Ongoing Halloween and a new video obsession on Slow Sunday Stitching...

No need to reiterate how fast the weeks fly by... Annie O of Annie's Orts commented that "the week did fly by like witch on a broom"... a very apt description. I had lots of things to do that took me out of the house...visit to pick up a quilt from my local quilt shop ...Homegrown Homesewn... appointment for my son... dinner with the quilty ladies...lunch for my son and his friend who lives about 40 miles away... didn't get the oil in the car changed...moved it to tomorrow...not as much written down for this coming week so I have high hopes to get lots of stitching and sewing and knitting done... but then I always do... hope spring eternal...LOL

The weather was hot and boy did it rain...Thursday we officially got 5" in one day...don't know if I got that much in my yard but it sure came down  in buckets.  I was happy not to water for a couple of days but I think I will have to do a little tonight...the coleus is looking droopy. I am soooooo ready for Fall... pumpkins, mums, decorative cabbages and kale... something to perk my bedraggled petunia window boxes. I was honored to win a local award for my yard again this year... the Deer Park Beautification Award... got a cool sign to put in my yard and a certificate signed by the mayor... so I feel an obligation to keep up appearances...and right now my flowers aren't at their best. I do have a slew of dahlias that are waiting to bloom... getting tall and I'm seeing some buds... can't wait for them to pop. And I want to buy those BIG pots of mums to put on my front steps and by my garage... I love them!!! Need to check out Costco and my local cheapy garden center... and I should wait till the first of September as I consider that the beginning of Fall, but lots of schools are already back in session and isn't that the beginning of Fall?

As for stitching I made a couple of changes to the Spooky Row I showed last week...

I backstitched with a light gray around the skeleton so he'd show better...

and I restitched the ruff on the vulture's neck so there is more contrast there too...

I'm contemplating taking this to be framed as getting the long pieces straight isn't easy and this one is 18" long... gotta look at those Joanns coupons.

As for the Lizzie Kate ABC Halloween I'm just about half way complete...

I love the way it looks on this linen...I did make Frankenstein green...he's charted in more of a beige/tan/yellow... too bland for my taste.  I've been thinking what pieces I want to get done for this Halloween...and there is this sampler, the Drawn Thread Halloween Welcome, the With Thy Needle & Thread The Cat and the Moon, and Matilda Hornsby... I think that's doable by the end of September... keep your fingers crossed.  I just have to guard against other shiny charts catching my eye...and yes I may be a touch delusional here but I prefer to think of it as being that eternal optimist...doesn't sound as nutso...LOL

I've found I like to cross stitch while "watching"  YouTube videos... I started with FlossTube channels and then stumbled upon this great gardening channel... its called Garden Answer and you can find it here... it is a husband and wife team...she narrates all the videos and he films them...she is adorable and her garden is phenomenal... they have 662 videos at last check...her parents own a garden center in Oregon which she grew up in and where she still helps out ... some of their videos are "a day in the life" and they are fun to watch... I am so impressed with her plantings and the property they live on... there is some great aerial video... right now my favorite episode is where they planted 44 hayrack window boxes ... OMG ... it is to die for... here is the one where they planted up everything... and here is the way they looked after about two months.  I have a new appreciation for purple after seeing her display... anyway as I lust after her beautiful flower beds I get ideas for my diminutive yard for next year... petunias or begonias or maybe short zinnias in my window boxes??? The short zinnias did great as an edge in my garden ... the petunias got leggy and scraggly...and it wasn't just me. I chatted with my neighbor who has a wonderful garden and he said the same thing. He pulled out some of his petunias and replanted begonias... maybe I should have done that. Gardening... always thinking ahead to what to do differently...

So this week should be a nice one... I saw a forecast with high temperatures only in the 70's and morning lows in the 50's...turn off the AC and open all the windows...I can't wait. Lots of things I want to do this week (heck lots of things I want to do every week...LOL) ...hope to get the quilt top for my son assembled... all the blocks are complete...just need to sew the rows together and add the sashing and the borders...oh borders...we know how long that takes me... but I do want this on his bed soon. And National Jelly Roll Day is coming up on September 15... last year I started the quilt that is currently on my bed, a pattern called Two Step from Missouri Star...you can see my quilt here on my Instagram page... carolfun53... I have plenty of jelly rolls ...just need to pick one and pattern... it will be something easy and fun!

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts today... I always enjoy seeing what every one posts there...and again I'll say I hope to post some quilting...maybe this week it will happen...but don't hold your breath, you'll turn blue and pass out and I'll feel very bad about that...

happy stitching-
carol fun

A Slow Sunday Stitching where I ponder how many days till Halloween???

Hello again... another week whizzed by... I know I said I'd be back last Monday to show some quilting but ...well... I don't  know what happened ...I didn't turn my machine on at all  last week... maybe this week...no promises. We've had all kinds of weather this past week... hot...  humid... dry... rainy... sunny...gray... I am pining for Fall...cool, low humidity Fall... it can't come soon enough.I LOVE FALL!!! it is my favorite season!!!

My window boxes are looking raggedy ...the petunias got leggy and the sweet potato vine is a bit droopy. From the street they look okay but up close not so much. I'm ready to pull it all out and decorate them for Fall. I've already decided that if I can get small pumpkins for the same price as a mum or decorative cabbage...and I think I can... I'm putting lots of pumpkins in the 3 smaller boxes that are high up... the beauty of this is that they won't have to be watered. I found out last year that it is hard to water the cabbages cause you can't hardly get the hose in under the leaves...live and learn. Next to petunias, mums are one of my favorite flowers ... I love all those Fall colors...and the weather...did I mention that before???? LOL

Sooooo you may be asking yourself how many days till Halloween? (we aren't even going to discuss Christmas yet, okay?) Well according to a countdown website I found there are 79 days left... plenty of time to do more Halloween stitching and right now I'm ALL about the Halloween stuff.

This week saw  my butt in my stitching chair quite a bit and I finished the Bent Creek Spooky Row...

It is really neon green in real life... in the evening it looked more minty green but in natural light it lives up to its neon label.  I played chicken with the gray floss for the letters... only had a 6" piece left when I got done...

I'm going to frog the ruff around the vulture's neck... it is a cranberry red and is too close in value to the black... that shouldn't take too long. I think this is going to hang in my back hallway.

And since I finished that piece I  broke out my Lizzie Kate ABC Halloween... got the first line done... 11 more to go...

And here's how the  whole piece of linen looks...

I painted a new piece of linen for this as I thought the first piece I did was too busy... I like this better. 

This chart came as a kit with the called for Crescent  Colors and some DMC... and they are pretty but they didn't look good with my painted linen. So I took my chart and my linen to Michael's and picked out DMC colors that I like... a nice dark orange 720 and a light orange 722 and a funky green 581 and a purply purple 333... I traded  the beige  they called for ...3042... for a yellow 726...and I think I'll change the 3848 turquoise for 3812 turquoise.

I purchased this kit around the time Lizzie Kate announced her retirement... I read on her blog that she is going to continue for a bit with the kits of these in collaboration with 123 Stitch... here  is a link to that listing... if you are interested let them know.

And if this isn't enough Halloween stuff...along with the stuff I mentioned last week I got this chart yesterday from Stoney Creek...Halloween Moon ...you can see it here...

 This is a big chart... 207 high by 150 wide.... on 32 ct that 13" x  9.5"... a LOT of Halloween... What drew me to this is the pumpkin that says Halloween with its teeth... I do like the ghosts and the owl over the moon but  I think that  all I'm going to stitch is the big pumpkin...he's 70 x 60 so that would be about 4.5" x 3.75"... that will do ... and I think I may have enough of the orange fabric with the bruises left to do it. Keep my fingers crossed... I did whack off a piece to give to a friend...but I can always dye more. 

Well there may be some more stitching time tonight after dinner. I'm having my son and DIL for the first time in weeks... they've had a ton of things going on so I enticed them over with prime rib... who can resist prime rib??? Not anyone in my family...LOL... the meat is in the oven but my remote meat thermometer isn't behaving... I keep having to check on it with my instant read thermometer... which defeats the purpose of the remote one that is suppose to alert you when the meat has reached the proper temperature...oh well... I use my  20% coupon at Bed Bath & Beyond and get a new one.

I got a bunch of little things on my calendar for next week...pick up a quilt...take my son for an appointment...get the oil changed in my car... dinner with my quilty friends... if Mother Nature helps me out and rains a bit perhaps I can skip a night or two of watering and get in more stitching time... cross your fingers...

I'm linking up with Kathy's Quilts today...and if I get some sewing done tomorrow maybe their will be a post then...hope you  have a good week ahead!

happy stitching-

carol fun 

Slow Sunday Stitching with Flosstube overtones...

Hello everyone... hope your summer is progressing nicely. We actually had a string of days with lower humidity where I could open the windows... it was lovely. The temperatures went back up but it isn't as bad as before...or I'm getting use to it...I keep reminding myself that at least I'm not in Modesto, CA... lived there for 3 years back in the late 80s... there were 2 seasons...hot and hotter than Hell... the day we moved it it was 106...the day we moved out it was 110...and my memory is that it didn't get much cooler any time in between...ok that is a bit of an exaggeration...we did have a "winter" there one year. Temperatures got down below freezing for a couple of days and in the neighborhood I lived in there were no basements. The water pipes were PVC and the came out of the ground under the tiny crawl space beneath the house... along with everyone's sprinkler systems these pipes froze and burst. There wasn't a piece of PVC pipe to be had anywhere in the city for a week. Luckily we protected our pipes... a light bulb under a cardboard box over the juncture to the house and we the only ones on our street with running water for days....and how in the heck did I get to this story??? Oh well ...lets talk about stitching...okay??

I have gotten several projects stitched...and several are the result of projects I saw on Flosstube... I enjoy watching and somehow I think I've seen everything stitchy that is out there and then BOOM!!!..there is a chart I've never seen before and I MUST have it... this is one of them...

All Hallow's Eve by Lizzie Kate... I came across this one as a result of watching the Flosstube videos of Pam & Stephanie from Just Keep Stitchin....which lead me to the Facebook group of Pumpkin Seed Stitchers...lov'e the little mouse  at the bottom left...used Weeks Onyx and a piece of 32 ct. linen  I had painted and smushed and over dyed... I think the purple spots look like bruises...LOL..I think I'll finish this as a little pillow with either rickrack or pompom around the edges.

And one thing lead to another...(doesn't it always???) and I found another little freebie on The Silver Needle's Free Charts page... Spooky Time by Lizzie Kate...

The chart called for little stacked button to make the eyes but I have these googly eyes in my craft stash and I think they will be perfect. I have an idea to finish this as a little candy corn shaped pillow...got the idea from my friend, Heidi... should be cute to tuck into my Halloween displays.

I was able to finish all the stitching on my Autumn Welcome by The Drawn Thread...

this piece is so PRETTY!!! if I say so myself...and I do!! Here are some close-ups...

Not as many decorative stitches in this one ...which is fine... just some satin stitch acorns and half Rhodes mounds on the basket.  I already ordered the Halloween version of the Welcome and the Winter version too. I will finish this one like I did Summer...simple fabric mat and then mounted on a piece of wood.  Details: 32 ct linen... Rit Teal dye smushed in a mason jar...my own floss conversion from the silks...Gentle Arts and Weeks.


And somewhere on the internet or Flosstube or Instagram or Pinterest I saw this Bent Creek chart...Spooky Row...

And I had to have it ... my version...just started this one on Friday... stitches up quickly as I've spent a lot of time watching Flosstube...which is only going to lead me to something else, isn't it???

a close up ...

I painted this 32 ct linen with Rit Neon Green and Lemon Yellow. I had smushed dyed another piece and it was very deep dark olive green... cool looking but not  working for all the dark stitching on this chart... I'll use it for something else... I've also come to the conclusion that as much as I want to use ALL the colors of dyes that I have, I really should limit it in most cases. I forget that while the piece of linen looks great I will be stitching over it and a busy background is not usually a good idea for cross stitch. Live and learn and then overdye your mistakes...that's my new dyeing motto!!! LOL

So while I'm working on this piece Flosstube has lead me to snag these 2 projects I'm adding to my list...

I know this is a blurry pic but it is the best one I can find on the web... this is from Not Forgotten Farms and appeared in the 2013 Halloween issue of Just Cross Stitch magazine. Pam & Stephanie made me aware of this issue and I tracked it down as a digital download on Annie's Craft Store which you can see here.  This is a great deal... I paid $8 and was able to immediately access and print off this chart. There are several cute cute cute pieces in this issues so it was a bargain.

And then I saw this piece  by Heart in Hand...Halloween Parade...on Flosstube...do we see a pattern here? I should stop watching shouldn't I? Ain't gonna happen...LOL

I've tracked it down to both Stoney Creek and Everything Crossstitch...  now Everything Crossstitch has the chart but not the button pack...Stoney Creek has both...Everything Crossstitch is just up the road from me and I like to support local shops and I'm not sure if I'll stitch this as one piece or as individual motifs...if I do them individually I don't need the button pack...decisions, decisions...

So I'm full blown Halloween at the moment. I am looking forward to Fall ...but then I always do...it is my FAVORITE time of the year. Can't wait to get out all my Fall decor ...but first I need to get through August. My goal today is to put away the patriotic stuff and put out a bit of late summer...I'll reuse a lot of what I had out before but plan to add some sunflowers and chickens. I wish I had stitched more of the ladies I talked about in January (which is when I should be stitching summer stuff...sheesh)... next year I want an August display of ladies and chickens...some more Pineberry Lane pieces and that new Hen Peck one by Plum Street Samplers which you can see here.  And for more eye candy check out the new pieces from Brenda Gervais at With Thy Needle and Thread right here.  I order this last night...

Is this not ADORABLE????  Not sure how I'll finish it but I had to have it...

Soooooo.... now that I've dumped all these pics and links on you I shall mosey over to Kathy's Quilts to link up today... I want you to know that the Dude has been very diligent in his inspector mode... and I've passed all my tests...

hope you have a great week... I'm going to try to post tomorrow too... I worked a bit on the quilt I promised my son...not my choice of fabrics but I'm liking the pattern and he's happy so that's the important thing.

happy stitching-
carol fun