Wine and Wildflowers

Hello friends - thank you for stopping by for a visit! Travis is away on his yearly fishing trip to Louisiana and I have a few quiet minutes to post. The last 6 weeks have been a whirlwind and once again, I find myself behind on my blog posts. The last week of April, Travis and I took an anniversary trip to Fredericksburg, TX (more on that in a moment) and things haven't slowed down since. We traveled to Omaha, NE for a wedding, the first weekend in May - it was a wonderful trip - it was for one of our former Iowa neighbors (who we consider family) and it was a lovely wedding weekend and time spent with our Iowa family. Then I taught a couple classes for The Quilted Sunflower - a beginning patchwork class and a beginning foundation paper piecing class. We followed that up with a trip to Cedar Rapids, Iowa for my mother-in-law's wedding - we were there for four days and were able to spend time with family, new extended family and friends - it was a beautiful outdoor wedding and reception (I will share a few photos in my next post). Then back to Kansas to teach another class (my Pretty Posies Pouch). In-between all of that, I have been busy with work obligations and creating a few gifts. I barely have my head screwed on - so having my husband out of town this week has given me a chance to breathe and catch-up on much needed tasks. I thought I would start by sharing some photos from our trip to the Texas Hill Country.

We took a road trip to Fredericksburg, TX to celebrate our 22nd wedding anniversary the last week in April. We had searched for the best vacation spots in the United States to unplug/unwind and Fredericksburg kept coming up...so we decided to investigate. We booked a quaint, little country cabin that was outside of town - it was exactly what we wanted - remote and quiet. We were surrounded by farm animals (cows, sheep, goats, chickens) and deer every single day - we would get in the hot tub each night and just watch the animals. We visited the National Museum of the Pacific War, several distilleries and wineries, Wildseed Farms (the nation's largest working wildflower farm), took a luxury boutique winery tour and visited some wonderful restaurants (we had a delicious anniversary dinner at Otto's German Bistro). It was definitely a relaxing week away - and, in all honesty, it was not long enough. As always, I took tons of photos and here are some of my favorites....

This week, I have been busy with needlework finishing and custom sewing - trying to finish up all the client orders I currently have on hand, so I can focus on some of my own design work (both cross stitch and quilting) and some projects for my Etsy Shop. I have been feeling very inspired for my original designs and look forward to focusing on some new pieces! 

I will be back to visit soon, with some wedding photos...and lots of photos from my latest creative endeavors (needlework finishing, quilting, sewing, and gifts). I would love to find time to film a new FlossTube video in the next couple weeks - it has been too long! So much to share, so little time....

A Quick Update

Hello friends. It's been too long since my last post...and I finally just forced myself to sit down for a quick visit. There has been a lot going on behind the scenes here and life just seems a bit out of balance. I'm going to do a quick catch-up and then share a few recent finishes...

First of all, I wish to thank everyone who reached out to me (and my family) during the recent loss of my father-in-law. Many of you know that my husband and I just celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary...and that we have been together almost 23 years (I'll post a wedding throwback photo below)...so Richard (my father-in-law) has been a huge part of my life. In March, I spent some unexpected quality time in Iowa with my husband, mother-in-law and extended family for the military service - all made even more difficult by the current pandemic...and while it was a very small service, we plan to have a celebration of life when things are back to the (new) normal. I have many comforting memories of Richard and was blessed to talk with him several times before his hospitalization. Here is a photo I took of him that makes me happy - he has a genuine smile and his canine companions (Charlie and Pepper).

Not only was it our 20th wedding anniversary last week, but it was exactly one year since we moved to Kansas...which doesn't even seem possible. While I still really miss my Iowa friends family, Kansas is finally starting to feel like home. We have some wonderful neighbors and I can actually say I have made some good friends on our new street. The construction in our neighborhood is almost complete...last year at this time, we were the only people living on our street...and now, most of the homes are occupied...and we even got a new street light installed in front of our house a couple weeks ago. Our neighbor Eric has a fancy drone and took some lovely aerial photos of our neighborhood...these give you a good view of our surroundings. The cows aren't back in the pasture just yet...but I am hopeful we will see them soon!

Yes, I have been making masks...not for sale, but for those working/traveling during this challenging time and those with compromised immunity...just a small thing that I can do to help. Since my husband works in management for UPS and they were notified that it is "strongly encouraged" for them to wear masks, I got right to work...I made some out of some fun "brown truck" fabric I had in my stash for his management team that made me smile. I have a list of requests that I am working through in my "spare time"...and then, if they are still needed, I may make some for sale...I haven't decided...many of you are asking...I really don't want to profit off of the pandemic...supplies and time are a factor...so we'll see...

I am working like mad to catch up on customer orders and finished a large one today (pictures will be in a future post). My workload queue is overflowing - and I am very blessed to have some extremely patient clients. Here is a sampling of projects I finished up in March...

I have quite a few more photos to share with you - I have been doing lots of sewing and quilting (I made a lovely table runner) and lots of needlework finishing - I will be back to share those soon....plus I am working on some projects with a future fabric collection from Poppie Cotton that I will share in August (I'll give you a peek at the fabric real soon). For now, here are a couple photos I snapped of "the kids" on Saturday after one of their play sessions...

I hope you are happy and healthy and finding a positive way to manage during these challenging times...be well...