A flock of my own!

So the other day the mailman left a large squishy envelope on my porch. I saw from the return address it was from my friend Lois in Nebraska.  I thought she had sent me yarn or  made something for me - how cool is that? Well I had no idea what I was going to find when I opened that envelope.

First these two guys dropped out -- oh my goodness how cute are they?

And then the rest of the contents of the envelope spilled out -- OH MY GOODNESS!!!!

I laughed my butt off (oh I wish that was more than a figure of speech - LOL)! And I laughed and laughed and laughed. So many cute cute chickens! A WHOLE FLOCK!!! I think my favorite might be this one .

Those silky purple "feathers" are hard to resist! Thank you Lois -- I love each and every one of them! I'm thinking of using the first two chicken in a display in my kitchen and I want to make a garland out of the others to decorate my sewing studio. How can you not smile when you see these gals? I can't.

And I added some more poultry to my home with this outdoor stack of chickens.

It is a smaller scale rendition of the metal chicken stack I have in my sewing studio. I got the metal ones online about a year ago and didn't want to put them outside for fear they would rust. I picked up this stack which is wooden at Joanns last week. I need to spray them with some polyurethane to prolong their life as the icicles hanging from their tails isn't helping them.

Hope you are having a good day!

carol fun

Squirrel!!!! on Design Wall Monday

Well this quilt was no where on my list of things I should do, but I couldn't resist the siren call of the Charm Pack Cherry pattern. You can see the free pattern here.

Now my version is larger because for some reason I had 3 charm packs of this older collection from Cosmo Cricket called Circa 1934.
This is the fabric...

and this is my quilt...

I used a Basic Grey Grunge fabric instead of another set of charm squares. I LOVE the Grunge collection and this one is a tomato-y red with splotches of olive and tan.

My youngest son has taken a shine to this quilt which is unusual for him, and I am happy to make it for his room. These are the colors in his attic studio. He likes it because the fabrics aren't girly. I was pleased to find that one of the charm squares included a message that I don't think he saw but I am so happy to include in this quilt. Do you see it?

The typewriter has a word balloon that says "I Love You" -- perfect!

Well we didn't get the foot of snow that they predicted but we did get enough for it to me a messy morning commute. I didn't have to go out but my oldest son had to get downtown for work. Ugh... we are all soooooo tired of winter. I hope this is the last gasp.

Happy stitching-

carol fun

Dragging Spring inside on Slow Stitching Sunday

I was able to stitch a few more frames on my Lizzie Kate Spring Alphabet. It has been a busy running kinda week and I didn't expect that. Excuse the wrinkles and the grayness of the picture - it is a gray day outside.

I do love the little vignettes that are tucked into these samplers -- that basket will get some colored eggs, love the heart and key and those yellow galoshes are adorable!

In my continuing pursuit to drag Spring into my home no matter what Mother Nature has in mind I purchased these beauties yesterday at the grocery. The first daffodils I've seen this year!

I'm hoping that the 120 or so daffodil bulbs I planted will get a chance to show their stuff soon. However, today is not that day. It is gray and it has been icy and as I type this I can see snow out the window. Now the weather terrorists have backed off their original forecasts of up to a foot of snow, so that is good. Right now they are saying maybe only 1 to 3 inches, which sounds much better. Do you think they do this on purpose? Tell us we are going to get buried and then at the last minute revise their forecast and we are happy we only got a couple of inches. I'm focusing on the end of the week -- I saw mid 40's in the forecast. Now just need to get through the snow, ice and sub-freezing days this week.

Happy stitching-
carol fun


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Oh Snap! My Schnibble is done!

I rarely do two posts in the same day but I needed to show this before the parade of Schnibbles. I haven't done a Schnibble in a while and I was excited to hear that this month was sew one of your choice, as long as it wasn't one you had shown before. I started with the new line from Gina Martin called Sewing Box. I love this collection - all my favorite colors and stuff!!

And then I decided that the right pattern would be Gentle Arts...spool blocks!

Combine the two and ooohhhhh this makes me happy!

Now I was leery that I would end up chopping off the points on some of the blocks when I sewed them together, but I totally surprised myself. I sewed all 25 blocks together and got the intersections to look great on my first try. I didn't have to re-sew or fudge a single one. The sewing gods were definitely shining down on me. Now I did pin very carefully and I'm sure that helped but I don't remember the last time I sewed this many points together with no adjustments.

I want to get a yard of the fabric with the sewing implements on the white background for the back and then I'll quilt it. It is going to look so cute in my sewing studio.

Happy stitching-
carol fun

This and that on and off the needles

My knitting this week bounced from project to project...so many yarns tempting me.

First I finished my Opal Ambiente socks.

Now I knit these on 3.25mm needles, 56 stitches and they felt a bit loose when I wore them. So I washed them... in the washer... and dried them in the dryer...for a long time. I hoped they'd shrink a bit and when I wore them the second time they were a bit snugger at first but as the day wore on they were still not as snug as I would like. Why is it if you want something to shrink nothing happens, and if you don't want it to shrink you end with it micro sized? Anyway this is superwash merino yarn, it shouldn't shrink and it didn't. Also, it isn't recommended that you machine launder this kind of yarn if you want it to last a long time but I haven't had a lot of problems with that. I haven't had many socks that shrank but I have experienced some color fading with other yarns so I'll wait and see.

Armed with the knowledge that it doesn't appear I can shrink this yarn I decided the next pair of socks should have less stitches. so I went down to 52 stitches.

When I grabbed this ball of yarn I thought it was the one with the turquoise in it but I was wrong. This is an old gold/olive mix. Reminds me of Fall and my school colors when I was in high school - green and gold. Along with the first pair of socks being on the big side I wasn't happy with how the cuff got stretched out as the day went on. Now starting with less stitches would probably help but I decided to go one step further and knit the cuff with an Elastic Yarn Thread. It is from Clover and comes in white and black. I got it here at Webs,

 You use this along with your yarn. It does show a bit here and there but isn't really noticeable.The cuff does seem snugger with this thread knit along with the yarn. I'll report back after I wear and wash these.

And then this yarn was calling my name and I could NOT resist. My BFF Stephie gave me this yarn last Thursday night. It is the Regatta colorway of that Lion Brand Amazing yarn.

I think I cast this on Sunday or Monday and I had it all knit by Wednesday night. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the colors in this one. Somehow it makes me want to use fancy descriptions like terra cotta, and stone, and moss, and sea glass and cadet blue and well you get the idea. Thanks for the gorgeous yarn Stephie! Oh it is that same Urban Lace Infinity pattern -you can see it here.

So another good week for knitting. On one hand I can't wait to wear my new cowl, on the other hand I'd be happy to break out some capris and sandals. However, Mother Nature isn't done with winter yet (forecast for the weekend includes snow, freezing rain and low temps) so I think I'll have plenty of opportunities to sport my new woolen wares.

Happy knitting -
carol fun

I got really Skinny...

Edited - look at the end of the post for some observations on how I stuffed my skinny pincushion.


No I didn't drop a ton of weight... I got lots of Skinny pincushions!

Did you see the Skinny pincushion swap over on Amy's blog - Amy Made That.? She has a link to the pattern and she masterfully arranged for lots of great gals to swap skinny pincushions.

Yesterday I got a wonderful package in the mail with not one but TWO Skinny pincushions all the way from New Zealand! Now that is pretty exotic for an old gal from Ohio. Karen at Baa's Amazing Adventures sent me all these goodies!

Two adorable Skinny pincushions - so bright and cheerful! And there was yummy yummy candy (was is the correct verb... it went fast LOL!) And cute fabric that is unlike anything in my stash and isn't the little flip flop adorable -- its a magnet. Thank you Karen for such lovely gifts. I truly appreciate your work and thoughtfulness.

And I ended up making more than one when I got into this project, cause they are like potato chips - you can't eat or make just one! I added a button to each of the ones I made. I ran across a stash of ceramic buttons that I figure are close to 20 years old -- oh my goodness, I do horde stuff - LOL - but it is good stuff and it has aged well, don't you think?

The one at the bottom is the one I sent to Kelly at Pinkadot Quilts. She requested bright and vintage and to me that means something from the designer Sandy Klop's American Jane fabric collections. I  gifted the brown one to another friend and kept other two for me - -yeah I'm kind selfish where chickens are concerned. I have pincushions in several places in my sewing room - by both of my machines, on my cutting table, on my ironing board and next to my stitching chairs both upstairs and down. Now in some cases these pincushions are only about 5 feet apart but when I want a pin I want it at my finger tips and I don't want to have to fetch it, even if it is only a few steps -- boy I'm getting lazy in my old age. But it's an arrangement that works for me.

Thanks again to Amy and Karen and Kelly - the whole event was great fun!

Happy stitching-
carol fun


Thoughts on stuffing the pincushion -- I like crushed walnut shells in a pincushion. You can get a good size bag of this stuff at a pet store. They use it for lizard litter - just ask. Anyway I made a tube of muslin based on the width and length of the pincushion about a 1/4" smaller. I filled this with walnut shells and sewed it shut with my machine. I pushed a bit of poly fiberfill into the ends of the pincushion, wiggled the tube filled with walnut shells into the pretty outside covering and hand sewed the opening up. I like the heft you get with walnut shells. You can use it as a weight to hold fabric or a paper pattern in place as well as it being a pincushion.

Doing Deadlines on Design Wall Monday

There was some quality time spent with my sewing machine over the weekend. I got the borders on the quilt that was on my design wall last week and sent it off to the long arm quilter. Then I turned my attention to this project.

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This quilt is the free pattern from FatQuarterShop called Layer Cake Lemonade. You can find it here. It makes a nice lap size quilt - 48" X 61" using just one layer cake. The fabric is the new collection from Zen Chic called Sphere. You can see it here. This is going to be a gift and the recipient is fond of turquoise so I thought this line was perfect. Now the collection does have some great yellow accent pieces which I adore but it wasn't right for this person. She likes orange as a accent so I substituted an orange from the Zen Chic Comma line.

I'm going to do some simple wavy line quilting on this so I have it finished for the birthday deadline that is looming.

And I really wanted to do a Schnibble this month and the deadline for that is coming up fast.  I haven't participated for several months and this month was your choice of patterns. There are so many cute Schnibbles I'd love to make and this charm pack was already sitting on my table and it was talking.... loudly.

I love the fabrics and colors in this collection -- hot pink, turquoise, orange, purple, lime green and all those adorable sewing items - buttons, thread, scissors,zippers,pins,tape measures and snaps. I love those snaps! You can see all the fabrics here.

Well I thought about which Schnibble would be best for this line and it hit me like a ton of bricks -- Gentle Arts... it is spool blocks! I've got all 25 cut out and I got 9 sewn together.

Isn't this snap fabric cute cute cute? I bought yardage since I know I'm going to want to use it on another quilt some day.

Now I'm a little leery of how all those points are going to come together. I'm trying to be very accurate but it still has me concerned. I figure I'm going to sew it all together the best I can and if the points don't make me happy I can always sew buttons at the intersections. Cute buttons can cover a multitude of problems.

Happy stitching-
carol fun