Slow Sunday Stitching...something finished and something started

Hello ... well another week whizzed by me but as I sit here on Sunday I do have something to show for my time... which feels good.  I hope that everyone has survived the wicked storms yesterday and the night before. We had torrential downpours here in southwest Ohio and the loudest longest thunder I've ever heard... kinda frightening. Glad it is over. And on Wednesday of last week I tried to do myself in with a marathon planting session. I planted over 100 petunias and several flats of assorted filler items... geraniums,  salvia, dusty miller, nicotania, snapdragons... and then on Friday night they were pummelled into pulp by the rain. The  wind was vicious too and about midnight I realized my beautiful rose tree was probably toast. I ran out in my pajamas and it was sprawled on the driveway with its lovely Queen of Hearts petunias tossed about. I uprighted it, tucked it into my back entryway and plopped the petunias back into the pot... still looks bedraggled today but it is alive. A couple of days of sunshine would help but the forecast still has a lot of rain in it ... Mother Nature is not to be messed with...

So lets move on to more upbeat stuff... I FINISHED my Little House Needleworks "Needlework ABC's"... here's the arty picture... this was hard to get into one frame...

and here is another look...

a little blurry...sorry... but here are individual pics which show my changes..

First I made the buttons more "mother of pearl" ...

then I made the house yellow... 

and the bee threading the needle got a yellow thread...

and that meant the spool of thread had to be yellow, and of course the lady is sporting a yellow dress with auburn locks... love her....LOL...love me!!!

This measures about 2.5" wide and 19" long... I'm envisioning a white wood frame and I'm hoping to hang it right by my front door. From start to finish it took me a little over a month, but there was at least one week where I didn't touch it at all.  I was worried that I might run out of thread with this piece as I purchased it as a kit. My first worry was the white but I had plenty of it, What I did just have enough of was the brown that is used for all of the letters and assorted accents. At about the letter M I got panicky that I would run out of the brown so I went ahead and stitched all of the letters. At that point I had one piece of floss left, about 6" in length... I change the hair color of the lovely lady and when I stitched her shoes there was NOTHING left...not a single ply.  Now that is cutting it close. I don't know if perhaps I lost some of the thread or it just took that much but glad I made it work.

And because I finished something that gave me permission (like I need it...LOL) to start something new...and this is what I chose...

Blackbird Designs Garden Borders, the 12th part of the Abecedarian series. And here is how far I've gotten in two evenings... moving right along...

I love all those green threads... CC Camouflage and Avocado and GA Dried Thyme. I'm stitching this on the called for linen... 30 count R & R Korty's Blend.

As for the Abcedarian series I have stitched 4 of the 12 and I'm not sure if I will ever do all of them. Something new BBD always seems to call my name. I've got a small start on last years  Garden Club series and this year's offering of Loose Feathers  have captured my heart too... lots of birds... I LOVE birds.. sigh... so many pretties I want to stitch. 

Perhaps there will be a little stitching time today... right now I'm off to a birthday lunch for my youngest son... how did he get to be 27??? I'm not any older...  but  I'm  certainly delusional ... 

I'm linking up with Kathy Quilts today and Super Mom - No Cape tomorrow... have a lovely Sunday and I hope you stay dry!!

happy stitching-

carol fun 

Where was I???

I'm a bad blogger... but then I'm not telling you anything you didn't already know, am I?  I didn't mean to be away for 2 weeks... I actually thought it was only 1 week... but you also know math is not my forte so there was an error in my calculation there too.

Remember when I had that wonderful brief micro-burst of creativity and productivity...well it seems to have left the house... I've putzed on this and that haven't finished hardly anything...wait wait... I did make some Easter cards...

its hard to tell in this picture but the bunny is embossed and then cut out with this incredibly cute die from Paper Smooches...info can be found here.

And I finally got  my little tulip quilt up on my living room wall...

I'm really happy with the quilting Terry did on this one... a dense scroll-y pattern in a variegated thread.

And I got a few more blocks together for an IG QAL #charmschoolsewalongsew... my version of the Lunch Box pattern from the book Charm School 

I have more blocks made than are on the design wall and still have about 16 to go... if I counted right and we all know I probably didn't...oh well. I want to get this top together by the end of the week...it is good to have goals right????


So where have I been spending my  time the last 2 weeks.... tropical vacation???  ...laundry???  ...working for world peace? Naaahhhh... I've been visiting garden centers and plant nurseries and any place that has Spring flowers for sale... here's a look at my haul so far... this table full...

and these roses...

and a few close ups of  some of the flowers I've brought home...

this is called a Pocket book plant and those little flowers are pouches...

and this is called Blue Moon phlox and it is an amazing lavender blue color... and peeking out in the lower left corner are those Lemon Slice petunias I adore...

and speaking of petunias... there are soooooo many pretty ones out there...

from left to right... the purple/yellow ones in the back are called Moonstruck... the pink and yellow ones are called Queen of Hearts...see the hearts???   and the ones in front are called Good and Plenty in an orange colorway....

and I searched high and low for these guys...

a light lavender wave petunia... my color scheme for my window boxes this year will include yellow and rosy pink and these lavender petunias...

and then there are the roses...

this is just one of the branches from the yellow tree rose... it is called Julia Child and I had absolutely no intention of buying a tree rose but this one just called my name and I was powerless to resist...

now this rose is one I went shopping for ... 

it is a David Austin rose called Gertrude Jekyll and it is a climbing rose... I got 2 of them to plant by the corner of my front porch... my plan is that they will grow up the brick pillar ... wish me luck... in my mind's eye it is going to be very English cottage-y... I think the pink color will show up well against the yellow brick and I love the shape of these English roses... they have a peony look.

And I bought this rose...

another David Austin rose called Pat Austin... this one will replace the peach one I had last year... I loved that bush but it had problems with black spot and Japanese beetles and then it didn't come back this year at all... dead...dead...dead... probably did me a favor. Last year the David Austin roses had less problems with black spot so I think they will be a better choice for me... and I'm sure the deer will agree and leave them alone....ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.... oh I am delusional... I'll be spraying the heck out of these babies, but it will be worth it. 

Tomorrow I start to pot and plant stuff up... this isn't all I'm going to do... I want to do a border of marigolds around my rose bushes and there is my pyramid of petunias to pot up... I have a few for this display but I have more I want to get... 

So if you are looking for me in the next week I should be out in the yard... or back in one of the garden centers... flowers are as addicting as fabric and yarn... good thing they aren't illegal as I'm hooked...LOL!

happy stitching-

carol fun

Juggling act...

Did you know I can juggle? Not things like balls or chainsaws, but quilt projects... I can juggle quilt projects!  Now doesn't the verb juggle sound waaaay more purposeful... more conscientious... more responsible...than OMG I just saw another shiny pattern I just have to try ... RIGHT NOW!!!!

The true fact is that my crafty ADD has me running in several circles...at the same time... too bad it doesn't seem to burn off any calories...LOL!  So what am I working on right now, well first...

I have two rows of the big tulips sewn together.. 3 more to go...here's a close-up of the border fabric...

a nice sunny yellow... need to get this one done and off to the long arm quilter if I have any hope at all of getting it on my bed while there are still tulips in bloom.


And then I was distracted by this project...the quilt pattern is called Arcade and it was on the cover of the Winter 2016 edition of the magazine Quilts and More. The designer is Sherri McConnell and her blog is A Quilting Life. When I saw this pattern I thought it would be a great match for the layer cakes of the Basic Grey collection Saturday Morning that I had already purchased.  You can see the collection here.  So far I have 6 of the big units complete but I've run out of sashing fabric...

Sorry for the wonky angle but my design wall is still full of tulips, so I'm using the living room floor.
The pattern makes a 66" square quilt using one layer cake... I want it big enough for my bed so I'm using 2 layer cakes and a border. I like the shabby chic feel of this fabric.  Those hourglass blocks are going together nicely... no bias edges on the outside...yeah!!!

This unit is BIG... over 18"... so it should make up quickly...

And the since there are already 2 balls quilts in the air I thought I'd add a third one! Have you seen this new book...

My friend Robin posted about it on IG and well I was intrigued. I'm very impressed as there are several quilts in this book I'd like to do. Some take just 2 charm packs, others need 3 or 4 which is layer cake territory and I have lots of them in my stash.

This is my first choice from the book... the pattern is called Lunch Box...  and these are my fabric picks...

Now I completely forgot that I had this layer cake... it is by Momo...and I LOVE Momo, but it isn't more 70's avocado/harvest gold/chocolate brown colorway I'm most familiar with...this one is very bright and Spring-y...perfect for right now...as the temp is 70 and I have the windows open and there is lovely breeze... oh back to the quilting (see how easy it is for the ADD to pop up?)  Anyway there is a quilt along for this book on Instagram which you can follow here...

I couldn't wait to sew up a couple of blocks of this pattern... the blocks start like this...

little Puss in the Corner blocks... and then you slash them and slash some background fabric and sew the pieces together and  they look like this...

and here is one all sewn together...

I love the scrappiness of this pattern and the Spring-y colors and the yummy-ness of that lime green Grunge. I picked it up at a new to me shop in town called Home Grown, Home Sewn... you can see their website here. I was very impressed with this shop... it is small but packed full of colorful fabric and notions and patterns and samples... the whole place has such a happy vibe... I'll be visiting again soon as it is only about 15 minutes from my house. I saw several fabrics I'd like to have some yardage of.

And pairing this brand new Grunge fabric with this well aged Just Wing It! layer cake has been interesting. Like I said I had totally forgot I even owned this fabric... I know it is older collection as the price marked on it was $32 and I'm pretty sure I paid less than that ... I believe  this was marked down at a sale at Fabric Shack a couple of years ago. Also,  I know this is "vintage" as when I went to cut it up the squares were actually more than 10"... I had to trim it down and it trimmed off the pinked edges to get it to 10"... that doesn't happen anymore. Now they are barely 10" including the pinked edges.

So three projects (we aren't even going to think about the other two year long QAL's I'm working on) are all in different corners of my sewing space... that still leaves one corner open...LOL... I think I'll stop here right now. I've been very energetic and productive on the quilting front these last couple of weeks... the cross stitch and the knitting have fallen by the way side but I'm sure they will return. I don't feel guilty bouncing from project to project anymore. Everything will get done in due time... at least I think it will...LOL!!!

 I'm linking up with Patchwork Times and Love Laugh Quilt and then I'm off too juggle and sew!!!

happy stitching-
carol fun

Design Floor Monday...

Hello there... well yesterday was quite productive... and I'm still totally baffled as to why this is occurring, but I'm happy it is... I was able to get caught up with my blocks for the Three Dandelion Shop 100 QAL... you can check out all the stuff being posted for this on Instagram here.  I was about 4 weeks behind... 8 blocks... but I knocked them all out...yeah!!!

Here are the 26 that are finished... 25% of the way to Tula Pink"s City Sampler: 100 Modern Quilt Blocks... I had to use the floor as my design wall is full of my tulip blocks... hope to get them off this week as my sashing fabric has arrived... so this is what I got...

If you want to see them individually you can check them out here on my Instagram feed.
It is nice to look at them all in one place... it lets me see that I'm using a lot of the aqua and blue...I know that I'm going to use my favorite butterscotch-y Grunge for my background and I think all of these colors will play nicely with it. Maybe today I'll get a few more done... it takes waaaay longer to pick out the fabrics than it does to cut and sew these little gems... decisions decisions decisions... And I'm anxiously awaiting the release of the next collection of Momo fabrics... it is called Lucky Day and you can see it here.  If you enlarge the picture you can see the prints better... lots of small scale ones which would work great in this quilt. I think they are going to be released in July.

And I was also able to catch up on my FQS Patchwork Quilt Along which you can see here. They are up to Block # 3 Box-in-a- Box... again this month I made 6 little 5" finished ones and one 10" finished one...

You can find the cutting dimensions for the 5" blocks here... and here are my dimensions for a 10" block.

Background:
A   2.5" x 6.5"  cut 2
B   2.5" x 2.5"  cut 2

Print:
C 2.5" x 10.5" cut 2
D 2.5" x 6.5"   cut 2
E 2.5" x 2.5"   cut 1

Now I had to do a little finagling to make my 10" block as all I have from these Elizabeth Hartman collections are layer cakes which are only 10" square. I picked a busy print and pieced the strips to get it to the right length... if you are looking for it you can tell where I pieced it but otherwise I think it blends nicely.

Scaling these blocks up is simple to do... just take the dimensions given... subtract a half inch, that is the seam allowance. Double the figure you are left with and then add back on the half inch seam allowance.

Not sure what I'll do with these blocks when I get them all done but I have lots of time to think about it...and I'm sure I'll need it ...LOL

Well the Open Day Parade for my beloved Cincinnati Reds, got off without rain...but the game doesn't start till 4pm and the weather guy there is an 80% chance of rain then... I hope he's wrong... but no matter what I'll be watching from my nice dry stitching chair.

I'll be linking up today with Patchwork Times and Love Laugh Quilt for Monday Making.

happy stitching-
carol fun

A sunny Slow Stitching Sunday...yeah!!!

Rain rain rain rain rain rain.... go away... which it did today... but it is back for next week...ugh!!! I knew it would rain tomorrow... or be really cold...why do I know this?  Because it is Opening Day for my beloved Cincinnati Reds... Opening Day is a REALLY BIG DEAL in Cincinnati... we have a parade and every news organization covers it like a blanket... kids skip school and adults are suddenly taken ill and can't go to work... hmmmm.... I LOVE Opening Day because hope springs eternal in my heart that this year will be our year...even though I'm pretty sure it will be just like last year, and that wasn't our year either. Oh well, a clean slate to start!!

And now that I got that out of my system, on to Slow Stitching Sunday! A little progress was made on my Little House Needleworks "Needlework ABC's"... I'm at the half way point...

Excuse the wrinkles... I'm trying to distract you with that adorable little chick... it is part of a salt and pepper set I picked up at Cracker Barrel... can't resist a yellow polka dot chicken!!

And speaking of yellow (isn't that a great segue??) notice that I made the house yellow instead of white... I live in a little yellow brick house ...with an olive green front door... so this is my house...although my house doesn't have 4 floors... a minor difference, right??

I stopped late last night and the Nee will become Needles...perhaps this afternoon. I have some cooking to do for dinner tonight... lasagna is on the menu... and I have a pair of jeans to hem for my son...

I'll link to Kathy's Quilts today and Super Mom - No Cape tomorrow... now time to rap this up... I know you've been on the edge of your seat...what you haven't been?  Well I have as the Dude commandeered my chair and I've written this whole post with my butt perched on that 3" of seat cushion behind his back that he left me...which did nothing to improve my sciatica... sheesh... what we do for our pets!

happy stitching-
carol fun