This week's tally...88 down...10 to go...

Well I haven't been a very good blogger, have I?  And I can't say I've been good posting to Instagram, because I haven't done that for a week either.  Life wasn't too busy... I was home pretty much... got no excuse... that's just the way it is.

As for next week, I promise that I will try to try do better... now I didn't say I would do better ... I just said I'd try to try to do better... not much commitment there either... okay lets just chalk it up to being lazy... I'm good  with that...


My progress on Sampler Hill by With Thy Needle and Thread...

my goal was to get ALL the tulips stitched... 88 finished and 10 to go!!! The dark ones are GA Pomegranate... 2 different dye lots... the light tulips are CC Jakey Brown and GA Faded Rose... if you make the picture bigger you can see the subtle differences.  I really LOVE the border on this piece... I'm a sucker for a good border.  Not sure what my goal for this piece is next week... maybe one of the people... or both of the birds... or perhaps give those dead looking trees some leaves... decisions, decisions, decisions...

I'm quite impressed with myself that I've been sticking with this one... it is good sized... about 9" X 12"... and lots of dense stitching... I haven't done one this big for  a while... and other samplers are calling my name... I recently saw this sampler stitched up...

and I LOVED it!!!  The house, the bird, the alphabet, the little bits and bobs of designs and the irregular border ... I loves me an irregular border!! I rushed to my computer to order this and then it hit me... I ALREADY OWN THIS PATTERN.... whoa... that was close. This is part of the Loose Feathers Abecedarian Blackbird Designs series of last year. I have all 12 of this series ... I've even stitched a couple of them and I think I've gotten one framed. Well since I already had the chart that just left the flosses and fabric... I figured I'd order the flosses and then make a decision on the linen using something from my stash... and I figured it would be at least a week before I got the thread... holey moley US Post Office... I placed my order with 123 Stitch on July 27 and it was in my mail box on July 30!!! Excellent service from both 123 Stitch and the Post Office... so now the thread and the chart are sitting next to my stitching chair calling me to find some linen and start this one too... perhaps just a few stitches... oh I can resist anything but temptation... LOL!

Still hot here in my corner of Ohio, but not as hot as it has been... got a some rain... the lawn could use some more... my son and daughter in law are coming for dinner... gonna fire up the grill and do steaks ... salads, corn on the cob, fruit and rolls are ready to go...

I'm linking up with Kathy's Quilts today and Super Mom - No Cape tomorrow... hope you have a productive week ahead of you... and I hope mine is productive too... but it probably won't be... LOL!

happy stitching-a
carol fun

99 bottles of beer on the wall...

OK... it wasn't beer it was leaves... and there were only 98 of them ...but they are stitched! The leaves remind me of those Maple tree whirlybird seed pods...a flashback to my youth!

And I've got some of the tulips stitched too!  Now I did change the color of the tulips.. it called for Week Cinnabar... which is wimpy... I'm using Gentle Arts Pomegranate for the dark tulips... the chart calls for Weeks Peach for the light tulips and I'm sure I will be choosing something else as it is even more wimpy. In looking at the picture of the sampler it is a much softer low contrast piece than mine is going to be. Changing that house to yellow versus the barely there beige was the starting point for turning up the color. And my turquoise is way stronger than the Weeks Dove  too. I've started down this road and I'm happy with my changes... a little personalization and I'll have put my mark on this sampler too!

And for comparison a pic of where I was last week...  things were a bit barren...

And I owe I giant apology to Brenda Gervais when I complained that the chart didn't call for extra skeins of floss... it does... it is on the backside of the chart listing of all the flosses and symbols and I totally missed it... my fault...mea culpa mea culpa... and since I've read the other side of the page I realize I need 3 skeins of the Weeks Olive and 2 skeins of Gentle Arts Cornhusk and  2 of Crescent Colors Avocado... yikes!  I could tell when I started stitch the leaves that one skein of Cornhusk wasn't going to do it. I had another skein but like the Olive it wasn't a close match. I randomly stitched leaves with floss from one skein and then the other and mixed it up... I like the change of colors in the leaves so that's ok.  As for the tulips I have 2 skeins of Pomegranate... both different and I'm randomly switching from one to the other... a nice flow of color in my opinion.

Well, I'll be linking up with Kathy's Quilts today and Super Mom - No Cape on Monday... hot again today... glad I have AC and fans... dinner is prepped... meatballs and spaghetti tonight... don't want to stand over a hot grill... something cool for dessert... ice cream!

Hope you are staying cool...
happy stitching-
carol fun

Lots of knitty things started...

but not so much finished.... that is the state of my knitting at the moment. I've been seduced by several new patterns and yarns and I obviously own too many knitting needles, as the lack of them is no deterrent to me casting on one project after another. So here's where I stand with the projects I can see from my comfy chair...

A Pebble Beach shawl...

you can see the pattern here ... I like this pattern because it gives you the proper stitch count at the end of every row... however the OCD in me has me checking every row after I knit it so that slows me a down a bit. I've only been off count once but I feel compelled at the end of every row to go back and count.  On the plus side the pattern tells you how far along you are... I have this shawl 30% complete.

And then there is this little scarf...

it is a free pattern on Ravelry that you can see here called Jagged Triangular Scarf.  The yarn was in my stash a ball of Boboli Lace by Berroco... I know it is called lace but in my opinion it is more sock weight yarn.  It is a mix of wool, acrylic and vicose... very soft.

I really like knitting this scallop-y edge on as you go...

I wish I had thought to add beads to that little pointy part when I started... next shawl will have beads! This pattern has you weigh your yarn when you start and you knit the increase part till you reach half of the weight of the yarn and then you decrease the rest of the way... I am almost to the halfway point.

And there is always a sock on some set of needles...

another Frankensock this time with yarn from Havirland... you can see the Etsy shop here. I have seen Frankensocks done with her yarn on Instagram that I liked and thought I'd give a new palette of colors a try. The yarn is very nice to knit with and I like how it came wound on little plastic bobbins.

In fact I like the plastic bobbin idea so much that I decided to get some and then I can wind my yarn on then for other Frankensocks. I like how they don't come unwound so easily. So I went to Amazon so see what I could find and a pack of 25 bobbins was about 5 or 6 dollars ... 25 didn't seem like enough I figured I'd like about 50 to 75 which would make it approximately $15 purchase...or I could get 1000 for $16... what a deal! OH MY GOODNESS... I had no idea what a 1000 bobbins looks like...

damn you Amazon Prime!!! ... click click and on my front porch in 48 hours... what was I thinking??? Now my excuse is I ordered these very late at night...which isn't much of an excuse as I am more a night owl than a early bird... oh well, I will have to find out how many you can stuff in an envelope with one stamp on it and then I'll send them to fellow knitters... if you would like some let me know ... I'll go to the post office on Monday and figure it out.

The weather is unsettled and so am I today... it is suppose to be beastly hot but there is cloud cover and we've had a sprinkle of rain...not enough to forgo the nightly watering...I have some free time on my hands but don't know what I really want to work on... knitting...cross stitch...quilting... cleaning... oh I do know I don't want to clean... napping sounds good too ...  a little cat nap with Big Dude...

sounds perfect!

Hope you have a nice weekend coming up... I think my son and daughter-in-law are coming for dinner on Sunday and that is all I have on my calendar.  A trip to Krogers tomorrow will be in order and then I can stay put... I like staying put...

happy knitting -
carol fun

I know... I'm late...

So on Sunday I said I post pics of what was on my design wall on Monday... but Monday got away from me... so here are the pics of my newest start...

The fabric is Sew and Sew by Chloe's Closet which you can see here... and the pattern is called Scratch it is from the book by Carrie Nelson called Schnibbles Times Two which you can see here.

I love this collection as it has tape measures and text and lovely vintage looking prints. I'd been ruminating about what pattern to use with this collection and thought about doing a pattern from Camille Roskelly's book Simply Retro called Framed. And low and behold, I saw that Darlene Johannis had made a beautiful top from exactly this combo of fabrics and pattern... you can see it here. Well I didn't want to be a copycat so I ruminated a bit more and found saw this quilt...click here... now you can make the argument that I'm still being a copycat but I am using different fabrics and I'm making it bigger!

I think this will be very pretty on my bed... soft and summery... and using this pattern allowed me to sneak in some pieces that highlight the text fabrics....

Turn your head sideways... can you see where it says "How Does Your Jelly Roll?"... I love that ! And here are other pieces I'm going to incorporate into the Chinese coin sections...

I think this is a fun addition however, my OCD will have to make the rest of these pieces face upright!

I made swiss cheese out of the yard of this fabric I bought for this purpose... but it was totally worth it!

I sewed a bit more today and I have all of the 4 patches sewn together and the rest of the pieces cut... I think there could be some quality sewing time later this week and hopefully finish this up. I would love to use this fabric I swiss cheesed for the back but I hate to pay $10 a yard for backing fabric... need to mull this over and talk myself into it! (Yes I said talk myself into it...not out of it... LOL)

I know I'm late but I'm still going to link up to Patchwork Times Design Wall Monday... it is so nice that Judy leaves her link open for a couple of days... bet I'm not the only one who's running late!

Remember when I said we had a cool spell... gone with the wind... Ohio as most of the rest of the country is HOT HOT HOT... I went out this morning to water ... usually I don't get out of bed early enough to do that...I'm a total night owl... but I thought I should... I'll probably water a little more this evening... after 8 p.m.  I do a better job  in the evening but it takes longer as there is a constant stream of walkers by my house and every single night at least 2 people stop to talk... can't be rude... but sometimes I'm chasing daylight to finish up ... oh well.

Hope you are staying cool... happy stitching!
carol fun

I planted trees...

oh boy it is hot out there... glad I got the last of my mulch spread last evening and rearranged some plants ... do you rearrange plants in your yard?  I planted some impatiens under a tree in my front yard and after 6 weeks they were still scraggly... and something was nibbling on them... so I pulled them out and put them in a pot and relocated them to another part of the yard ... and replaced them with some marked down wave petunias I picked up last week at Meijers. Right now all the garden places are  pretty picked over and sparse... I know they don't want to get stuck with inventory but sometimes I just want to pick up a plant to put in a bare spot... and I really enjoy walking around garden centers...but bare shelves aren't appealing...oh well...

And what did that paragraph have to do with trees... ahhh...nothing... here is the picture for the tree reference....

I planted stitched two trees (and by the way I had two trees planted in my yard)... these trees still need leaves but the ones in my yard are looking pretty good... I've been watering them religiously.  And I got the border stitched and it met where it should...yeah!!!  Now there are 98 leaves and 98 tulips to stitch on the border... I have no idea why I counted them but I did... so I have a long way to go on this.

Here's what it looked like last Sunday...

it is good to take pictures of your progress... now I see I did the numbers and a bee skep too... oh I was productive!

And speaking of productive... yesterday and today are totally making up for Friday when I was a complete slug... I have a Fitbit pedometer and I have a pedometer program in my phone... on Friday my phone said I took a whopping 494 steps ... now the phone wasn't in my pocket much but my Fitbit only counted 2000 steps so either way I didn't move much... however yesterday I did a bunch of errands, I worked on a new quilt top (pictures on Monday) and like I said before I finished up spreading the mulch in my yard and rearranged some plants.

This morning I got up and cleaned the inside of my filthy car... yuck... but I vacuumed and wiped the dash down and spot cleaned the upholstery  and then I took it to a car wash to clean the outside... I have NO idea what has gotten into me... I even swept out the garage when I got done... there were still leaves in it from last Fall... I have a couple more jobs I've been putting off that I feel like getting done too... I figure I should move forward while the body is still willing ... these jobs will cut into my stitching time but in the end I'll be happy...

Soooo I'm going to stay inside and work on the indoor guilt projects I've been ignoring... hope your weekend is going well... I get a reward at the end of today... my brother is taking the family  out to dinner to celebrate the 7th year anniversary of his stem cell transplant... modern medicine is amazing... he's already 2 years past what they thought they could give him... he's not in perfect health but he's still here and that is a blessing.

And with my rambling done I'm linking up with Kathy's Quilts today and Super Mom - No Cape on Monday...

happy stitching-
carol fun

Floral overload???

Hello there... well I haven't been in my sewing room all week, nor have I worked in my garden as it has been scorching hot, but I do have lots of flower-y stuff to share...

First, my Flower Basket quilt from the Live.Love.Sew pattern which you can see here...

All bound and laundered and nice and crinkly...  love the look and feel of a freshly washed quilt. As you might remember most of the flower fabrics are vintage Hoffman from my stash ...with a couple of new Modas that snuck in... all the baskets are different and all the sashing squares are different... some of my favs...

petunias and clematis... I had a jumper made from this fabric... oh how I loved that style ... fitted through the bust and loose every where else... so comfy... wish that was  till the style because it would suit my body type even better now!

Yellow tulips... my favorite flower and since the deer eat them in my yard as if they were candy I will have to have them in my house...

Another pretty floral... a Dena Design as I remember ... I had a dress out of this fabric... sigh... I loved that dress...again so comfy!


And even though it has been HOT HOT HOT here and more HOT HOT HOT is forecast, I've been watering every night and I'm seeing the fruits/flowers of my labors...

BEFORE... about 6 weeks ago..

AFTER...

the petunias and the sweet potato vine have exploded.... notice the barberry bushes are gone and in their place I have a treeform Ninebark (that is the tall thing-y) and I have a little section of perennials...

I 've got shasta daisies and tall phlox and mexican button flowers and hollyhocks and coreopsis and salvia and speedwell and day lilies and hydrangeas (if the damn deer ever leave them alone!)


And here is a close up of the flower boxes... sorry these pics are a bit washed out... like I said it is really HOT and very sunny  out there!

And while I concentrate of a lot of my energy on the side of the house these boxes on the front porch are doing well too...

I planted 3 of these boxes with identical plants... notice how the petunias on the right are more purple with white stripes while the ones on the left are more white with little narrow purple stripes...huh??? bought them at the same time but the ones on the right have mutated as the summer has progressed.

And we can't forget my pyramid of petunias...  I know I don't as I pass it every time I go in and out of my house...

BEFORE...

AFTER...

I can't wait to do this again next year... I LOVE that I was able to have so many different varieties of petunias in such a small space ... I think this is a good spot as they get a nice amount of sun, some shade and they are protected from the wind...I love all their sunny little faces!

Sooooo was that enough floral frolicking???  You know that I love alliteration as much as I love flowers!  Hope you are staying cool... I'm inside sitting by the fan... they predicted some rain for today but the sky is totally devoid of any clouds that would bring rain... darn...my lawn could use some rain... I''ll water the plants but I drag my feet to water the lawn...

happy stitching... and gardening!!!
carol fun

Faster, sunnier Sunday stitching....

Hello everyone... well this Sunday is much nicer weather wise than last week... sunny... kinda hot...and I've already been running around... gotta stop that! Anyway here is an update on my Sampler Hill piece... you can see the whole thing here...

Okay I'm very happy with that turquoise sawtooth star and the front door... I'm not as happy with the hill. First off you need more than one skein of Weeks Olive to stitch the hill... a lot more than one skein. I can't find any where in the instructions where it calls for purchasing more than one skein. Now I had part of another skein of Weeks Olive but since it is a hand dyed floss it was not an exact match. I realized I was going to run out before I started stitching the background on the last row of letters. I ended up alternating stitching on the right and the left with a little of my original skein... then I plied together one ply of the new skein with one ply of the old skein until I ran out of the new skein...and then I had to use just the old skein. I don't know if you can see it but the floss is definitely lighter right in the center where it changed to  just the old skein I had. I think it looks okay... but I am annoyed that I had to futz around with this and that  the chart didn't call for more than one skein.

Yes I am doing this on 32 count versus the 30 count the chart calls for but I don't think I'm using significantly more floss. I would think that the size of the stitches on 30 count would be a wash with the increase of the stitches on 32 count... on 30 count you would have 225 stitches in an inch... on 32 count you have 256 stitches ... okay now that I look at those numbers that is a 13% increase in stitch count... so maybe this is my problem and not the charts... anyway if you do stitch this sampler and I think it is sooooo pretty just considering buying 2 skeins of Weeks Olive at the same time.  That's my public service message for today.

In looking at the border I may need more of the Gentle Arts Cornhusk and Classic Colorworks Avocado ...but I don't think it will be as noticeable as the leaves and the vine aren't the solid block of stitching that the hill was... and I do love the alphabet in the hill... also ... it is missing the letters J and U... which I didn't notice till I stitched it.

It has been a busier Sunday than last week too... I've already been out to breakfast and the grocery store and to IKEA... my younger son wanted a bigger, comfy-ier chair for his room... I had an IKEA Ecktorp chair in my sewing space in the basement that I was using primarily to dump stuff on.  My handyman, Dan, was in the neighborhood today and he helped Nick move the chair up the two flights of steps. Nick loves it but didn't like the slipcover on it so we popped into IKEA and found a slipcover in red that is just what he wanted. I normally wouldn't go to IKEA on a weekend but I knew it would make him happy. Luckily I've been in IKEA a zillion times and knew just where to go to see the slipcover samples and where to get them in the warehouse... we were in and out in a jiffy. The place was packed with people buying stuff for kids to go back to college. I forget that this is a destination store for lots of people...I'm lucky it is just 15 minutes from my house... I LOVE IKEA!! Moving that chair upstairs leaves me room for another bookcase for fabric... so this is a win- win... I didn't get the bookcase today as Dan the handyman doesn't have time this weekend to assemble and fasten it to the wall... but in a week or so it will happen.

Can you tell I don't have any more to show you??? Yep, rambling again. Oh well, I'm linking up with Kathy's Quilts today and Super Mom - No Cape on Monday...hope your Sunday is lovely... we're doing carry out from Olive Garden for dinner so I still have time to stitch more this afternoon.

happy stitching-
carol fun

Anybody home????

Well I certainly have not been home much this week, run run run... and I don't have much to show for all that running around except for these....

another pair of Frankensocks!

These are mostly Opal leftovers with some Fabel  scraps here and there... I am particularly fond of the stripe-y parts that are checkerboard-y... like the red part on the foot of the right sock. I love when Opal sock yarn knits up that way.

It was a week for getting guilt projects moved on... I took 3 quilt tops to  Terry yesterday and picked up two quilts... a very good exchange...now to get them bound. I finished up the triplicate paper work for my younger son's disability request... finally got some stuff returned that has been sitting in my bedroom for week... fixed two pairs of cargo pants...and got some cross stitching done... I 'll show that tomorrow.

I'm hoping that next week has more time at home. Like I said I have 2 BIG quilts that need to be bound and I'm still dragging my feet to spread mulch on the front side of the house... I've been waiting for the weather to cool down and when it has been cooler it has been pouring down rain. And speaking of rain...since I don't have much else to say right now... the rain beat the carp out of my rose bushes. My pretty peach one is just about bare... it does have the signs of new growth and buds but it it is a sad little rose bush at the moment... and the yellow leaves, black spot and Japanese beetles didn't help either. I think I've sprayed that poor bush with something almost every day... ok not every day ... but every other day. And I had another visit from the local deer herd... this time they found my daylilies  and the tall phlox to be the tasty.... damn deer!  I'm still happy playing with my flowers. I picked up a $2.49 marked down coneflower plant in the most lovely shade of orange the other day and it seems to be doing nicely. But one of the pots by  my garage got super waterlogged and the orange petunias are looking puny. I went out and turned the pot on it's side to let some water drain out of it. It is a tall pot and I had put in one of those flat circles that make the depth less so you don't have to use as much potting soil. I think at the end of the season I'll drill a hole in the bottom ... can't hurt.

And I will stop rambling... sorry... this is what happens when I don't have a lot of pictures... tomorrow should be better... I do have cross stitch to show.

happy knitting and  stitching-
carol fun

Slow soggy Sunday stitching...

It is a slow soggy Sunday here in southwest Ohio...I know my lawn and my flowers appreciate the rain but it is gray and dreary and not very 4th of July-ish... I feel sorry for those who had outdoor activities on their agenda...and tomorrow is supposedly more of the same. I am happy at home and dinner is in the crockpot. Life is good!

On the stitching front there was a finish this week... cue the brass band!!!

My Fragments in Time by Summer House Stitche Workes in complete and I think it looks very nice. The last square had tulips in it... my favorite...and a chance for me to personalize this sampler...

Do you see my change? Upper right corner of this square... it was charted with a cat and I replaced it with a chicken... I'm happy that I can leave my mark on this piece.

And what does a finish lead to??? A brand new start!

In keeping with current U.S. Department of Commerce statistics we have a housing start (betcha didn't know that in a former life I got a degree in Economics and even worked as a Economic Analyst... I still have a thing for statistics even though my basic math skills are somewhat woeful...LOL) I chose Sampler Hill by With Thy Needle and Thread... you can see it here.

Now I've already changed several colors of floss on this piece and I picked a different linen.  I purchased the called for  30 count Cornsilk linen from Week Dye Works but after 3 stitches I knew it wasn't going to work for me. First off, the linen is soft and I prefer to stitch on a crisp, stiff fabric. Since I don't use a hoop and hold my linen in my hand it gets softer as time goes on. It is easier for me to stitch on the crisp fabric. Second, I remembered on the 3rd stitch why I don't like 30 count... I don't like the thread coverage you get with only 2 ply of floss and 3 ply of floss is just too much. It is a lovely piece of linen but not for me. I found some 32 count creamy color linen in my stash... and it is stiff and I like it sooooo much better.

Then I changed the color of the house. In the stitched sample the house is almost the same color as the linen... beige and pale... not for me... I changed the house to Crescent Colors Queen Bee... I think my favorite gold-y yellow floss. Since I changed the color of the house that lead to a change in the color of the front door. I thought about using the Weeks Dove that is used elsewhere in the chart, but upon examination of my skein of this color, mine is too gray and not turquoise-y enough. I rummaged around in my stash and found an Anchor 850... a very nice turquoise... I think I'll use it instead of the Dove in the whole piece.

I debated whether to start with the house or with the border... it has a lovely border with tulips... but I just couldn't wait to see what the house would look like. I have ideas for some personalization for this sampler too...stay tuned.

Okay I'm off to stitch some more... I'm watching my beloved Cincinnati Reds go down in flames again. Last night they pulled one out in the 10th inning but I don't see that happening today as they are behind 9 to nothing in the 6th inning... poor poor team.

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