When daughter Brooke and I sat down to create my business cards I needed a title. That was easy, "traveling stitcher" summed up my dream job. I am totally an avid and dedicated Local Shop shopper. I also often find myself hours from a local shop. I like small islands and lake cottages and any type of boat .... all which happen to be far from civilization. I needed to create kits which have the same standards of quality I was used to, that could be fedexed anywhere in the world.

This photo was taken recently in the Philadelphia Airport on a layover. As you can see, daughter Brooke and I both travel with a LOT of needlepoint. A millennial daughter and a 52 year old mother do not always pick the same favorite canvases. I love that. I love that I can stitch a tropical monkey wearing an orange fez and daughter Brooke will stitch Tupac and Biggie Smalls. Although, I must confess, I am minutes away from choosing that Tupac canvas as well!

I carry all needlepoint with me in carry-on baggage. The black purse goes below the seat in front of me and contains my iPad, beloved Sony camera, wallet, two passports*, noise canceling headphones, and baggies of needlepoint. One of those baggies contains finished projects I wanted to have with me in Florida. I love to stitch on planes while listening to books on tape. For this flight I listened to The Knockoff. (Life hack. If you are a righty try to get a right side aisle seat or left side widow to avoid scaring your neighbor with your needle. Or sit next to your husband, he's used to that!)

The orange camo bag contains more projects for the trip. The other bags are Brooke's projects.

* about the passports....I travel with my passport and my husband's. Sadly, not for quick romantic get aways. Three years ago we were at the family cottage on Lake Michigan when we got a call our youngest son was being evacuated from Machu Picchu to have an emergency appendectomy in Cusco. He was 17 at the time. Our passports were safely locked up in Vermont, and thus we had no way to get to him. We currently have two children in Europe. One is studying and working there and the other is traveling. In fact, at this moment they are in a bar in Munich together! If any of our children are out of the country, you can be assured, I'm carrying my mother sanity device! :)

This one was stitched in an airport while waiting to hear whether our son Colin got his dream job in London. He did!!

PRO TIPS:

1. Bring extra needles. Put them in several spots incase you change out your bag and forget. My change part of my wallet has several. Purse pockets have needles and so does my cosmetic bag. Nothing worse than arriving at the perfect place to stitch with no needle!

2. You can bring scissors on the plane. Read the TSA guidelines. I travel with smaller blades and have never had them taken away.

3. Precut fibers before flying. You can accomplish a lot more when you aren't fussing with your skein on the plane!

4. Ornaments and belts are great in flight projects.

5. Audible is a travelers best friend. Download the app. Buy your favorite books and have a great pair of noise canceling headphones. Listen to wonderful books while stitching for a dreamy flight.

For the past many months my husband and I have been planning a dream trip. We never set out to go on a long journey, this was one of those “if you give a mouse a cookie” scenerios. About a year ago I joined my long time and dear friend Kari on a yoga retreat. She had become a teacher at Sellwood Yoga in Portland, Oregon and had begun teaching with her friend, studio owner, Savonn. Kari and Savonn were bringing a group to Lucca, Italy and invited me to join. As you can imagine it took me all of 4 seconds to decide to go! Many, many years ago I owned a very small yoga studio in Vermont and although I know very well all the ins and outs of yoga, I no longer practice, and am in despicable shape. I marched myself over to Kripalu for a few warm ups and off I went to Lucca to join this extraordinary trip. Little known fact: Many gorgeous villas and estates throughout Europe rent out their spectacular facilities to yoga retreats. Seriously, who makes better guests than yogis??!! Yoga retreats are also a great value and often include meals made on site by local cooks… and there are sure to be visiting masseuses! I had wonderful plans to meet Don after the Italian retreat, and we enjoyed romantic Lake Como and adventuring around Switzerland - even returned to Murren, where I had studied in college. I did however, feel that Don had missed out. There were other men at the yoga retreat and our group had the opportunity to thoroughly enjoy Savonn and Kari’s classes and the chance to see many lovely sites in Tuscany. We had dinners in neighboring villages, went on a wine tour, visited Cinque Terra, and took Italian cooking lessons. (Which have resulted in the purchase of TWO pasta makers and NO homemade pasta to date!)

When another retreat presented itself, I immediately invited Don to join me. This time in France!! And thus, we have the beginning of “if you give a mouse a cookie” or in our case “if you are going to a yoga retreat in France, you might as well….”

If you are going on a yoga retreat in France, you might as well go to Barcelona!! 6 years ago we had the most fantastic International student Patty come and live with our family. For the last 6 years Patty and our Birdie have gone back and forth to spend great amounts of time with each other!! Birdie has completely adopted Patty’s family and vise versa. It was high time we made our way to Spain to see Patty and meet her amazing mother Louisa!! We tore ourselves away from Barcelona this morning after 3 full days and 4 nights of living it up in Spain. We toured the city and museums, we spent time with Patty and Lousia’s family and friends, we saw other girls who had studied in Vermont. We even celebrated Don’s 60th birthday. Because we were traveling with a local family, we often found ourselves in settings where we were the only tourists, which I love. This included the Barcelona Polo Club. It was very hard pulling ourselves out of our friends’ warm and inviting home but we had to continue on our journey.

If you are going to France for a yoga retreat, and you are going to Barcelona, you must take a week between and drive through the Pyrenees. (Marital traveling tip number one: When you plan a trip, have each spouse pick different locations or activities. Each spouse needs to be very enthusiastic for the other’s activities. This creates great travel harmony and a high percentage of future travel!)

Don loves athletic pursuits and adventure. As evident by the photo above, I am very happy sitting on a couch needlepointing. (Extra points if there is auditory enjoyment such as conversation with family or friends, television, or a great audio book.) I absolutely love to travel but my own personal choices might not include steep inclines, maps, undergrounds, or the woods. I also insist on staying far from Alligators. Don takes me way out of my comfort zone…which includes my current packing accoutrements… hiking poles, hiking boots, and scratchy wool socks. Tomorrow I fill my pockets with asthma medicine, grab my favorite travel tool (my beloved camera), and follow my husband through the gorgeous mountain range between Spain and France. I thoroughly expect a gooey cheese and baguette reward!!

Stay tuned for more Pyrenees stories and the other “cookies”, we are adding to this adventure!