Some Stitchin' and Florida Side Trips Pt 1

Gentle Readers and Dear Friends I thought I would start off the post today with some stitching stuff....

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I took part in a couple of HOE Exchanges - one of them was the "Prairie School Seasonal Exchange."  With the stitchers stitching the partners choice of season. I stitched and Autumnal piece for Angela 

- here is a snap - 

- My stitching partner was Faye.  She stitched for me a wonderful needle book 

- and here are a couple of snaps - 

 This is the outside cover

and on the inside she included some size 28 needles (my favorites) and some lovely pins she made.  I love this special piece and it looks great in my stitching basket.

I also took part in the "Snowman" Ornament Round.  Today is the mailing day and mine goes out this morning, but my stitching partner Meari sent mine early - and here is a snap - 

How cute is he!!  I love the little snowflake embellishments!!  Thank you both for these lovelies!!  It is wonderful experiences getting and giving like these that keep me exchanging!!!!

Also on the stitching front is some recently acquired stash....

From l to r an older BBD Pattern and a "Florida" Tree chart I picked up in Florida... a cute Blacksheep Pyn Cushion chart, the "Bliss" sampler, an older Heartstring sampler and the Summer Mystery Sampler - as you can see all the "non" progress I have made on this piece.  I think I will wait until all three pieces come out before I start - I chose 35ct Confederate Grey for the linen - it is a really great colour.

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Now on to Some Florida stuff - I think I will break up the FL posts over the next few days.  Today I wanted to talk about the trips within the trip - or - the side trips.  Starting off with a Birthday dinner for my mom down at our cousins house in Ponce Inlet.  They live right on the Halifax river, they boat a lot.  Here is a snap from their dock looking west towards the river - 

You step out of their house onto the pool deck and then down to this dock - it is really beautiful and breezy.  This is actually a man made inlet the feeds into the river in the distance.  Here is a snap of all of us taken by a neighbor - 

From l to r is...  my sister, PA (Gordon's wife), me, my mom, Gordon, Scotty (Howard's wife) and Howard - Gordon and Howard are brothers and 1st cousins once removed. You can see the great pool on the right and the sunset reflected in the window.  It was a great evening and super fun to get together!!  We drove home along A1A and the summer evening with the top down was just "delicious!!!"  (no other way to describe the early evening!!)
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 Another side trip I went on was a visit to Ocala.  I moved from there to SF almost 18 years ago.  When I lived there I worked as a Curator at the Appleton Museum - on this trip I wanted to revisit and also stop off at a stitching shop.  Here are a couple of snaps...

This is Brick City CS - a great small shop between Silver Springs and Ocala.  It was well worth a visit as they where really nice and I needed a couple of things.

This is the Appleton Museum and if you are ever get close enough well worth a visit.  I stopped here for a few hours and met up with some people I worked with all those years ago - it was lots of fun!!  I then had a very late lunch and headed back to Daytona Beach.  It is very easy drive to get to Ocala  - it is a straight shot on SR 40 - and takes about an hour to get there.  On the way back I just had to take a snap of this in Barberville-

When I was driving over I almost wrecked the car when I saw this giant pink chicken - and knew I would have to stop and get a snap for the Blog!!

I think I'll wrap it up for today.  Stop back tomorrow for Part 2 of "Florida Side Trips."  Thanks for stopping by today - and for your super comments!!!

Take care,

edgar