Merry Christmas To All!

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

First of all, let me say "Merry Christmas" everyone! I hope you are having or have had a very blessed Christmas filled with joy. Here in Southeast, Coastal Texas, our temperatures were in the 50s F and the sun was shining gloriously all day!

We went to the candlelight service at our church last night (don't you just love the candlelight services at Christmas?) and on the way home the full moon was so big, bright and orange it just took your breath away. It made me recall all those times as a kid when we were on the road to my grandparents house on Christmas Eve and I would look up at the sky and the moon hoping to get just a glance of that jolly ol' man in the sleigh with his reindeer crossing in front of that moon; you know, kind of like ET. Sometimes you could almost believe you saw just a glimmer of him - it was so exciting, the anticipation of Christmas morning, gifts, and being with family. The sermon at the candlelight service was about getting that wonderful feeling of joy and anticipation back into Christmas; looking at all our blessings and really feeling the joy of life - after all Christmas is in the heart. I believe it is a choice and we can have Christmas every day, if we so choose :-) I wish that for all of us.

Here are a couple of pictures of our day out today. We rode to Galveston, Texas on the coast just about 50 miles from us and had a beautiful Christmas Brunch with special friends at the Galvez Hotel. The Galvez Hotel is a historic hotel constructed in 1911. Being there takes you back in time with all the amazing architecture of the period and you feel a part of the elegance around you. Everyone was dressed in holiday colors and sparkles! I have included a picture of the beach across the street from the hotel and one of what they refer to as the Bluewater Highway which travels along side the beach for miles and miles. That is the road we took to ride home and it was a beautiful, serene afternoon. There were lots of interesting birds as it is a coastal migration area and we are fortunate to have marvelous birds. I wish I could have gotten a picture or two, but alas, the birds were more interested in eating than posing.











I have included a picture of a hotel which is built out over the water on piers. This is the Flagship Hotel. I have never stayed at this hotel, but find it interesting that they built it there and it has been there many, many years.




Later this evening, we had dinner with more dear friends. They have twin boys who are three and a daughter who is one. The whole family is an absolute delight to us and it is quite nostalgic for me to watch her twin boys since I have twin boys myself - a wee bit older than three :-) Mine will be 29 in February.

These next two pictures I took on our outing to Houston the other day. I went to buy fabric and my DH got coffee beans. The picture on the left is of Reliant Stadium with the Astrodome on its right. The Astrodome used to be considered the most enormous enclosed stadium on the planet, then New Orleans built the Superdome which was a bit larger, then Texas built the Reliant Stadium. The roof opens and closes depending on the weather. It is unbelievably grand! Just thought you might like to see it. We drive by this on the way to many of our favorite haunts in Houston.















The sunset is as we came home that day.... amazing colors. When you see a sunset like that, it really gives you a sense of hope for our world.






The two pictures above and below are of work I did with my Babylock Embellisher. These will be pins or something I add to other pieces, I am not sure. It is a beginner's project from Margo Duke's book, but I quickly found out that working with these 3-d fibers can be tricky. Fun, but tricky. I broke a total of four needles - so it will definitely take practice when using such dimensional fibers such as silk rods, hankies and yarns. Guess my next order will be additional needles for my Babylock. I learned to hand crank the first couple of times through thicker fibers and go slow. I definitely had a heavy foot and will need to learn to slow down to gain better control. I also learned that for these pieces, I had a tendency to over needle. That is fine if you want to have that texture, but you don't want to over do it. Once you get it tacked in place....leave it alone :-) A couple of times I got ribbon completely thread bare in places from over doing it! I will have to undertake the use of that "P" word! You know, "practice, practice, practice". You soon find favorite textures to play with and have an uncontrollable desire to visit a textile shop where you can find some unusual, what I will call "bumpy" fibers or fibers with LOTS of character - this will definitely be fun. I will be looking differently at hairy animals from now on!

I used silk rods, silk curls, roving, hannah silk ribbon, silk hankies, yarns, dupioni, etc. which I machine felted to a piece of wool felt and I plan to add some beads for sparkle. This was a good beginners project.

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