Talk about a Luxury Holiday!

My DH had the great good fortune of winning a holiday for us this year at the fabulous Kicking Horse Resort in Golden BC!  He entered an online survey last fall, and was very surprised – since he could not remember entering – to be notified in the spring that he had won this vacation.  The contest was sponsored by the Kicking Horse Resort itself, and so we spent 5 nights at this fabulous mountain resort style mansion (pics borrowed from http://www.nbssnowboardtour.com/) :

We walked in the rain in the mountains, soaked in the hot tub, took the gondola to the mountaintop and marveled at the people who hiked and biked down, and watched movies in the media room.  The kids thought it was fabulous having their own king sized beds with attached full bathrooms, and had a ball learning to play pool and bouncing on the bungee trampoline.  Both of them learned to do backflips!!  We had the great good luck of glimpsing Boo, the resident grizzly bear, in his refuge, and we feasted on our last night in the Eagle Eye Restaurant at the top of the mountain.  The highest restaurant in the world dazzled us with their fabulous 3 course dinner with accompanying wine selections, and with the incredible views!

Many many thanks to Kristen at Kicking Horse Resort http://www.kickinghorseresort.com/  and John at Lush Mountain Properties http://www.lushmountain.com/ for a fabulous time!

Cheryl’s La Roserie Chair

Now this, this is something!  Designed by Janie Hubble of Cat’s Whiskers Designs – stitching by Cheryl, roses and finishing by me 🙂 Just click on it to biggify.

It has been forever….

since I did a stitching update, or so it seems!  Spring is always such a crazy busy time here – long days spent in the garden tearing out weeds, planting, revising…. add that to a recent reno project installing another small bathroom, and that leave little time for anything else!

Let’s see, where the heck was I?  How about starting with June’s ornaments? This is the Joy Stamp ornament by Jeannette Douglas, from the 2010 JCS Ornament issue:   I laced the edge to the back, rather than using a ladder stitch, to make it look a bit more like the stamp it was intended to be.

And this is a spiderweb ornie from the Halloween Ornament SAL I am in – sorry that I cannot remember the designer’s name.  I love the hand dyed fabric used for this one, and I had a lot of fun with the freeform finish! 

I have been enjoying stitching on my Les Grilles de Maryse SAL piece – here it is with April, May and June finished:

  I like how it wraps around the central area, rather than going to the left for June!

This was the fob I stitched for Juli in our birthday exchange group!  I love the ruched ribbon finish!

I really must find the time to stitch up one of these for myself!

Gotta love birthdays!

Especially when you belong to a birthday exchange group!  I was lucky to have the earliest birthday in the group back in April – just look at all the lovely things that I was given!

From Dane ( http://danesnadelwelt.blogspot.com/) – a beautiful sock knitting bag, complete with gorgeous sock yarn and stuffed with gummies!  My kids certainly enjoyed those!   Dane sewed the bag and did a beautiful job of it!  I have used it every day since.

Juli sent a wonderful assortment of goodies.  The seeds have been planted, the bookmarks are keeping my place, and I look forward to using the fabrics and fiber too! 

Nancy stitched this lovely pinkeep, and sent some DMC to keep it company – isn’t it gorgeous? 

Cheryl’s package included some lovely sock yarn and pretty fibers too!  and needles, and the card was simply hilarious: 

and just look at the fabulous project bags that Marilynne sent – she made the card too!  I have been using these on a daily basis too! 

What a wonderful birthday month it was – many thanks to all the ladies for making my birthday month a special one!