Monday, August 28, 2017

A new quilt top filled with old memories on Design Wall Monday...

Another week has whizzed by, hasn't it?  And so much has gone on in the world in the last week...the eclipse and Hurricane Harvey and now the epic flooding in Texas... my heart and prayers go out to all of those affected by this storm. Mother Nature proves again that you can't control her.

And since I can't control the weather...and I pretty much complain about it all the time...except for right now...right now the weather in SW Ohio is just about perfect... 70 degrees ...low humidity...I've got the windows all open and it feels so good... where was I?? Oh can't control the weather, but can control my sewing and I finished a top for this Monday morning...


This is my Puss in the Corner quilt done in all Lori Holt fabrics. I started with two layers cakes of her newest lines Bee Basics and Bee Backgrounds. Now I did add a couple of other fabrics to this top, some of the prints that are only available in the extra wide 108" background fabrics and a piece from an older collection, but they all play together nicely.

Now this is a brand new quilt but it is filled with old memories for me. I am a child of the 50's and 60's... a time I remember as perfect... my Mom was a stay at home mom before that term was ever coined. We played outside all day, we walked to school (and no it wasn't uphill both ways but it was about a mile away). we caught lightening bugs in a  mayonnaise jar with holes punched in the top, and life was good.  So many of the fabrics in this quilt brought back these kinds of memories for me...


Where to start...  the border of this quilt is a lovely yellow print from the 108" wide collection and when I saw it I immediately remembered the cafe curtains in my Mom's kitchen that were hung with little brass clips that slid back and forth...


And when I think if my Mom, I remember sewing... she let me use her Kenmore sewing machine with the cams when I was 6 years old. I started out making doll clothes and moved on into making all my own clothes by my teen years...





And as the child of the 50's and 60's TV played an important role in my life... the Mickey Mouse Club and Lawrence Welk and  Midwestern Hayride (a  local WLW show) and Bonanza were some of my favorites...


and don't you love that penmanship print?  My handwriting was never that pretty...

And I remember getting my first two wheeled  bike for Christmas when I was in the first grade...


And why does that green print with the circles remind me of the test pattern that use to appear on the TV when they signed off for the night???

And when it was hot we sat in front of a fan...



but we didn't have any cute baby chicks running around in my 1960's suburban neighborhood.

And I learned to type on a "portable"  Remington typewriter that weighed about 50 lbs...ok that is a bit of an exaggeration... but not much...


This is the only print that isn't from the current LH collections and it was too cute not to include in this quilt.   And if you remember the start of this top you might recall  there were some gray prints in the collection... I thought I could use them... I really did...but in the end I just didn't want then in this quilt... I just wanted bright happy colors so that's what I used. Insert stompy foot 8 year old me in 1961...LOL

So many good memories...

This was a easy quilt to make... I was going to link to the tutorial I used but somehow it has disappeared from the web...how did that happen?? I thought everything on the web was forever...at least the bad stuff is ...well anyway... I just stacked a print and a background square... I cut them down to 9.5"...then I cut a 2.5" strip off of all 4 sides... then I shuffles the squares and you get two blocks with the positive /negative of each other...easy peasy.

Now to get this off to Terry to have it quilted... I'm looking forward to sleeping under this one and hopefully dreaming of the 60's... that would be nice.

I'll link up today with Small Quilts and Doll Quilts  and  Em's Scrapbasket and Love Laugh Quilt.

Hope you have a good week and send prayers and maybe a donation to a charitable organization for all those people in Texas.

happy stitching-
carol fun

Sunday, August 20, 2017

OMG I did it again... on Slow Stitching Sunday

Oh my goodness... I did it AGAIN... and why do I have that Brittney Spears song stuck in my head... I have AGAIN miscalculated on a Lizzie Kate long project. Remember when I miscounted the  linen for the Jingles series... you can see my truncated version here... well I was super-duper, extra special careful when I cut the linen for the Lizzie Kate Boo series... I was NOT going to run out of linen again... BUT I ALMOST DID....ugh....


So here is how far I am today...


Moving right along... loving all those different fonts and images... when I arrived at the spooky house yesterday... and I thought to myself (note: thinking almost ALWAYS gets me into trouble...LOL)... it seems like I don't have enough linen left to do 4 more words and images... I should double check... and I did ...and I DON'T!!!!  Now I have more linen than I showed in the picture above but not enough to do all the sections. This time I did cut enough linen but I misread the instructions about how to space the sections and I've been putting too many stitches between each section and that has eaten up stitches almost totally a full section... arggghhhh.... what to do... what to do????

Well here's my solution... I am going to leave out one section... the one that says Brew... I'm going to move up the Ghost section because there is a pattern where every other section has the image on the opposite side and I want to keep that going. I'll be able to do the little house which says Fright, follow by Ghost, followed by Monster...he's adorable and then finish with Halloween.

By the time I figured out my error I had the little house done...



it was reduced to a pile of fuzz...


and then relocated up several stitches and re-built. I sometimes wonder why I like counted cross stitch so much when I have so much trouble COUNTING...but I do... I really really do!!!

Here's a close-up of the sections I have finished since I last posted...


The buttons really add a lot.. I love the frog and the pumpkin will get button eyes like the owl.

And I want to get this finished by the end of the month because I saw this the other day and I HAVE to stitch it!!!


Another Little House Needlework Sampler...Autumn ABC's... I LOVE LOVE LOVE this one!!! Fall is my favorite season and this one is so cute... the pumpkins ..the scarecrow ...the quilt on the line. I'm assuming that she is going to do more like this to join this one that I already stitched...


I really love the style of these and framed they will fit right by my front door...which I can see from my stitching chair ...and enjoy all year round. I'd love a Winter version and a Spring version. I'll have my Lizzie Kate ones for Christmas and Halloween... and it is lovely to have a spot
where I can rotate seasonal pieces.

So I will stitch some more this evening... dinner is prepped and ready to be popped into the oven... meatballs and spaghetti is the menu for tonight. The weather is hot today but they are promising cooler temperatures next week... I am soooooo ready for Fall. My window boxes are getting raggedy and I want to pull out the petunias and replant them with mums and add some pumpkins. My bed of marigolds is sporting the perfect Fall shades of orange and yellow and I think they'll hang in there for a while still. I even have a few dahlias... my first time to try  growing them...


That's my hand for size... its about 6 1/2" from palm to fingertip.and there are going to be 3 blooms on this single stalk ... and the color in real life is a deep burgundy red... I'll be looking for more dahlia tubers to plant next year. What wonderful Fall-ish addition to my garden.

Well I will link up with Kathy's Quilts today and Super Mom - No Cape on Monday. Hope you have a good week ahead of you... I've got a couple of things to do during the week and then something Friday, Saturday and Sunday... time flies by, doesn't it?

happy stitching-
carol fun 

Friday, August 11, 2017

Yarn is sneaky....

Yarn is sneaky.... that is the only explanation I can come up with to explain how so many skeins of yarn have appeared in my home recently... I'm not exactly sure how they get into the house... here is my mail slot outside...



The mailman shoves it into the slot and it comes out here...


See that little white door... sometimes when a package is big it pops right out on the floor...easy peasy... I don't even have to go outside... this is waaaaayyy too enabling...LOL!!  Now how it actually finds its way to my door is another story we are going to ignore at the moment... I seem  to have picked up some sort of digital tick which has me clicking on icons with baskets and carts...

So here are the new goodies I have to play with...


A skein of Miss Babs in lovely shades of green called Succulents... jade, sage, aqua, mint... so pretty... I'm thinking a shawl.

And then this skein appeared, I was totally smitten by the name "Lady Edith", my favorite character from Downton Abbey ...


This is from The Yarn at Home Mom ... here's a link to her Etsy shop.  These are not colors I would normally pick but I like the dark gray and the speckly sea glass green. I looked on Ravelry and if knit up as socks it is a gives a little stripe pattern..not sure what this will be but somehow I don't see Lady Edith in wool socks so again I'm thinking a shawl.

And then the other day I got sucked into another couple of skeins of yarn by the name but also by the colors. These skeins are from Must Stash Yarn... great name for an indie dyer...of course we MUST STASH yarn... these two skeins are from a series she is doing based on the Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album... the soundtrack of my teen years...


The mini yellow skein will be heels and toes for the top skein which I undid called Land Of Submarines... here's what it will look like knit up...


Isn't that cool???  She dyes them  and packages them so you will get two identically striped socks... now you know I don't usually do identical socks ...but I may this time... or I may start at the other end of the skein and have them go in reverse order... stay tuned.

The second skein is called Sgt.'s Score... I've ordered some pink and orange mini skeins for heels/toes/ribbing.

And then.. I know again with another skein... yep ... 2 more snuck in... I've noticed lately they seem to be traveling in pairs... safety in numbers, right?  These are two skeins of Malabrigo Mechita...



The top one is Anniverasario and the bottom one is Hojas  which means leaves and makes sense since it is has lovely dark green shades. These skeins were free... I purchased them through Amazon using my Cashback Bonus money from using my Discover card. I run a lot of purchases through this card and the Cashback Bonus is my mad money... I spend it on stuff I don't need but I want ...and I wanted this yarn because I had started this shawl...



This is Stormy Sky  ... a free pattern on Ravelry which you can see here. It is an easy pattern with 4 sections that repeat... a garter stripe, a dropped stitch stripe, another garter stripe, a yarn over strip... easy to knit and remember. Well I saw several version of this shawl done in the Malabrigo Mechita but I couldn't wait to start so I broke out this skein of Misti Alpaca in the Reaggeton colorway... it is a cloudy day here and I'm not sure you can fully see how bright this skein is. It reminds me of a Mexican serape or a stack of my Fiestaware dishes... here's a close-up.


The alpaca is very soft  and all those bright colors are a pick me up on a gray cloudy day... I think it will be a cheerful pick me up all winter long.

So that is the state of affairs in the yarn department at my house. I did this post today because Judy at The Patchwork Times has revived her Friday link up dealing with yarn and knitting. I really missed it as it motivated me to get something done to show... thanks Judy for doing this again...go here and see what Judy and others are up to in the yarn area... I'm sure there will be some lovely things to see and drool over.

It has been a busy week... an appointment or lunch or something  that HAD to be done every day this week. Tomorrow there is NOTHING on the calendar and I hope to keep it that way. Why is it that when we are young we don't want  to stay home but the older I get the more I LOVE to stay home.


ok ... I don't go to bed early... but I don't get up early either... but sleeping is still more satisfying as an adult than it ever was as a child.

Here's hoping everyone has a lovely weekend!

happy knitting-
carol fun

Wednesday, August 9, 2017

WIP's on Wednesday... I love alliteration....

Well I've had a couple of very productive sewing days and have two WIP's for this Wednesday. First, I have a good start on a new quilt using my latest fabric purchases .... two layer cakes of the new Lori Holt Bee Basics and Bee Backgrounds. Now I wanted to make a quilt that would use just these layer cakes and I wanted it to be an easy block....duh... and I wanted a positive/negative vibe and this is what I ended up doing...




An easy Puss in the Corner block... I used the tutorial you can find here... basically you layer two squares and trim them to 9.5"... then cut a 2.5" strip from each of the 4 sides... shuffle the darks and lights and presto!!!  2 Puss in the Corner blocks!!!

These fabrics have a lot of fun motifs... old fashioned fans, and little bicycles and chicken wire just to  name a few... here are a couple of blocks I like a lot...



I LOVE that old fashioned penmanship... do they even teach penmanship anymore?


And this sweet cross stitched heart motif comes in several colorways but the yellow is my favorite!



And while I kept as many blocks as possible monochromatic it didn't work out for all the fabrics so I paired the little scissors with the embroidery text print... love both of these!

Now I'm going to do 9 rows of 9 blocks... I want to start and stop with blocks that have the "solid"corners... it makes my OCD happy to have a symmetrical  quilt... so I need 81 blocks... which I had hoped I could get from the 2 layers cakes each having 42 fabrics... but it won't work out that way. Both the Bee Basics and the Bee Backgrounds contain these same two squares from the panel in the collection...




Now these are cute but they won't work for this project ... too busy... so I will be forced to make one single block from some of my other Lori Holt fabrics... oh no!!! I have several "basics" I can use but not any lights so a trip back to HomeGrown HomeSewn will be in order... I do love going to that shop!  Such a happy place...

The layout I have now isn't the final one but it doesn't look too bad... I'm even using the brown and gray fabrics which aren't my favs ... really pushing the envelope for me...LOL!!

And while I was starting a new quilt I decided to free a UFO from its plastic bin and chose this Churn Dash quilt I started over a year ago... Now I was shocked ...really shocked... to find that when I sealed this away I had cut out all the sashing and cornerstones and setting triangles and I had labeled ALL the parts and even drawn a diagram of what block went where.... What in the  HE-Double Hockey Sticks got into me???? I'm never that organized... I always think that I'll remember whatever it is I was doing... and anymore I never really do.

Anyway I spent about 4 hours  and got the center together....



All the little 2.5" squares are from an assortment of Sandy Gervais Fall collections... she does great Fall collections... and the sashing, cornerstones and border are her fabrics too. That lovely yellow is my favorite butterscotch Grunge.  To make the big churn dash blocks I used the Charm Pack Churn Dash pattern that you can see here.   My blocks came out a bit smaller than the pattern said even using a scant 1/4" seam allowance... mine measured 17 3/4"... all those seams eat up a lot of fabric.

Here's a close up of one of the blocks...



I tried not to repeat a fabric in a block so they are all very scrappy. Now things were going together very nicely and I had cut the side triangles all oversized so I could trim them down when I had the top all together...and it wasn't until then that I noticed that somehow I had cut ALL those outside setting triangles with the bias running on the outer edges....arrghhhh....what was I thinking???  I should take them off and re-cut them....but I'm not gonna do it!!! Insert stompy foot... it lays pretty flat. I stay- stitched in about 1/8" all around the outside... and while there is a discrepancy in the measurements of the top and the bottom of the quilt, it does measure the same size through the center. I'm going to put the borders on and ease in the extra fabric and it should be flat enough.

It is going to hang on the back of the couch or be on my bed so if it isn't perfectly flat it will be okay. I just want  it done and I'd like it finished by the beginning of Fall which is September 22... heck I'll be putting my Fall decorations out by the beginning of September... I LOVE FALL!!! I've already picked up a couple of new decorations... a polka dot pumpkin and a cute wooden skeleton... and I'm sure there will be more goodies too.  Fall is my favorite time of year and my favorite decorating season.

So I'm running late for several of the Monday Design Wall linkups, but better late than never, right?
I'm linking up with Small Quilts and Doll Quilts, and Em's Scrapbag.

happy stitching-
carol fun


Sunday, August 6, 2017

It appears I have a thing for vermin ... on Slow Sunday Stitching...

Well last week I was stitching squirrels and today I'm into spiders....it seems like I have a thing for vermin....LOL...not really... I don't like spiders and snakes....shudder!!!  And last week I whined about wanting to start the 2009 Lizzie Kate Boo Club piece but I wanted to dye/paint some linen for it...sooooo I got off my butt on Monday and did it....

This is what the linen looked like after I painted it with Rit dye...



I used liquid Rit dyes ...the ones in the bottles...and I diluted it a lot. I painted on the linen with a 1" brush and tried to keep the places where the dye would overlap to a minimum to avoid getting a lot of brown ... and then I put some purple splotches on at the end. If I remember correctly... and I'm too lazy to go to the garage and check ... the colors I used were Hyacinth, Apple Green, Tangerine and Lemon Yellow. I laid the linen out on a piece aluminum foil on top of cardboard  as I didn't want it to leak through to my kitchen counters. The dye didn't cover the back side as completely as the front side... it may have been that the aluminum foil kept that from happening... so this is definitely "painted" linen ...not dyed. I let it dry and then ironed it with a hot steam iron onto a white paper towel and only got a little dye transfer.

And here is what I've stitched so far...


I love that black and white check border... it has a MacKenzie-Childs vibe to it...  and here are some close ups...



The button eyeballs are a nice touch in this section...


And the button eyeballs on the cat remind me of Felix the cat...  yeah... I'm old...LOL!

Any who I've accomplished quite a bit of stitching since Monday night... I've given myself a deadline of September 1 to finish this so I can get it off to the framer and back to my  house by October 1...and I think it is doable. Each of these sections is less involved than the Lizzie Kate Christmas piece I did.

Today is a great day to sit and stitch... we had a cool rainy morning which lulled me into a nap after a big breakfast  with my son and daughter-in-law... I don't have any dinner to prep and my beloved Cincinnati Reds are playing ball on TV...and in their usual fashion playing badly... very very badly...the Cards are up 13 to 3 and its only the 4th inning... oh they make it so hard to love them... right now their stated goal for the year is NOT to end up in last play in their division for the 3rd year in a row...not looking likely to happen.

Well I'll thread up my needle and link up with Kathy's Quilts today and Super Mom - No Cape on Monday. Hope you are having a lovely Sunday afternoon...and I hope your favorite baseball team plays better than my Reds... I can't imagine they can play worse...LOL

happy stitching-
carol fun