A Birthday, some stitching and the winner is

What a busy, busy weekend! But here I will let the photos tell the story for the first part of my posting.


I think you get the picture. Rory thoroughly enjoyed his Birthday. Though I am sure he was plenty tired of me making him pose with silly hats. (He learned a new command too. Pose!) He also got a new frisbee. No photos because he just plain moves to fast! And some tennis balls that he loves. Again he is constant motion with those. And that is a good thing. Makes him tired so Mommy can go inside and stitch.
Even though we had a few snowflakes on Friday morning (just for Rory's Birthday!) it melted and was gone by noon. The rest of the weekend was just beautiful weather. I even walked around and found these two.

My first Snowdrops!

And the daffodils are pushing their way up. Yippee!!!




As you can see by the leaves I have some yard work to attend to. But with the weather warming I don't mind. I'm sure I will have "help."

I really thought I would get this finished this weekend. Sigh. Almost. You may notice that I am not including the alphabet at the bottom but an substituting my name and the year instead. I just am not a fan of alpha type samplers. While I may love the design or the sentiment (like this one) I really don't want the alphabet hanging on my wall.

Why? You say. Well, you see, for the last 20 something years my job involves constant alphabetizing and indexing. It is a really important part of my work. So much so that when I find things out of alpha it drives me nuts. So since I deal with abc's all day long I would rather not have them hanging on my walls at home. Now back to Simply Live. I even have the mat and frame picked out but I needed to finish up and exchange piece yesterday and so the finishing will have to wait until later in the week.

Next up is an exchange I received from Ariadne (no blog) as part of a pin pillow exchange set up by Becky. Isn't it darling?

Thank you so much Ariadne.

And now for the moment you have all been waiting for. 107 comments, entries, for Rory's Birthday giveaway. You all are fabulous. And my hands were rather tired once I passed on all those Birthday pats and wishes to "Prince" Rory.

107. And so many different Online Needlework Shops. A number I hadn't known of or used. (But hope to one day). The overwhelming favorites were.

123 Stitch

Down Sunshine Lane

Wasatch Needlecraft

Handcrafts Online (Mary Kathryn)

And new to me ones are:

Anita's Little Stitches

The Strawberry Sampler

Needlecraft Corner

And many more. I found your responses fascinating and fun to read. Thank you for joining in the fun.

107 comments. Wow. I still am amazed but also extremely saddened. I can't give each and everyone of you a prize. I so wish I could because you are THE BEST! And I feel so guilty that I can't. Okay, here's a promise. If I ever win the lottery I will give a gift certificate to everyone!!

And with out further nonsense...................... We actually have two winners. Rory pulled out two slips of paper. So the one on top get the 25 dollar gc to the ONS of her choice and that person is

BECKY K

The second paper. therefore second place and a 15 dollar gc to the shop of her choice is PAM!!!

Congrats ladies. And thank you so much. I have already sent them emails and they should have their prize shortly. Again. I apologize to those who didn't win. But I plan on doing this kind of giveaway again at the end of May. So keep your eye out for it.

Now one last photo. It seems I have created a monster. With all the posing in the chair on Friday so that I would get at least one or two good Birthday photos Rory has decided he likes it. Every time we went outside yesterday he would run and jump in the chair and "pose".

Until next time................

Love and stitches

Kathy

and thank yous and licks from Rory too.