Thursday, March 30, 2017

I don't know what has gotten into me...


I don't know what has gotten into me this week... maybe someone put something in my daily granola bar cause I have been super productive where quilting is concerned... I've spent quality time with my sewing machine and have lots of pictures to show... but there is a caveat... the quality of these photos leaves a lot to be desired. I took all the pics with my phone as that's the only camera my laptop will recognize... and while I've tried and tried and tried to adjust the color both on my phone and my laptop to accurately reflect the colors, I didn't have a lot of success. Please believe me that these quilts are so much prettier in real life...

First off,  I spent Tuesday waiting for a  plumber to come look at the water heater (good news... he can do a cheaper fix than the first plumber and will be back next week to do the job)... and while I waited I finished up the last 7 blocks for this quilt...



The pattern for this tulip appears in the Lori Holt Planner... my quilt is bigger... double bed sized... now when I got these tulips up on the design wall and started to cut the sashing ...which is suppose to be the same pale chartreuse-y yellow polka dot in the background of each tulip, it was obvious there would not be enough fabric to do this.... arghhhh.... so I searched the internet and while my background fabric isn't anywhere to be found, I did find another  American Jane yellow polka dot... a bit brighter... that will work. I ordered 3 yards... more than I need but I'm not running out again. I just checked the tracking and it has arrived at the post office in Cincinnati... so perhaps I will get it tomorrow...yippee!!!

I really love these tulips... they are BIG... mine finish about 9" x 12"... most of my tulips are single color scrappy... but a few are multi-color scrappy ... and I really LOVE them... if I had started with this idea I probably would have made them all multi- color...oh well... I had too many made when I figured it out... here are a couple of my favorites...

LOVE the paper doll clothes and the tape measure and the polka dots and the aqua leaves...



and this one has that cute fussy cute print of cursive writing  and a pencil...




here are 2 more of the single color scrappy variety and a glimpse of the border fabric... it isn't this bright in real life... again I apologize for the crappy pictures... grrrrr... if you go here to Instagram this is a better pic of this quilt.



On Wednesday  I went to brunch with my quilty friends and came home and promptly went into my studio... at brunch Laurey had several quilts she had finished binding and well it spurred me to get to the 3 quilts that were languishing on the couch. My memory was telling me that I didn't have anything to bind these 3 quilts with... my memory is faulty... in each case I did have some lovely fabric to bind them with .... I just needed to get my butt in gear... I told myself that if I trimmed the tops and got one bound it would be a good day... I lied to myself... I do that a lot... not only did I get all of them trimmed .... you better sit down for this... I got ALL OF THEM BOUND!!!! UNBELIEVABLE!!!  NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE!!!

Now none of these were huge quilts... all about 65" square or so... and I did bind all of them by machine... but still it is quite an accomplishment for me...

First up this quilt... the pattern was called Picket Fence by Busy Hands Quilts and you can see it here... the fabric was Moda Regent Street Lawn with a Moda Grunge for the background...

This pic is washed out from the sunlight today...




And this pic is a bit bright from the indoor flash...


And if you look back here when I first posted about this quilt .... over a year ago... you can see some other not so great pics of this quilt... in real life it is very pretty and soft and crinkly.

And then I moved onto getting this quilt bound.... a  simple 4 patch quilt with 4 patch cornerstones using Moda Persimmon by Basic Grey... I love Basic Grey fabric collections.... I'm quite smitten with this collection as I still have a jelly roll of it in my stash.  Again this pic is washed out from the sun, but if you go here you can see some better pics of this quilt....



After binding this one I got to thinking (always a dangerous pursuit for me)  if there was any more of this line available on the web...and a bit of searching yielded 2 places that had a layer cake... and well, I WANT it!!!  Now it was easy to decide which place to order from  as the one store had it listed for $39 which was the original price and the other seller wanted... hold onto your hat...$84.99!!!!  Holy moly!!!

As for the third quilt I finished, I'm going to post in an day or so when I get it hung up in my living room... I figured I've overloaded you today, so I'll save something for another day.  It isn't often I have this much to show at one time... heck I don't think I've ever had this much to show all at one time!!! Don't get use to it... LOL...

Well this month certainly flew by... heck the whole year has been flying by... how can it be April already???...okay not till Saturday... but it will be April by Monday... I'm ready for Spring... my daffodils have bloomed and are fading... my hyacinths are looking good and the Japanese irises I planted bloomed but they are midgets... don't know what happened there. I've been looking at flower catalogs online and there are soooo many pretty ones I'd love to plant... lots of new petunias... and dahlias... I bought some dahlia tubers... can't wait to get them into the ground... but I know I need to wait till May... how can time seem to fly and stand still at the same time???  Too big a thought for my little brain...

happy stitching-
carol fun


Sunday, March 26, 2017

Searching for my inner slug with Slow Sunday Stitching...

I am sooooo happy it is Sunday... I'm plum tuckered out with all the stuff that has been going on at my house and my son's house this last week and all I want to to is sit... find my inner slug... and slow down. So far, so good... the rain stopped and I did go for a short walk with my son at a local park... but now I've got my butt parked in my chair and the most activity I've planned is to thread a needle.

Last Sunday I talked about wanting to start my newest purchase Little House Needleworks "Needlework ABC's" but I said I should finish up the With Thy Needle and Thread  "Bluebird Out my Window"... and it is mostly done... I filled in the flowers, I just have the scattered little ditsy motifs to do, so I gave myself permission to just do one letter on this new sampler.... but one letter lead to another, and here is where it sits today...



I LOVE doing long samplers, and this one is a joy, as it is simple... not a lot of concentration required... once I start a letter I pretty much know how it should stitch out. Now I did change out the linen. I went through my stash of 32 ct and this is the ONLY piece I had that was long enough for this sampler... and fortuitously it is a lovely dusty turquoise color that works beautifully with these flosses IMHO... The Classic Colorworks  Cocoa Bean that the letters are stitched in pops on this linen... it would have been much more subtle on the Weeks Confederate Gray...and  I like this look better. Also I substituted Weeks Honeysuckle for the CC Antique Lace for the buttons.  It has some nice pale shaded yellow highlights which should work well with the other yellow I'm going to add to this piece. There is a lovely house to stitch which spans I J and K... it is going to be a little darker yellow tone...and then the stitching lady at the bottom will have an even darker yellow dress. I believe when you use a color or a fabric at least 3 times in a piece it ties it all together... just my opinion.

And the afternoon may include a nap...



yeah I know...he's big...that's why we call him Big Dude... I may bear an even closer resemblance to him after consuming  that box of lemon flavored, powder sugar covered. "Savannah Smiles" Girl Scout cookies... I don't know who Savannah is (although that now that I think of it I vaguely remember the GS were founded in Savannah, GA... gosh my mind is filled with useless clutter...no wonder I can't remember what was on my grocery list) but the cookies are addictive. I purchased them yesterday in front of the local IGA and the leader said this is the last week they would be selling them ... probably a good thing for my waistline...LOL!

Well I hope you are having a nice Sunday...not doing dinner with my son and daughter-in-law this week, they are going to her parents house instead, so I've got no dinner plans... maybe just soup and sandwich... tasty and easy...

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts today and Super Mom - No Cape on Monday...

happy stitching-
carol fun

Friday, March 24, 2017

A tale of two cities...I mean socks...

So it has been a crazy busy week and not much has been accomplished on the crafty front... haven't touched my sewing machine... did a little cross stitch... and did a little knitting... which brings me to the tale of my two cities... socks...

I was knitting away on the Frankensock I showed last week and that got me thinking (always a dangerous thing) about other Blue Moon yarn I had in my house...




So I went looking for wayward Blue Moon yarn  and found this sock...


This one is a Blue Moon Rare Gems...  a yarn with no real name... I put it aside when I thought it was a bit too bright... prior to my cataract surgeries... and somehow now I don't think it is too bright at all... I LOVE it... it bits of neon orange and hot pink and green... so pretty.

Well looking at these socks side by side I noticed something...



I don't really think you can see it in the picture but the Frankensock on the left is noticeably thicker...heavier than the Rare Gems sock on the right. These socks have the exact same number of stitches ...58... but the Frankensock is knitting on a 2.75mm needle and the Rare Gems is knitted on a 2.50 needle.... and I like the feel of the "fabric" on the smaller diameter needle much much more. Who knew that a needle a mere .25mm smaller would make such a difference????

Sooo...... I'm going to unravel the Frankensock and start again... I can hear my friend Linda groaning right now as I type this... she can never understand how I can rip out and start over when I have so much knit already.... but if I'm not happy now, I won't be happy with the finished sock and I enjoy the process of knitting them as much as the product.... and Linda... how many of those teeny tiny, itsy bitsy little leaves/circles/flowers have you redone on that magnum opus quilt you've been working on??? I'm just teasing her and she knows it... admitting something isn't right and fixing it is all part of the whole crafty experience.

Well I've been having my handyman, Dan, do a bunch of projects around my house and my son's house this week... both of our bathrooms needed repainted... we both live in older small houses with tiny bathrooms and inadequate ventilation... I have an exhaust fan which does help a bit but there was still some paint that needed touch up... and he put in a new faucet in my bathroom sink... and a bunch of new overhead lights...I've found some cool fixtures at Costco that are LED... love the look and the light they put out...however as always seems to happen when you work on fixing one project another crops up. An inspection of my water heater lead the conclusion that it needs a look see by a professional plumber... the hard water/calcification/gunk built up on it in less than 5 years is pretty severe. It was suggest about a year ago that I should get a water softener installed but it was going to involve demolition on the ceiling of my basement which was remodeled just 3 years ago... I couldnt' bear to do that at the time... but I think we've come up with a new plan that wouldn't require that ... there will still be some demolition but not the ceiling... having a plumber come tomorrow and another on Tuesday to give me some direction and estimates.  There is always something isn't there???

I'm going to link up to Judy's Patchwork Times On the Needles... hope you have a great weekend ahead... I have more "house" projects to do...

happy knitting -
carol fun

Sunday, March 19, 2017

Bird-brained...

So I haven't posted for Slow Sunday Stitching for quite a while as I didn't have anything to show...but today I do have something to show...and I continue to have birds on the brain and in my hoop (if I stitched in a hoop but I don't but somehow that sounds better than in my hand...which makes me think of a squished bird)...see I told you I was bird-brained...LOL


I finished The Christmas Bird by With Thy Needle and Thread...


this is so much prettier in real life... colors are washed out here but its the best I can do with the camera from my phone. I love the color of that background... 35 ct. Chestnut from Weeks Dye Works.. very rich...but that 35 ct. was not easy to stitch.  Don't know what I'm going to do with this. The picture on the chart has it finished as a little pillow...it about 2.75" X 6.125"... I'll think about that.

And this one is almost done...


this is Bluebird Out My Window also by With Thy Needles and Thread.  Just have a few more flowers to do and some scattered little ditsy elements to fill in the background. This is the first piece I've tried stitching since my cataract surgery and I've found I need some Mr. Magoo type magnification... but then I can see the threads ...and if that's what it takes, then that's what it takes.

I should be able to finish this tonight and I think I may start this piece...


Little House Needleworks "Needlework ABC's"... I got this as a kit and while I'm happy with the threads and the chart I'm not sure I like the linen that came with it... 32 ct. Confederate Gray by Weeks Dye Works... it is a nice color but the linen is real soft (I prefer stiff linen) and the weave seems very loose. This piece will finish 2 3/8" wide by 19 3/8" long and I think a loose weave will be difficult to get framed straight... I think I'll look in my stash and see what I may have... I think I still have some pale grey evenweave... I LOVE the motifs on this piece... the house, the flowers, the needle, the thread, the scissors and that cute stitcher at the bottom... she may get a different colored dress...just saying ... maybe something gold-y yellow and perhaps her hair will get a bit more auburn/red... some personalization on my part...LOL!

Along with the Bluebird out my Window, I hoping for some sunshine out my window...last week was gray and cold... tomorrow they are promising 60...hope they are right... my daffodils are hanging in there and I've seen some of my hyacinths poking up and something bloomed in my rose bed but I'm not sure what it is and I know that I'm the one that planted the bulbs...they kinda look like irises but they are only about 6" tall... maybe I did plant those...oh the memory ain't what it use to be... but the flowers are pretty!!

Well dinner is in the crockpot... beef tips in gravy to serve over egg noodles with a dollop of sour cream... should be yummy... hope you are having a lovely relaxing Sunday... I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts today and Super Mom - No Cape tomorrow...

happy stitching-
carol fun 

Friday, March 17, 2017

Bad blogger... rant on DST... tale of the scale...

Today I offer a trifecta of tales...

Okay... first thing first...I'm a bad bad blogger... I didn't mean to be away so long (but then does anyone really mean to not post for 2 weeks?)... but life got in the way...nothing dramatic ...just life.
I had my second cataract surgery and it went well, except the first time I didn't remember a thing. This time they gave me a different anesthesia and I was "there" for the procedure... heard a boring conversation about the anesthesiologist's son's soccer team... I liked it better the first time... ignorance is bliss.

On the plus side, my vision has never been better in my life... on the minus side, my vision has never been better in my life and I can see stuff I NEVER noticed before!!! Like dust on the furniture... and woodwork that needs cleaning and painting ... and floors that could use to see a mop... and a shower that is no where as clean and white as I thought it was....yuck!!! So I've been spending time with a dust cloth/mop/rag/vacuum cleaner/paper towels/bleach/cleaning products... you get the picture... and it ain't a pretty one. Glad this isn't a big house...

And since I didn't post last week I missed my chance for my semi-annual rant against Daylight Saving Time... nothing has changed  my opinion from last year or the year before that or the year before that or the year before that... I STILL HATE IT!!!!  Just leave the time alone... it will stay lighter later all on its own... and I won't be nearly as crabby as I am from losing that hour... do you have any idea how much chocolate it takes to make me chill out over that hour??? A LOT of chocolate!! LOL

So lets move on to more enjoyable pursuits... like socks! Here is the last pair I did with the sock yarn from my Opal Advent Calendar...


This time I took 4 of the mini skeins and divided each of them in half. Then I knit each half until I ran out of that skein and I started another. I've finally figured out that to make a pair of socks with Opal yarn I need 28 grams  per sock... the little skeins weighed 15 grams... half of 15 is 7-ish grams ...hey you know math is not my forte... so 4 half skeins will make a sock. I glad I'm documenting this info on the blog so I can find it later... as, it has taken me numerous pairs of Opal socks to figure this out.

Now armed with the amazing discovery on my part I figured I could apply this information to making other scrappy socks. I thought about breaking out my bin of Opal sock yarn and making a mountain of mini skeins but then I thought that a change of pace from Opal sock yarn would be nice... I was thinking waaaay too much here.

Instead I liberated my Blue Moon Socks that Rock yarn from it's bin...



 and made little mini bobbins of colorful yarn....


 I was so proud of my math skills, as I determined that I wanted to use 5 different colors in each sock... so that meant I needed about 5  to 6 grams of each color, right??? 28 divided by 5 equals 5.6...so I'm in the ball park, right???  I was able to use my newest toy... a little bitty scale...


isn't it cute?? My older son, the prosecutor, pointed out that these scales are primarily used to measure drugs....ummm... not me...LOL!!   Yarn...only yarn.... so off I went winding, winding winding.... I cast on this new Frakensock and I barely got the cuff knitted...oh something is wrong here ... I should be able to get waaay farther than this on 5/6 grams of yarn... on an Opal sock I was able to do the cuff and another inch and a half or so...

At this point I reweighed the Opal sock... 28 grams... and then I went and got a Blue Moon sock... a whopping 55 grams!!!!  The Blue Moon yarn weighs almost twice what the Opal does... yikes!!! Need to wind more yarn bobbins right away... and I did!  Thank goodness for my little scale and the tale it told...

Here's the sock so far....



I love the colors of Blue Moon yarn and I ADORE the names they give them... starting with the cuff this sock includes Crabby McHappypants... Fire on the Mountain...Azure Malachite... and  I'm just starting Chickabiddy... this is definitely a Frankensock!!!

I'll be linking up with Patchwork Times today for "What's on your needles?"... this sock will be a great project for waiting in the car knitting... and I might just cast on another new project... this cowl...


my friend Cathy was wearing the one she knit last night and it is soooo PRETTY... it is called the Orchid Cowl and it is a free pattern on Ravelry that you can see here.  Need to go root through my stash for a nice skein of something with cashmere in it... that would feel so good around my neck...

Hope you have some nice weekend plans... today my son's friend is hanging out here... tomorrow we have a wedding to attend... and on Sunday I think my older son and his wife are coming for dinner...and I'll try to squeeze in some kniting/stitching/sewing... sounds like  a pretty nice weekend!

happy knitting-
carol fun