So today is Sunday... a Slow Stitching Sunday...right????

Well this is now the third day in a row I thought it was Sunday... Friday seemed like Sunday and Saturday seemed like Sunday... good thing my phone tells me what day it is... Thanksgiving got me all discombobulated... but I'm back on track... at least I think I am.

Even though I didn't have the actual meal at my house there was shopping and prepping and cooking that needed to be done for the feast... and it was quite a feast. We all went to my DIL's parents home... they did turkey and lots of sides and I brought prime rib and sides... we had mashed potatoes and sweet potato casserole and stuffing and couscous salad and pasta salad and green beans and cranberry sauce and rolls and pie... and we were all in a food coma from 2pm on... it was a great day!!

For Black Friday I continued my tradition of staying away from any retail establishment... instead I cleaned out the mums in my window boxes and cleaned out my garage... it looks sooooo much better... I'd show pictures but I think most of you know what trash cans and leaf bags and garden tools and extra paint and other assorted items that are" too good to get rid of but you don't want them in your house" look like.

I did get a little bit of crafty stuff done this week... and several thinks are almost finished... not completely done but close, very close...

I finished that sock I showed  before and got past the heel of the mate to it, so it is almost a pair...

I almost completed the WTN&T In Santa Claus Land cross stitch...

I ran out of the CC Eggshell to finish that last hill. Now I know I bought TWO extra skeins of that color as I didn't think I'd have enough to finish, but I can't find them anywhere... so I ordered another one which means they will show up some time next week.

My biggest project was a re-do  of my windows boxes for winter. For several years I've been unhappy with how sad they look empty all Winter... they have petunias for Spring and Summer and mums and pumpkins for Fall but nothing for Winter. I've looked a a bajillion pics of window boxes on Pinterest and Instagram and knew what I wanted but didn't want to spend a bajillion dollars. Fresh evergreens are lovely but pricey and they dry out before Winter is over... sooooooo... I came up with this solution... faux trees and evergreens and berries... I almost stayed under my budget and I'm hoping I can re-use all this stuff again. Now usually I don't like "artificial" flowers but in this case I'll make an exception.

Let's start with a close up of one of the boxes...

I started wit adorable little fir trees... got them at Target... needed to hit two Targets and since I needed so many .... 36 to do all 5 window boxes... I got 5 evergreen garlands at Michael's and bought  27 berry picks and another 30 evergreen picks...  Luckily everything was on sale at least 50 -70% off, I really like how it looks and from the sidewalk or the street it looks pretty realistic. Now my window boxes will be happy and full all  Winter.

And to overload you with pictures as this is the biggest accomplishment of my week... here is the Living room window...

And here is the two boxes on the side of the house with two of my inflatables... I think the gingerbread man is cute and I have a hippopotamus because I adore that song "I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas"... only a hippopotamus will do...

And for your enjoyment here is the original video from that song sung by Gayle Peevey...

Now it will be an earworm for the entire holiday season...LOL


I've got lots planned for the upcoming week. David of Quilting by David  sent back my Fat Quarter Cubes quilt with the Heather Ross Sugarplum fabric and it looks fabulous...and yesterday he emailed that he finished the other 2 quilts I had sent him and put them in the mail... that means I have THREE Christmas quilts to bind... good thing I'll do them all by machine.   If you want to see pics of the quilting you can look here and here.   He does great work. I'll be sending more tops his way after the first of the year.

I also have an appointment or two every day this upcoming week... how did life get so busy??? I'm 65....I'm suppose to be retired with nothing to do... well I don't really want a life with nothing to do but I would like to stay home a bit more... some fun stuff is in store... tickets to the theater and a movie... and some stuff that needs to be done... doctor's appointment and meet with the tree trimmers for the  65 year old oak in my son's yard.

My goal is to get the Fall decorations returned to their plastic bins and break out all the Christmas stuff.  I'm hoping that having all those new Christmas quilts in the house will be motivating. I want to hang the Ho Ho Ho Santa one on the wall in the living room... he just so cute.

And speaking of cute ... here is the Dude ... I went to put the new pillowcases on and he was breaking in the Christmas quilt on my bed (the only decorating I've done so far)... it had just been washed and I guess all that good smelling, warm crinkly-ness was irresistible...  he did deign to re-locate to the couch in the living room so I could get the pillowcases on ... this quilt always makes me smile as lots of Santas keep me warm.

My first indoor Christmas decorating... so much more to do...

So off to get dinner started... we are having prime rib sliders with the leftover from Thanksgiving... should be tasty...I'll be linking up with Kathy's Quilts ... and checking out what everyone else is up to... hope you have a great week ahead.

happy stitching-
carol fun

I have no idea what got into me on Slow Sunday Stitching...

It was a cold gray week, there was no sun to speak of all of last week... there was a bit of an ice storm which did quite the number on several of the old trees in the neighborhood and even some snow...ugh... too early for snow in any shape or form or measurement!!!

If it is sunny I want to sit in the sunroom and cross stitch or read or knit... and if it is gray I'm not terribly motivated to get things done... but last week was different. I do not know what got into me but I retreated to my basement sewing room and dove into making a quilt...and not just one quilt but TWO quilt tops. I don't think that has ever happened before. Now they were both on the small side... 60" x 70" but they were both complete by Saturday night... including the backs.

But before I get to the new quilt tops I made let me share with you a pic of the quilt top I showed last week... the Fat Quarter Cubes quilt done in the Heather Ross Sugarplum collection.

Isn't this quilting pattern yummy??? It is called Peppermint Palace and features candy canes and peppermints which ties in wonderfully with the fabrics in this quilt that  features peppermints. The quilting was done by Quilting by David and you can see his website here ...and his Instagram account here. I am very happy with his work and the two tops I finished this week are already in the mail to him.  I really like seeing the quilts on his IG feed because you can get a nice sense of the scale of the pantos. 

So onto my quilty productivity... first I put together this top I'm calling Christmas Weave...

I used two different Basic Grey Christmas collections... Juniper Berry for the large blocks and Jovial for the smaller blocks... both collections have been maturing in a plastic bin in my basement for a while. The "weave" part is a Grunge called Ginger Ale or New Ginger ...can't remember which for sure. It is a muted gold with a splash of a verdigris green... I really like it and will be using it again...

here's a close up of some of the piecing...

I really like the forest print with the squirrel and the deer with cardinal perched in his antlers... I had to do some creative sewing with the smaller blocks ...those 4 patches have minuscule seam allowance ...good thing this isn't a quilt that will get a lot of wear and tear. I had cut up an entire charm pack of the Jovial for some other project and I really wanted to pair it with the Juniper Berry... and I made it work... this quilt is based on the pattern Rodeo by Villa Rosa Designs which you can see here.  My finished blocks are smaller and I rotated the layout... it is very quick to sew up even when you do add more work by making 4 patches with minuscule seams... I will make this pattern again some day.

And then this happened Friday/Saturday...I went downstairs with the intention of making blocks for this quilt... Jingle Jangle by Seamed to Be... you can get the pattern here on Craftsy. 

Sorry for the quality of this pic... it is screenshot as I couldn't figure out how to cut and paste it on this new Chromebook...gotta figure more stuff out... anyway I think this is a cute Christmas quilt... the plan was to use the strips from the Moda Santa kit to piece the HO HO HO's and use the green grunge from the Basic Grey Meraki collection as the background... this is  pic of the Santa panel kit...

I purchased the kit knowing there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that I would ever made all those log cabins... particularly when a bunch of them would be covered up by the big guy... so I was happy to find another project for the strips... I began this project by cutting ALL of the background for 12 blocks and 2 sets of strips for the HOs... well I was 2 HOs into the Jingle Jangle quilt when I got to thinking about the Santa panel... and thinking ALWAYS gets me into trouble... what if I combined the HO HO HOs with the Santa panel... I had a chunk of the grunge background that I hadn't  chopped to bits and pinned it to my design wall ... and then I added Santa and HO and well here's where it all ended up...

The background looks pretty much like a solid piece of fabric but there are seams for the HO HO HOs and that section was sewn to the bottom section. I think between the printed pattern of the grunge and the all over curly-q panto I picked for the quilting it will appear seamless... now I didn't cut off as much of the big guy as Moda did but part of him will get obscured by my 3 tier tray when I hang him on my living room wall ...so I made  adjustments for that.  Here's a close up of a HO...

That print with Santa's face on it is my favorite in the collection... and that minty green background is perfect ...IMHO...LOL   Now I do still plan on making the Jingle Jangle quilt. I went back to Homegrown Homesewn quilt store and scarfed up every yard of the Meraki Green they had on the bolt. Don't know if I will get it all done before Christmas but I should be able to assemble the blocks ...might as well sew up all those background pieces I already cut.

So that's what I did last week... I don't ever remember having such a productive week. Now I will say these tops were easy piecing for the most part...we won't talk about machine appliqueing that giant Santa head... the prep on him was a bear but mostly because I haven't done any machine applique for quite a while and didn't remember which fusible I like better... I bought Wonder Under...turns out I like Heat n Bond better... hopefully won't make that mistake again...

As for cross stitching I did get some more snow done on the WTN&T In Santa Claus land piece ... but you don't need to look at more white stitches... boring... and I almost got another scrappy sock done... these are all Opal sock yarns...

Just needs the toe... and then I can cast on a mate...Oh I wanted to say thanks to Anne L. who left me a comment telling me about WoolWarehouse in the UK... you can see their website here... they have a lovely selection of Opal yarns and I'm convinced that there are Opal collections that are only released in  the EU as I haven't seen them on any US websites...well I went and ordered 5 skeins of yarn from WoolWarehouse... and I don't know how they do it but they were way less money than I pay for Opal in the US...  each skein cost me around $8. 75... there was  shipping  was around $9.75 total for each skein... I've been paying $15 and up for a skein ... now I did have to wait about 10 days for delivery but it isn't like I don't have any yarn to knit so that wasn't a problem... I got several skeins with lots of  green and a cool purple one too...

This entire purchase for 5  100 gram skeins of yarn was $48.79... a very worthwhile purchase for me!!! Lots and lots of hours of enjoyment... can't wait to play!!

So are you ready for Thanksgiving??? It sure came up fast... I'm going to Costco tomorrow to get the meat for the prime rib dinner and Krogers on Tuesday for the other stuff...that will leave me Wednesday to prep and Thursday morning to cook as we are doing dinner at 1pm... should be very nice. 

I will be linking up with Kathy's Quilts today... but before I leave you I'll share a pic of the Dude surveying his kingdom... he's perched on top of a chair in the living room as it was too cold to be outside in the sunroom porch ... he misses it as much as I do... every morning he trots to the front door in anticipation of me letting him out there but it didn't happen... maybe a day or two this coming week will be sunny... I certainly hope so!

Hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving with good food and good company!!

happy stitching-

carol fun 

Rambling on and on and on and a seasonal rant on Slow Sunday Stitching...

Let me start this post by thanking all of the veterans who have served  so selflessly to protect this great nation and other nations of the world. This is the land of the free because of the brave and I am so grateful to all those who have been in the military. My dear departed Dad and all of his brothers and several of his cousins all served in the same unit at the end of WWII. They never spoke much about what they saw in Germany, and I never asked. I wish I knew more about their service but I know they all served honorably and I am proud of them. Thank you Veterans!!!

So I'm back for another Sunday update... it was a busy busy busy week... there was some appointment or obligation every day that took me out of the house. I hope to stay put more this week... at least on this Wednesday I know I'll be home... I set up an appointment for my HVAC guy to come and look at the furnace. It has gotten a work out already as it is COLD here in southwest Ohio...remember that beautiful tree full of yellow leaves I showed last week... and here it is this week...

the leaves are GONE GONE GONE...I don't remember it happening that quickly in the past but the low temps we've had couldn't have helped. I'm sad to see the colors disappear.

So to keep up my spirits I put together a really quick Christmas  quilt top...

The pattern is a free one from Fat Quarter Shop called Fat Quarter Cubes and you can find it here... I made mine smaller than the pattern but it still came out over 80" square... so much for keeping my quilts smaller.  I used the Sugarplum collection from Heather Ross which you can see here.  Now this fabric, particularly the reds are way brighter in real life than these pictures show...think tomato-y orange red of the 50s'... I've been taking pictures with my iPhone and haven't been happy with the capture of colors... so I had been tweaking them a bit on my laptop before I posted them... but then I dropped my laptop on the floor....ugh...now the laptop still works just fine except for the screen ... the colors are all messed up ...everything is hot pink and lime green ...kinda like a bad Pucci print from the 70's... so I'm using my back up little Chromebook to do this post and so far I haven't found an easy to use and free program to tweak the colors... 

Here are some close ups of the cute mice and peppermints in this collection...

I  really like this collection for its polka dots and those cute mice and the plaid and the yellow peppermint print... that one is my favorite.... I got enough of it to do the sashing and the back... and I shipped the top out on Thursday to Quilting by David ... can't wait to get it back!

And I FINALLY finished binding  the quilt for my son... 

It is a very generous sized quilt for his bed and I backed it with minkee... Quilting by David did the quilting and my son picked this panto called Kindling... he liked the flame look...

and  he says the quilt is wonderful to sleep under... it has a bit of heft to it and he likes that.  I'm glad I've gotten this guilt project off my list of things I should do. He waited patiently and has decided that all quilts I make for him from now on need to be backed with minkee.... I can do that!!

On the knitting front I finished the second sock to the one I showed last week, got all the ends woven in and even wore the socks this week...

The heels and toes are showing up kinda black but in real life they are a dark olive green... I love that I got lots of little dotty stripes in this pair...

I cast on another sock using more of my little Opal minis... this scrappy knitting is a lot of fun!!

As to cross stitch, not a lot got accomplished... I put in a couple of stitches on In Santa Claus Land by WTN&T...snow snow and more snow...

I WILL finish this before Christmas...

And I picked back up the Lizzie Kate Christmas ABC that I started back during StitchMaynia... got a few more words and motifs done...

I am happy with how this looks on this painted fabric...but I wish I could remember why I thought it had to be stitched on 36 count... not having fun seeing the holes ... 32 or 28 count are my favorites. I WANT to have this one done by Christmas too...and there is the Silver Creek Sampler's Christmas List which you can see here...  I would LIKE to have this one stitched this year but I don't think it is going to happen... but it will be stitched for next year....that is my solemn vow...OMG are you laughing out loud... I never make promises to get stuff like this completed as it usually means it will take a decade for me to get it done... but I do LOVE the piece so maybe I will hold myself to my promises... and I'll call it a promise not a resolution of any kind cause I don't make resolutions... I just break them...LOL

Well last week I didn't get in my semi-annual rant about the time change...probably because I posted early and the full effect hadn't hit me yet... but after  a full week my vehement hate of Daylight Saving Time continues unabated.... JUST LEAVE THE TIME ALONE!!!  Yes it will get dark early as the season progresses. Being pitch black at 5:30 is down right depressing... I know there are those of you who love it being lighter earlier... I am NOT a morning person...never have been, never will be... I've trained my friends not to call me before 10am... I'm almost human at that hour... so the light in the morning isn't anything I will ever willingly participate in. I'm the person who only wants afternoon appointments at the doctors or for service calls... you can have all the time slots before noon... my internal clock has me up till 2am or 3am and then in bed till around 9 or 9:30am... I consider those civilized hours and now that I no longer have to take kids to school and I'm officially a senior citizen (got my new Medicare card in my wallet) I'm not ever getting up early again if I can help it. Okay...thanks for letting me get that out of my system. I really shouldn't get my blood pressure up like that, now should I?  LOL

So this week I'm going to make a concerted effort to stay home and stitch and maybe start another Christmas quilt top. Plans have been made for Thanksgiving and while I will be cooking prime rib and pasta salad and stuffing, the celebration will take place at my daughter-in-law's parents' home... no extra house cleaning for me. 

Our family Sunday dinners have been in flux lately for a very good reason... my dear daughter-in-law is pregnant and has been suffering from lots of nausea... I feel so sorry for her... so we have been doing dinner out as she never knows how she will feel till the last minute... which is fine...there are lots of nice restaurants in the city and we still get time to get together and talk.  This golden child ...the first grandchild on either side of the family ... is due in April. I was told not to make anything yet but that admonishment was useless as I already have several quilt tops I made years ago in anticipation of my then yet to be conceived grandchild making an arrival.  Just need to decide which ones to get quilted first...and then there will be a sweater or two ... and some booties ...and probably a dozen cute hats to be knitted. If this child has a head which takes after his father (my son) no standard baby hat will fit... custom will be the only solution. My son had a large noggin as a baby and still has a large noggin...as a child he loved hats which proved to be a problem as most just kinda perched on top of his head. One year for Halloween he wanted to be Indiana Jones... we had an old leather jacket and a whip but he wanted a fedora... the only one that would fit was a man's size 7 5/8... I got in in at the JC Penney's in Modesto CA...  he was 7 years old... my son often teases me that I suffer from "puny head syndrome"... that somehow his large head is the normal standard... I don't think it is but my puny head hasn't come up with any definitive reasoning to the contrary... LOL

As I wrap up this rambling post,  I will link up with Kathy's Quilts, and  I shall leave you with a pic of Big Dude inspecting that latest pair of scrappy socks...

it is good thing I have his supervision for all my projects to keep me in line... LOL ... hope you  have a great week ahead!

happy stitching-
carol fun

Turkey-fying up the house on Slow Stitching Sunday...

Fall has certainly descended on southwest Ohio this week... I gauge the change of the seasons by two large trees I can see out my windows... this one is in the backyard of the house across the street and I can see it  from my stitching chair...

this picture does not do it justice...it is a gorgeous yellow...

and this tree  I see from the window over the kitchen sink...

that orange-y red looks like it is on fire...

Both trees have changed dramatically in color and in the amount of leaves they've shed... I'm a bit concerned as the yellow tree is usually one of the last trees to drop its leaves and it was much fuller ... don't know if that is the result of the hot summer we had or a harbinger of a cold winter ahead... not going to think about that now, just going to enjoy the beautiful colors... Fall is my favorite season!!!

So I returned all the Halloween decorations to their plastic storage bin and brought out some turkey/Thanksgiving items... turkey-fying the place up ... I do love Thanksgiving... great food...great company and no gift expectations... it is kinda funny that I like turkey decorations but I know we will be eating prime rib for our celebration... however we will have stuffing.... a hybrid holiday!

Here's my display shelf unit...

New items include this fully finished and priscilla-fied Barbara Ana Autumn piece...

I mounted it on an unfinished wood piece I found in the craft aisle at Target... painted it a brown-y olive and used some of those big orange puff balls I got at Hobby Lobby...and I re-discovered this Debbie Mumm tin from a long time ago...

and tis the season for my Turkey Hill Farm piece from Ewe & Eye & Friends...

If you enlarge the picture you can see the decorative stitched on the house and the tree is a piece of wool embellished with french knots... stitched this one almost 20 years ago...where does the time go??? Those little Pilgrim birds I bought at the grocery store a couple of years past...I do have a thing for animals in clothes... kinda strange...but these guys are cute!!!

I totally forgot I had purchased this Thanksgiving wreath at Homegoods until I was putting away my Halloween stuff...

I LOVE vintage images and I don't think I've ever seen a Thanksgiving wreath...we seem to jump right from Halloween to Christmas speeding past Thanksgiving... I'm trying to slow thing down here... and I picked up this other vintage Thanksgiving piece at Hobby Lobby...

and another little turkey dressed up as a Pilgrim... I think he came from Michaels.

On the stitching front I did get the Lizzie Kate Thankful String completed...

Not sure how I'm going to finish it... I saw Priscilla put her's on a piece of wood that she's going to use for all the LK strings... and I've already stitched the Winter one too, but haven't decided on the finishing for it either... I may just make them into loooongg pin rolls ... I do have some cute decorative pins I could stick in them... need to think about it...

And I got one sock knit this week...which is my normal knitting pace...

All of the yarn is Opal and while it looks like I changed the yarn a bajillion times I used the self-striping facet of this yarn to my advantage... in most cases I knit at least 9 to 10 rounds with the same yarn and every time there was at least one pattern change that appeared in that length of yarn... now in the interest of transparency here are pics of the inside of the sock...

It will take about 20 to 30 minutes to tie off and weave those ends in... which I feel is a decent trade off to get all the scrappy goodness in one sock.

So right now the sun is shining and it is a glorious Fall day...more rain is in the forecast...Tuesday looks particularly soggy...glad I voted absentee this year... 

Hope your week is productive... I have a Christmas quilt that needs borders ...hope to do a post on it this week and the quilt for my son needs to be bound...and I want to get into some Christmas stitching...and there is another scrappy sock that needs to be knit... I will never ever ever run out of crafty projects I want to do... just need more hours in a day!!!

I'll be linking up with Kathy's Quilts and checking out what everyone else is up to this Sunday...

happy stitching-

carol fun