and I made it out of ivory silk shantung. It seems a perfect compliment to this beautiful dress.

Finished Floofy

I was in Boston a few weeks ago teaching for the Bewitching Stitchers SAGA group. After class one day some of the SAGA girls took me to a wonderful little knitting shop to see the 'Floofy Skirts'. It was love at first sight for me. I love to knit and this project allows you to sample all those interesting textured yarns you never know what to do with.


All you need to get started is 6 to 10 skeins of interesting textured yarns in one to three color families. The skirt is worked from the top down on circular needles following a very simple formula. You do not have to count anything or follow any stitching charts - just plain knitting. It is not boring because every few rows you get to start a new and interesting yarn. I really like the way the colors and textures play against each other. This skirt will be a welcome addition to my somewhat conservative (that's code for BORING!!) mostly black wardrobe. You can see lots of pictures of finished floofys and get the instructions from www.yarnsinthefarms.com

Trip to GNO SAGA

I'm soooo far behind with my blog posts. At the end of March I had the opportunity to travel to New Orleans for classes with the GNO SAGA group. They have a long time tradition of being a very well organized, active, SAGA group. They bring teachers in for weekend classes several times a year and are a really great group of accomplished stitchers. On the last night I was treated to a real Louisiana style crawfish boil.


Martha Stewart could probably have taken some entertaining tips from my hosts - the entire evening was beautiful. After dinner we retired to Suzette's amazing sewing room and I was beyond pleased to see she had completed four complete dress and jacket sets from my book.


Suzette had also completed the dress and jacket set I had taught for the guild way back in 2002. As a teacher, it is greatly satisfying to see such beautifully embroidered and constructed FINISHED class projects.


I already have plans to go back to see my stitching friends in New Orleans in September of 2011.

My Marathon Crew

Here we are at the early morning start of the SLC 2010 marathon. From the left are my oldest daughter Erin, my wonderful neighbor and Michael's best friend's mom Shauna, my third daughter Lauren, me, 17 year old son Matt, and 14 year old son Morgan. Lauren, Matt and Morgan ran the half and Erin, Shauna, and I did the full. This was Shauna's first full and Lauren's first half and they both blew me away with their determination. We all managed personal best times for our events and I'm quite sure we all felt another tall strong boy running along with us. I hope to participate in this event every year until I have to be pushed in a wheelchair.

Marathon Eve

This picture was taken while running up my much loved mountain two weeks ago - we had a bit of a blizzard Easter weekend. Tomorrow is the SLC marathon and the weather is predicted to be a perfect sunny 68 degrees. Welcome to spring in Utah, if you don't like the weather wait ten minutes and it will change. My wonderful, wild, crazy family are all getting ready to participate in the various events tomorrow. I'm feeling really unprepared this year. We will all be running for Michael. My kids have posted a video of last years marathon at www.runningformichael.blogspot.com Wish us luck!

How cool is this!

I have reluctantly agreed to alter a wedding dress for my neighbors daughter. It's the most gorgeous, interesting thing I have ever seen. The entire dress is covered in horizontal rows of shaped netting, sequins and spiraled silk ribbon. The base fabric is silk shantung. The netting is machine stitched on and sits out at least 1/4" from the surface of the dress. I can't for the life of me figure out how it was stitched to the surface of the dress in such an intricate pattern. I may be in way over my head here so wish me luck. I will try to get the brides permission to post a photograph - the wedding is in June.