The Stitch Up

Christmas Trips

We've been getting around a bit to different spots around Virginia for Christmas celebrations.  My favorite every year is the Christmas weekend at Middleburg, VA.  Their Christmas parade begins with the Hunt parade: hunting dogs and horse and riders decked out to go chase some foxes.

In addition to the parade they had wagon rides around town.  In past years, I think they've done sleigh rides, but this year has been totally snow free.

These horses were so cute and all dressed up for Christmas.

Middleburg had a craft fair and lots of other activities - the whole town was festive!

Santa apparently likes the Hunt parade as well!

Another week we took a walk in Gulf Branch Nature Center in Arlington, VA.  The Blacksmith Guild of the Potomac was doing a presentation and had made a bunch of bells and candy canes for the holidays.

I loved watching the artisans at work.  They weren't selling anything, which was too bad as I think it would be cool to have an iron candy cane to decorate the house.

I think this last week before Christmas we'll be laying low, finishing the gift wrapping and chugging some egg nog.  I need to finish a few embroidery projects before the big day arrives and I'm cutting it close. Good luck to everyone with their last minute shopping and crafting!

Christmas Shopping

I do most of my Christmas shopping on-line, but I do love to hit up the antique stores around town to look at vintage Christmas decorations and soak up a little old school Holiday flavor.  Our favorite antique store around here is Falls Church Antique Center.  They always have a great selection.

I loved these little choir girl candles.

This store always has great textiles - I have to control myself to keep from buying up big handfuls of vintage embroidered pillowcases and kitchen towels.  I bought a few Christmas themed handkerchiefs.

And then I just drooled over the stacks of other textiles.

This clever sampler also caught my eye:

And I always drool over the huge variety of tea cups and saucers:

 Alas, this time of year I need to concentrate on Christmas gifts for others and I don't know too many people with the same rabid love of vintage embroidered cloths that I have.  But a few things did make it to my Christmas wish list, and window shopping at any time of year is fun!

Fall Fun

We've been continuing to enjoy Fall, the best season in the mid-atlantic.  We took a trip to Occoquan, which is a quaint town on the Occoquan river.

We meandered around the downtown area a bit.

We ended up at a cute tea shop (my choice obviously!) called the Pink Bicycle.  It was charming and the owner made delicious scones and sandwiches.

It was a relaxing way to spend the day. 

I also FINALLY finished the third square in my Spanish Quilt Project.  Ta da!:

It involved a lot of little stitches, but it was so fun to do.

I've also gotten a jump start on some Christmas crafts.  I'll start posting some of those projects after Thanksgiving.  Until then, I hope everyone eats their fill of turkey and mashed potatoes and has a great Thanksgiving!

Virginia Booze Adventure

It's Fall in Virginia which is always a perfect time for a drive out to the country.  And as long as we're headed out to the country, why not hit up a winery and a distillery?  With the rolling green hills and the leaves changing color, it's my favorite time of year here.

We hit up Willowcroft Farm Vineyards first.

It's in a very pretty location and they have a good selection of wines.  After trying a few we set up a little picnic to enjoy the view.  It was brisk, but that crisp, Fall air is what we've been craving for months, so we enjoyed it.

After our impromptu wine and cheese party, we hit the road to check out a local whisky distillery.  This is something Virginia does right!  We tried Catoctin Creek Distilling Company.

The name comes from a local creek that the company uses in their distilling process.  It's a small business and one of the owners was there during the tour and tasting.  Apparently in addition to whisky they make brandy and their pear brandy sells out immediately.  I'm keeping an eye out for the next time they have it in stock.

After all that drinking we were ready to eat so we went to downtown Purcellville.  On the way I snapped a few pics of the barns and farms we drove by.

I love the worn exteriors among all that green.

Downtown Purcellville is small and charming with a couple of good restaurants and some cute shops.  

We ate at Magnolia's at the Mill and had a great lunch.  Everything was good and the interior is warm and rustic.  The building was built in 1905 and served for years as a flour mill.

Even with all that relaxing and eating and drinking, I got some stitching done on the drive.  Pics of finished projects are on the way!

Fredericksburg, VA

The husband and I took a little trip out to Fredericksburg last week for some antiquing and had a great day!

One of the things I love about Virginia is the number of little towns with so much history.  Like many towns around Virginia, Fredericksburg has a wealth of Civil War history and was the location for two major battles.  Fredericksburg is most well known for being the location of George Washington's childhood home.  You can visit the spot where he supposedly threw a penny across the Rappahannock River and chopped down the cherry tree.

However, the main reason we headed down to Fredericksburg?  Antiquing and a good meal!

While Fredericksburg is quite an old town, most of the buildings in the historic section had more of a 1950s than a colonial feel.  

Every other store in the old town section was an antique store and there were some great finds!  I bought a couple of vintage scarves, but the furniture in the stores was what caught my eye the most and I think we might have to go back with a truck.  Or a moving van.

After an exhausting day of antiquing we hit up the Blue and Grey Brewing Company for some great local beer and food.  I actually haven't found too many good microbrews around Northern Virginia, so this place was a nice surprise.  The husband also got us a quick tour of the Bowman Brothers Brewery.  It's on the banks of the Rappahannock River and the bourbon tasting was straight up smooth Virginia whiskey!

 
We will definitely be returning to Fredericksburg for more shopping and maybe to include a few of the historic high points.  We brought some Bowman Brothers Bourbon home with us though, so we will be enjoying a taste of Fredericksburg (I know - corny!) for a little while to come.

Middleburg, Virginia

We managed to make it through the snow storm with no permanent damage.  We did have huge branch fall.  It took down some wires, but it turned out that was not the cause of any power loss.  (Thank goodness.  I would have been embarrassed to have been the cause of the whole neighborhood losing power.)  It turns out the wires that came down were just old telephone lines but it sounded and looked pretty damaging:

Wild, huh?  The husband chopped up the limb and took care of business and looking around the neighborhood there were quite a few people who had downed tree limbs.  

We spent a lot of time at Starbucks and hitting some restaurants over the few days that the electricity was off.  It was cold in the house and we are also sadly addicted to internet access.  

I was thinking about writing Starbucks a thank you note when I was sitting there warm, snuggly, full of vanilla latte and perusing my favorite craft blogs with their free wireless.  But then I remembered that Starbucks has been getting PLENTY of my cash over the years so I figure we're even.

Once the electricity was back on and things had settled back to normal the Hubby and I decided to take an outing.  We've been out to Middleburg, Virginia several times.  It's one of those cute towns in Virginia horse country with a lot of history, beautiful old buildings and adorable shops.  They have a great Christmas parade that also signals the start of fox hunting season so the parade begins with hunting dogs and horses and riders who take part in the hunt.  I think because this is such a big part of the Middleburg social scene, the unofficial mascot of the town is the fox:

We in fact had lunch at The Red Fox Inn.  It's a restaurant and hotel that was originally built in 1728 and according to their web site, this was how Middleburg got it's name.  It was the half way point between Winchester and Alexandria Virginia, and where travelers would stop on their trip to spend the night.  The Inn has lots of history - of course as with most places in Virginia, that history includes the Confederacy during the Civil War.  General Jeb Stuart and Colonel John Mosby (who is insanely popular here btw, everything is named after Mosby!) met there and it was used as Confederate headquarters and a hospital during the war.  John Kennedy also gave a press conference here and they say that Jackie Kennedy stayed at the Inn during fox hunting season.  More importantly - Elizabeth Taylor used to kick it in the Tap Room at the Inn when she was married to Senator John Warner.  

The Inn is beautiful as well as historically interesting and the food is great:

After lunch we strolled around the shops and buildings in Middleburg.  

My favorite shop in Middleburg is The Christmas Sleigh which carries Christmas ornaments and decorations from Germany:

I bought this adorable smoker:

I think he matches the Santa Claus table runner kit I bought in Berlin and embroidered.  I can't wait for next Christmas!

I've got some progress on knitting and embroidery to post soon.  We're expecting more snow tonight so keep your fingers crossed that it's a small storm.  I'm looking forward to heading into Spring.

Survivalist Training

We had a big storm Wednesday night and between the snow, freeze and falling tree branches a big part of the northern Virginia area lost power.  We're part of a handful of lucky peeps that have continued to be without power while they clean this mess up.  It's been challenging and COLD!  

Luckily, the husband makes a mean fire.  Of course one member of the household did not have to be asked twice to take the warmest spot in the room:

We've been going out to eat as the stove is electric and so we can't cook.  One plus is that even thought the fridge is out we haven't had to worry about food spoiling as it is so cold every thing is staying fresh.  How cold is it you ask?  Well, none of the ice in the freezer has melted even a bit and we are wandering around the house in layers of sweaters, jackets and gloves.  We did try to do a little cooking over the fire:

This was an effort to make a grilled turkey and cheese sandwich over the fire.  Let's just say that one side of the sandwich was edible and we learned that maybe we're not meant to try a campfire cook out in our fireplace.  

Dominion claims we will be back to normal by tonight.  Of course, as I'm typing this at the Starbucks, snow is starting to fall again which always seems to complicate things around here.  Keep your fingers crossed.  I don't think we can survive on burnt campfire sandwiches for much longer!

Wilkommen zum Oktoberfest!

Despite the fact that summer reared it's hot and sweaty head again here in Virginia, the Hubby and I found some fall activities to enjoy this weekend.

In our continuing effort to visit every tiny town in the Northern Virginia area, we made a bee line for Lovettsville, VA for their annual Oktoberfest party.  Lovettsville was apparently originally settled by German immigrants in the 1730s.  It's a cute little town that is very proud of it's German heritage.  Our first stop was the food and beer tent of course.  There was bratwurst, knackwurst, and bauernwurst with sauerkraut, potato salad, pretzels, strudel and of course beer!  The food was delicious - as good as anything we had while in Berlin.

(I just want to make it clear that the two sausage platter belonged to the Hubby!)

After grubbing, we took a walk to the main tent where they had German dancers and music.  Everyone was having a lot of fun.  

We also took a walk around the town center.  They had a mini market with even MORE food on offer, but we were too stuffed.  I even had to turn down funnel cake which pretty much never happens.  The town itself had some pretty buildings.

I thought the painting on this shed looked like a quilt block.

This church was originally the St. James Evangelical and Reformed Church established in 1733.  It's now the St. James United Church of Christ and still seems to be very active.

After Oktoberfest we headed out for a little antique shopping at the Antiques Heydey Fall Market in Virginia.  It was sort of...meh.  It was advertised as four buildings full of amazing antiques, but really it ended up being about one and a half buildings filled with pretty average stuff I'd seen before.  Despite the somewhat meager offerings, the antique market was at the Loudon County 4-H fairgrounds and it was kind of fun to walk through the buildings that normally house cows, pigs and chickens and see vintage china and furniture instead.

Our first, fun, Fall outing of the season.  As soon as the weather catches up with the season, things will be perfect here in Virginia!  

End of Summer

This has been a hectic summer for so many reasons, but we did find some time over the last weekend to head to Lucketts, VA to do some antique shopping and hit the local fair.  It was the perfect end to the summer.

Lucketts has a ton of cute antique stores.  They're packed with fun finds .  The only thing stopping me from shopping like crazy was the fact we were driving the mustang.  Not quite enough trunk space for a sofa or table.  Next time!

I'm considering taking up croquet just because that set is so vintage cool!

I know that iron headboard set would be a lot of work to fix up, but it could be a fun project!

I love embroidered linens!  Between the ones I make, the ones I've collected from family members and the ones I buy - I could put something embroidered on every surface of the house.

After our sweep through the antique stores we wandered over to the fair.  

There was a ton of yummy fair food.  The husband had a delicious crab cake sandwich and I had a bowl of fresh churned blackberry ice cream.  

There was also a petting zoo, which I always find adorable.

This little guy was ready to come home with me.  There was also a very pretty cow and her baby.  I tried to get a good pic of the calf but she was too sleepy to pose.

So cute!

There were some really great bluegrass bands playing at the fair as well and I found out that the old school house in Lucketts hosts regular blue grass concerts.  http://www.luckettsbluegrass.com/  I think we might have to make another trip out to Lucketts soon.

 

 

 

Work hard play hard...or I guess just work hard

I am currently working some very crazy hours and though I love to keep busy, it is leaving precious little time to stitch in the evenings.  I am fitting in an hour or two of embroidery a night and hoping to present a finished Spanish quilt square soon and sketch up my next quilt square pattern.  I've also get a TON of other project going on but sadly as they are gifts - I can't share them until the recipients have seen them.  No peaking!

Even though the hours are crazy on this project, I'm working at a building that is beautiful and relaxing.  It's on a man made lake with a nice walking trail (prefect for grabbing some lunch time exercise) and has some pretty waterfalls and coy ponds that help me relax a bit when the hours start to add up.

 

 
 

But I think the best part of this building is that it houses the restaurant where the Hubby and I had our little wedding just four short years ago.  In fact, we have a couple of wedding photos posed right in front of the waterfall.  

So every day that I go to work I am surrounded by sweet memories of one of the happiest days of my life.  Not a bad way to spend the day actually.