Needlework Projects

On the right a completed project ... on the left a work in progress.

August in Florida

Temperatures in the low 90's with rain nearly daily. Tropical weather for sure! Cape Coral is in Southwest Florida along the Caloosahatchee River and the Gulf of Mexico. Definitely sub-tropic. We live 6 months under air conditioning and 6 months with windows wide open. Winters are absolutely wonderful. Summers are also great, but we limit our outside activity because of heat and humidity!

Beginning in May ... the weather begins to turn more humid and hot and by July, you are in the midst of a tropic summer watching the weather for hurricanes. I have learned that hurricanes give warnings if you pay attetnion; thus you can get out of town if one is coming your way. We evacuated for one storm and that was Hurricane Andrew. We would have been fine staying because it passed south of us, but who knows and who wants to take a chance. We think we have our things in order to take out in just a few hours; things like important papers, food and gas.

At any rate, summer is the best time to take out-of-state trips and so far this year we have made two. In May we flew to California and Hawaii and in July, we drove to South Carolina, Iowa, and Minnesota.

While I am at home, I look for inside activities and love to read. Last night I put together a quick book list and found I had read over 65 books in the past two years; most are psychology, spiritual, and health related but I throw in some good fiction from time to time also. In fact, I just finished an old series ... The Savannah Series by Eugenia Price. I am interested in reading established authors and was also interested in learning more about Savannah. They are labeled as romance novels, but I have to say they are at least 50% historical and I learned much about Georgia, early politics and the civil war.

Another activity I've started is needlework. As a small girl I was taught to embroidery and crochet and when I was viewing the video Gandhi last Spring, I was taken by his spinning wheel. To me it was a connection to his past and a down to earth remembrance of his roots. So ... since I have been studying spiritual things, I decided to give needlework a try again and my first project was embroidering monograms our pillowcases. They turned out pretty good, so I then decided to embroidery my sister a pillow for her birthday. I found a design I liked and modified it to fit and got started to complete it for her birthday May 8th. Since I hadn't used my hands and fingers like this I had major aches and pains using ice and anti inflammatory drugs for awhile.

Now I've begun needlepoint and counted cross stitch ... another animal I am teaching myself. I have purchased kits which have instructions, needles, and thread. My first project was small (5" x 5") and turned out pretty good; my second project is 6" x 6", but much more complicated and is also smaller mesh, i.e., 18 stitches per inch versus 12 stitches per inch on the 1st project (plus this is counted cross stitch. I am enjoying this so much, I have already purchased by 3rd project which is 14" x 14" and I think 12 stitches per inch. The thing is the 1st two projects were made for gifts and I am having a hard time wanting to give them away because there is a whole lot of work in them; but I will!