Happy stuff!

Yippee! I got my cast off yesterday and now I'm wearing a removable brace/splint. It is soooo nice to be able to wash both of my hands! And the application of undergarments this morning was much smoother. Now typing, while a little painful, is much easier with access to all my fingers. I'm surprised at how much strength and range of motion I've lost in only a month. So to counteract that I engaged in my own physical therapy session yesterday and made these blocks...



the pattern is from Moda Bake Shop, Charming Stars. The fabrics are Moda too, Rooftop Garden. I LOVE that dotty cheddar - ahhh, the power of cheese - LOL!

And then these charm squares of Kate Spain's new line, Terrain, were just begging to be played with so I made these blocks...



another pattern from MBS, Ritzy Cracker. The white on white dotty background was in my stash. I think it came from Joanns. And speaking of Kate Spain have you seen her next line? Click here. Its called Good Fortune and is scheduled to arrive in January. LOVE it too - lots of the same colors of the Terrain line. Just too pretty.

And last night I switched up my therapy and cross stitched without a hoop or Qsnap -- oh it was glorious and today I played with a knitted sock. I think my therapy regime will be very productive. LOL!

Now there was some downtime too since the new December 2011, issue of APQ came and what did I see on page 45 but this.....



Denyse Schmidt's Flea Market Fancy fabric is going to be reprinted! I missed out on a lot of these the first time around but that's not going to happen again. About a year ago I left a comment on a blog that was petitioning the manufacturer to reprint this line and it looks like it worked. Sooooooo... when I read yesterday that on Mary Engelbreit's blog there was a place to leave a comment if you'd like her magazine to return (and I do I really really do) I left my 2 cents worth there too. Just click here and you can leave a comment too. I adored her magazine ME's Home Companion and have every issue. It always had such beautiful layouts and wonderful hand crafted items.

Okay I'm off to engage in a bit more therapy. Hope you have a great weekend coming up - and happy stitching!

carol fun

A design wall for Monday that is going to need some reverse sewing

Here is this week's status of my Flurry quilt and the picture points out some problems.



First, I'm short a block. I had one sewn up but it didn't make me happy. I saw some new Christmas fabric at Joanns on Saturday but the line at the cutting table was 4 deep and I didn't have the patience to wait. I'll go back this week.

Second, as I was looking at the picture I thought "hmmm..this would look better if there was more background fabric beneath the packages" oh......read the pattern more closely, it clearly calls for an additional 2 1/2" strip under the packages - duhhh. So some reverse sewing is on the agenda.

I'm glad the next guild meeting is still a week away. I have time to fix this get the borders on and bring it to my longarm gal. Okay off to drive son to class!

Happy stitching-
carol fun
'

A sampler for Sunday

It has been a rather quiet weekend - my favorite kind - although I haven't gotten as much stitching in as I has hoped. Oh well, that's always the way it goes, isn't it? Here is another oldie but goodie from Ewe & Eye & Friends called Bee Virtuous.



I think this was charted with the line "Be virtuous" but I changed it to "bee my love". I liked the pun with all those cute little brass bees and that skep all done in satin stitch.



This piece has those spiderweb roses I love and I was pleased with the way I worked my son's initials into the piece.



I have been stitching on a old UFO BBD piece but it is slow going. I'm just not comfortable working in a hoop and the cast is still cumbersome. I'm keeping my fingers crossed (right hand only) and saying my prayers and taking calcium in hopes that on Thursday this cast comes off. Typing is still slow and I'm constantly hitting the caps lock key AND EVERYTHING COMES OUT LIKE THIS -- ARGHHH!!

Hope you have a great week - happy stitching!
carol fun

Decorating with Schnibbles

Well I finally got around to putting out some of my Fall decorations and I came across this Schnibble. This is the Four Corners pattern - super easy. The fabric is a line of Sandy Gervais from a couple of years ago. I love all of Sandy's collections because she always has a wide variety of prints and fillers and focal designs.



And here is my foyer display. I'm really into draping a Schnibble over the edge of the table. It makes me feel arty - LOL!



Here's a closer view of the left side of the table. I got those candles the other day at Kohls on sale for 50% off and I like displaying my latest sampler too. Notice the little foil covered pumpkin? It was a birthday present and this tells you where my mind is, my first thought when seeing it was I thought it was chocolate!!! Nope, no chocolate, but still cute. It has a face on the other side and I'll turn it around when it get closer to Halloween.



Okay I'm off to do a bit more decorating in the downstairs family room. Lots of pumpkins to display.

Happy stitching-
carol fun

A design wall for a rainy Monday

Good day to stay inside and sew - too bad others who live in this house want meals and toilet paper. A trip to the grocery can't be avoided. Oh well, at least these blocks will cheer me up.

This is my take on the Kate Spain Flurry pattern. Lots of fun Christmas prints.



I love this vintage looking Santa - kinda retro 1950s!





And Santa goes tropical in this one - notice the reindeer driving the boat.



This is the fabric I want to use for the border. An out of print Nancy Wolff - you know how much I LOVE her style. I got this for a bargain - $5 a yard at Quilt Trends in Columbus. For some reason they had 3 bolts of this all marked down. I couldn't pass it up.

This pattern is so easy. I swear it takes longer to cut out the blocks than it does to sew them together and you can cut a block out in about 3 minutes. So much cuteness for so little effort - right up my alley.

Hope today is a good day for you - I'm off to stimulate the economy and fill my family's stomachs.

Happy stitching-
carol fun

A sampler for Sunday - one handed sticher succeeds

First I want to thank all of you for the wonderful birthday wishes. They made my day very special. I wish I could reply to all of them but the new cast I got on Thursday has done nothing to improve my manual dexterity. The only good thing is the doctor said that perhaps it could come off in two weeks. Keep your fingers crossed - I would do it too but well, I can't! Drats!

Anyway another week begins and I have a little sampler to share.



I started this a couple of days after I broke my arm. Stitching in a Q snap frame is a bit cumbersome but at least I can stitch and that saves my sanity. My son put my new floor stand together this morning so I'm hoping this will further improve the situation. This little piece is Flower Pot Sampler by From the Heart. I used Tiger's Eye floss from Weeks Dye Works and the fabric is an evenweave I dyed myself last summer. I like the yellowy gold with the orangy blotches.

Last night I pulled out an old BBD sampler that was about half done. It is another piece that only uses one color of floss. It will feel good to finish up some WIPs. I never remember why I put them aside since I loved them then and I still love them. Oh well, they are new all over again.

This week brings a change in schedule. My youngest starts back to college classes and I have to drive him to and from. I don't mind and it makes his day easier. He has a hard enough time just dealing with his life and Asperger's. Being high functioning but still autistic has lots of challenges.

Hope that you have a great week. Fall is showing signs of arriving and I love autumn. I didn't get all my seasonal decorations out last week so maybe this week I will be more productive.

Happy stitching-
carol fun

Do you know what today is???

Betcha don't - well today is my birthday! I know you are surprised, so am I every year when it rolls around. I don't feel any older but the number keeps increasing - oh well it sure beats the alternative.

So what am I doing for my birthday? Well I'd like to give one of you a present. Over the past 2 weeks when I went water skiing in my bathroom and broke my wrist lots of you have left wonderful comments and sent emails that I haven't been able to reply to since it just takes foooooorrrevvver to type. So I added up all the comments and tossed in the emails I've gotten too and made a numbered list - I came up with a total of 70 as of 12:01 am this morning and plugged it into a random number generator and came up with Teresa of Teresa's Heartfelt Stitches.

So Teresa I will be sending you a $25 gift certificate to the crafty store of your choice- needlework, yarn or fabric. I've sent you an email to find out your selection.

Hope that you all have a wonderful day and thank you so much for stopping by my humble little blog and leaving such lovely comments that make my day!

Happy stitching-
carol fun

A leftover design wall for Monday

Actually my design wall is blank at the moment - I know - how sad is that? But this is what it looked like on Saturday- ta dah!



The Halloween Swoon quilt top is done! I thought about floating the blocks from the border but all I have left of the background fabric is a sliver of fabric. I love that Holly Holderman dot and if I ever see it again I'm buying 5 more yards. This is the final block I sewed together.



Notice the evil "blaaahh" under the devil face. That sounded just like my evil laugh when I put the borders on this quilt. I have had the border fabric in my stash for years watitng for just the right quilt and this is it. There is nothing on the selvedge to tell me the designer. All I know is that it came from Joanns. And check out the little cornerstones.



Yikes! Spiders! Spiders on a glittery polka dot background -- Perfect. I sent this top off to my long arm quilter yesterday and she says she'll have it back to me by the beginning of October so I'll be displaying it then. Can't wait-

Hope you have a wonderful week. My undergarment issues are under control and I'm getting more mobility in my left hand. On Thursday I go back to have it checked again and the doctor said she may recast it since this one is a little loose- ugh - I like it being loose. Two weeks down - four to go!

Happy stitching-
carol fun

I never listen to a word I say

Okay I know I said I was going to leave the Halloween Swoon blocks for later but I just couldn't do it. I could hear them taunting me from the design wall, and well, I just had to show them who's the boss around here. So this one is totally sewn together.



And this one is partially finished.



I don't know if I can finish the whole top in time to get it quilted for Halloween but I don't want to take it off the design wall until all the blocks are sewn. And why do I do this to myself? Not because it is easy, but because I am stubborn. Actually I prefer the term "tenacious" - it sounds so much more refined and positive, doesn't it?

An because I've spent an inordinate amount of time surfing the web I came across the hot new Flurry pattern and well, it spoke to me. (Hmmm... do we see a trend here? Why are the quilt blocks talking to me? Does anyone else hear them? I'd blame it on the Vicodin but I switched to Advil. I need to check the bottle and see if talking quilt blocks are a side effect.) Here are the ones I've made.



I love this Nancy Wolff fabric- where else are you going to see flamingos in Santa hats delivering presents on unicycles. Oh my, now that does sounds like a drug induced hallucination!



And I love these Santas in cars. My dad had a Plymouth with those huge fins when I was a kid!



So I've totally ignored all the things I said I wasn't going to do and blithely did what I damn well pleased - yeah I'm like that! LOL - on the underwear front things are improving. It only took me 3 days to figure out that it might be easier to hook my bra and then step into it, shimmy it past the bulges in the middle of my body and then put my arms through the straps. I know - I'm a genius! Why this took me 3 days to figure out I have no clue, but hey I'm wearing underwear. I just thought you'd want to know - ok I'm going to go have another conversation with the quilt blocks. The "present" ones are very happy fellows!

Happy stitching-
carol fun

A stitchy offering for Labor Day weekend

I hope that you are all winding down from a relaxing Labor Day weekend. I really haven't done much of anything and in fact it was late last evening before I realized it was already Sunday - yikes! Sorry for missing Sampler Sunday. I didn't have any pictures ready to go, so this morning I crammed this little piece in the frame I bought a while ago. Don't look too closely. When both of my hands are operational I will do the framing job properly.



This sweet fellow is a BBD chart from the 2004 booklet titled, Souvenirs of Summer. This chart is called Summer Song and finished about 4 inches square. In the BBD book they stitched it over one thread - I didn't take that route. Anymore over 2 threads on 32 count is small enough for me. This is a great BBD book -6 designs each with a bit of a patriotic flair. I definitely want to stitch more out of this one. Actually I just want to stitch anything- insert whiny voice here - the Q snap helps but I swear this cast has my wrist at the most uncomfortable an awkward angle. I go tomorrow for a check up - need to ask if there is a chance I'll ditch this sooner than 6 weeks - I hope I hope I hope!!

I'm going in a different direction with my quilting. I'm going to put the Halloween blocks aside and get out the Christmas quilt I didn't finish last year. It is all just squares and rectangles and the pinning should be easier.

It turned much cooler here in southern Ohio - I love it! Now to enlist some non-interested male progeny in helping me to put out some Fall decorations. Bribery and guilt (lots of guilt) are my two main tools. We'll see how the week unfolds.

Happy stitching and just for your information - being completely dried off after your shower does aid in the application of undergarments. Thought you want to know - ROTFLWPOMU - rolling on the floor laughing while putting on my underwear!

carol fun

Thank you from deep inside my cast...

and the bottom of my heart! Thank you for all your sweet comments. I would love to respond to each one individually but at the rate I am typing it will take about 6 weeks and hopefully by then the cast will be off. OMG if this cast isn't off in 6 weeks I will have to attack it with my rotary cutter. So have you picked up on my intense dislike of this cast? Subtle I ain't! Monday and Tuesday I had a lot of pain. Wednesday morning I went back to the orthopedic office and begged them to make the hole around my thumb bigger. My thumb was purple! Well it turns out it was purple not from lack of blood flow but because it is bruised - badly! However the larger opening does feel better.

So it was less than 48 hours and I was going stir crazy and there were several errands that needed to be taken care of and my son had a doctor's appointment - so I drove. I will not be doing the expressway.

Thursday I had to try doing something crafty. I was having withdrawal! I did get this block sewn together but it took hours and by the time I finished my wrist was throbbing. I probably over did it!



So I tried knitting -result - I can do it but it is also awkward, slow and painful.
Onto cross stitching - not as bad - and I remembered that I did still own a Q-snap frame which might facilitate the process. This is my attempt...



now this may be the least painful craft. At one time in my ancient past I owned a floor stand that I used for needlepoint. I searched the storage room which is an opening shot for "Hoarders:Buried Alive!" without success, but I did find one online for $35 including shipping- I've already ordered it. I figured it would be helpful and a small price to pay for my continued sanity, what little there is left of it.

In closing, Who knew putting on your underwear requires TWO HANDS??? Oh to be back in the 70's - skinny and braless!

Happy stitching from your whiny friend -
carol fun