Easter Displays on a Slow Sunday...

Hello -well where does the time go??  Easter is next Sunday... and while I knew it was coming, it still seems to have snuck up on me... I'm still working on an Easter basket for Elliott which will proceed his 2nd birthday by only a couple  of days... so I'm putting together two different present packages... a couple more items should come tomorrow... fun shopping!!

And I have several Easter displays to show you today... fair warning....LOTS of pictures... you may want to grab some liquid refreshment... LOL... sooooo,  the displays have  been up for a couple of weeks but I've been lazy about getting pictures taken... but I finally got my butt in gear yesterday... lots of stuff I've had for a while and a little bit of new stuff... I did move things around a bit... having that new shelf unit in the living room gives me more display space which is fun to play with.

Okay lets dive right in and I'll start with the new stuff...This tray of small (and some not so small) pillows is from the book Jellybean Jubilee by With Thy Needle & Thread...

I did then on 32 ct linen I dyed with Rit dye for another project  I changed my mind about ... I like the aqua -greeny tone ... looks SPRING-Y to me... I FFO'd them using fusible fleece as my interfacing and only stuffing them lightly after that... it kept them on the flat side which is what I was going for.

And I couldn't get all five of the pieces I stitched into the little tray (from Hobby Lobby) so the fifth piece went out on the sunroom porch display, along with an older piece from Blackbird Designs where I only stitched 2/3rds of the chart... 

and I ran out of the aqua green linen so Hippity Hop was stitched on yellow...and I changed all the DMC flosses and I added some flowers... I don't follow instructions well...LOL

In my living room I now have dueling display units...LOL... this is the newest one... 3 shelves of goodies...

This large piece is from WTN&T... it is called Sampler Hill ...I LOVE the tulip border and the alphabet hiding in the hill...

and I was able to display lots of knickknacks too!!

On my  large shelf unit  I have  quite the fluffle of bunnies ... I swear they reproduce when left in plastic bins...LOL....

as for the cross stitch from the top down... Spring Row by Bent Creek... I did this eons ago and now I wish I'd stitched in in brighter Spring-y colors but back then I was just using purchased linen and I rarely considered changing the floss colors... oh how I have changed!!! (and on a tangent... I just had an idea of how to brighten up this Bent Creek piece... I may take some dye and splotch it on the already finished piece... gasp... I know... risky business... but I'm liking the idea... add some pink and orange, perhaps??)

And my progression can clearly be seen in this Prairie Schooler March piece... I think the painted linen adds a nice touch to this one and I was able to stitch another piece with a kind of hidden in the hill alphabet... 

Moving down that BIG bunny on the peach-y linen makes me happy!!! I like my animals clothed...LOL... the little piece is from Blackbird Design... my foray into 40 ct with a chart from the booklet Thank You Sarah Tobias...

And at the bottom  a tiny little lady from Pineberry Lane carrying a GIANT tulip and a Lizzie Kate Spring piece on a cute wooden crate from the Dollarspot filled with tulips... I think it says SPRING pretty darn well!!

This year I hung my Fig Tree Jam & Jelly quilt here in the living room... I wanted the softer colors for a change... 

the tray has Easter Holiday Hoopla by WTN&T at the top and a scattering of bunnies from Prairie Schooler No. 178... this tray has been hanging out in my storage room for eons... I like the apple green color and the wire construction... very light and airy.... 

So have I overloaded you??  I'll save two other areas for next week... as I look around my house I probably have jumped the shark but all this stitchy stuff makes me HAPPY!!!  I'll keep the Easter stuff up for at least a week past the holiday ...then I'll put the bunnies away and get out my bird stuff... some of the cross stitch will stay out but I'll rearrange them...timing of new displays depends on my motivation... I have a couple of other projects around the house I want to tackle...

Last week I did get one of those jobs on my "list of things to do" completed... I emptied out all 5 of my window boxes... I have to drag a ladder out to reach 3 of them so it is a job... they do need to have the paint touched up as the squirrels gnawed on them again this year... grrrrrr.... the  squirrels are driving me nuts!! I can live with them raiding my bird feeders but I wish they'd leave the window boxes alone... my neighbor said they gnawed on his metal porch lights!! Is there nothing they won't chew on???

Also, I was monogamous to the Christmas stocking and worked on it every day...patting myself on the back here... and I have made progress... as I've said I'm not fond of stitching the round ornaments, so I took a break and worked on the ribbons... almost got them all done, then I'll work on the ornaments... I've told myself it I get the tree all done then I can take a break...having the tree done would be about 70% complete by my estimation... and I have several cross stitch projects I'd like to finish and even more I'd like to start. 

Well the week ahead looks quiet, but looks can be deceiving, can't they?  Not sure exactly what we are doing for Easter or for Elliott's 2nd birthday...details haven't been hammered out and there are people coming from out of town...the weather has been typically Spring... some days sunny and warm, other days gray and cold..I even saw a forecast low of 23 for next Thursday ..brrrrr.... my daffodils and hyacinths are looking good and my alliums are sprouting... it will be a while still for them...something to look forward to. 

I hope your upcoming week is filled with stuff you want to do... I have plans for some quilting... I actually got the borders on a quilt I started back in 2016... and that spurred me to start something new... we will see how that pans out...LOL

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts... no plans for today so I should have time to read... forecast is for rain so I think I'll sit out on the sunroom porch for a while... may take a nap too...

happy stitching-

carol fun 

Spring Stuff on a Slow Sunday...

 Hello - oh tis Spring!!  and I'm very happy for it to make it's arrival...however, the Spring time change is another thing altogether... and if you thought that perhaps you missed my semi-annual time rant, fear not... here is comes...

So last Sunday had me dragging from the moment I forced myself out of bed an hour earlier than normal... I  thought I'd just run headlong into the change... and after a full week of this I can report... It did NOT work... I'm still dragging... I'm still looking at a clock and thinking it feels like an hour earlier ... it didn't help that most of the week was gray which matched my mood... and it was one of the busiest weeks I've had in a while... lots of running around ...very little crafty stuff accomplished... I definitely need more crafty time in my days but forcing myself up "early" (and my early is still later than most of you) just results in my needing an afternoon nap (and there was no time for that) or an after dinner dozing off in my chair which just leaves me groggy and unmotivated for hours and I accomplish squat... I DETEST the time change!!! It is nice that it stay lighter later but it would get to this point in a few weeks if we didn't do anything. I don't see where it improves life... animals and small children do not care what the clock says... and I would just ignore the clock if I didn't have to be anywhere at a certain time, but I did have places to go, people to see and appointments to keep.  And I keep wondering who does benefit from the time change?  Who makes money from this?  Years ago I figured it was the battery manufacturers as you were always admonished to change the batteries in you smoke detectors, but I haven't heard that warning in a while... I did hear a guy say that if their choices were changing the time or running through a swarm of bees in only a swim suit, he'd take the bees... I wouldn't go that far (cause I swell up when I get stung) but I wish we could get our lawmakers to pay attention and stop this nonsense... If you are lucky enough to live in a state with the good sense NOT to change the time, count your blessings.... okay... I think I got it out of my system...thanks for putting up with me... my next rant will be in the Fall since I'm an equal opportunity hater of time changes...LOL

Soooooo... how about some crafty stuff... last time I was here I was up to my eyeballs in getting the fabric  on my new shelf units and I'm happy to report I'm done !!  Now I kinda thought it was going to take me a week or two to finish... I did go through my stash and my estimation is I thinned it out by about 20 -25%... hard to be sure because I just filled large black trash bags as heavy as I thought they could take and my son hauled them out of the basement and into the car and we dropped them off at Goodwill.  At first I still loved every piece of fabric, after an hour or so there were definitely pieces that could go and after a couple of days of this I was ruthless... the end result is my stash is neatened up and I was able to get collections out of bins... my American Jane, my Momo, my Tim Holtz, etc.... and put them where I can see them. 

I didn't have to refold everything but I did end up touching practically every thing to tidy it up... I completed the task in a couple of very long days because I invited my quilty lady friends over for lunch on Wednesday of that week ...nothing like company coming to get you to clean up your house!!   It was a nice day  for a while and we sat outside on the patio but the wind picked up and we ended up sitting downstairs in the sewing room... and we realized we were sitting farther apart indoors than outdoors... oh well... we all felt pretty safe  either way.

Dan still needs to do some work on the bottom of the bookcases ... add some trim and hide the shims,  since the basement was never envisioned to be "finished" ... in 1953 I'm sure it was just a place to store stuff and do the laundry... the floors slope pretty significantly... if you drop a pencil or a round seam ripper anywhere on the perimeter of the room it will roll all the way to the low point where the drain is... right now the drain is behind the door to my laundry area... it is fun for Elliott to let little Hot Wheels cars race across the room...however I'm careful on a chair with wheels as I can go for an unexpected ride if I'm not paying attention... wheee!!!  Well I certainly got off on a tangent there, didn't I??

Here are the shelf units...  a wide shot... 6 units... each 31.5" wide and 79.5" high...

and starting on the left and moving to the right...

I put all of the same color together - starting of course with my yellows, then orange, rust, burgundy, pink, red, purple. blue, teal and green... my version of a color wheel... I did find it difficult attimes to decide just what color a fabric was... purple? burgundy?... yellow? orange?... blue? teal?...depends a lot on what color it is sitting next to.

Since I lost 4" of depth on each shelf there wasn't room to put knickknacks in front of the stacks of fabrics ...instead I've tucked things in here and there... 

 that grouping of clay pieces are little trinkets my boys made back in grade school (they had a art teacher who was into ceramics and had a kiln at their school)... they are keeping company with a health pile of precuts ...and not that is not ALL of them... more are sitting in plastic bins with yardage for background and borders and a possible pattern... I've rediscovered a bunch of projects I can't wait to get back to!! 

And this freshening up of the sewing space has this display...

I like having another space to hang a seasonal quilt and this garden of tulips (my variation of a Lori Holt) pattern makes me smile...

this tier tray with the fluffle of bunnies is a Fiesta ware piece that was a gift from my sons a couple of years ago... of course I love the yellow color!! And yes fluffle is a real word... it is the name for a group of bunnies... I love it !!

And another display has my Lizzie Kate Spring ABCs (I've done all 4 seasons and they always look good here) and an adorable Easter egg piece that was a gift from a sweet friend...thanks Barb!!

So things are looking good in the sewing space... now to find time to play down there... I know I said I was going to be monogamous to the Christmas stocking.... however... I've only picked it up a couple of days... but I am making progress... I'm showing the  front and the back, because it is a bit easier to see what I've done from the back...

I have all the BIG ornaments done... I stitched some of the ribbons... finding 3 shades of red with contrast isn't easy... and I'm plugging away on the smaller ornaments... I find it frustrating that I can't get round things to look as round as I would like... I know it is the nature of stitching on a canvas grid but I wish they were rounder... oh well, I will soldier on... I made a decision on the rug at the bottom of the tree... I'm going to eliminate it like I did on Elliott's stocking...just paint over the red border... and in the open area I'm going to add another present or two... I know I have till October 1 to complete this but I'd love it to be done before then...lets see how long I can stick with it.

I did pick back up the Prairie Schooler Garden Alphabet...  excuse the wrinkles...

only 6 more boxes to go... Prairie Schoolers are always a relaxing stitch... no decisions to be made on colors or placement...just follow the chart... I need that break from the stocking now and again.

Well after my busy busy busy week ... I had an appointment or a lunch or a dinner to go to every single day... I'm looking forward to a quiet upcoming week... babysitting a bit this afternoon as my son and daughter-in-law go look for a new sofa... and babysitting on Tuesday... dinner to celebrate a dear friend's birthday on Thursday... oh HAPPY BIRTHDAY Stephanie... and that is all that I have on my calendar... big sigh... maybe some sunny days to sit out on the sunroom porch... 

My daffodils are blooming and my hyacinths are poking up ... I have some irises blooming but at first glance I thought they were fluffy crocuses... they aren't very tall... don't know why as I'm always guilty of not planting things deep enough ... no matter...they are pretty... I got a flyer from a local nursery outlet saying they'll be open March 28...yeah!!  I do believe that garden plants will fly out the door quickly again this year... I'm not going to hesitate when I see something I want... I'm already planning my window boxes... a mix this year of vinca, angelonia, and of course petunias... I want asparagus grass as fillers and some purple fountain grass for the pots by my garage... I have a couple of places I like to shop for the Proven Winners petunias...they aren't the cheapest plants but I love the colors and I'm going to buy them as soon as I can ...now to keep myself from putting things into the ground too early... I hope I learned my lesson from last year... around here you are suppose to wait till after Mother's Day...which means mid May... but things always seem to warm up pretty well by mid April and it is sooooo hard to wait ... I did pick up about 5 bags of dahlia tubers at Costco and I ordered more from 2 different places on line back in January ...they should be arriving in about a month... 

So the world around here is brightening up ... lots of people getting a vaccine and more people out and about... plenty of mask wearing still and I will be happy when we can ditch them... I miss seeing people's faces!  I've been planning a couple of small trips with my son... I love my new car and feel confident in taking it on a road trip or two...he wants to go to a big amusement park and I'd love to visit some garden places... I hope things are improving where you are... I really want to put this all behind me as soon as possible!!

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts today... I should have time to read blogs while Elliott naps this afternoon.. he's  bundle of energy  and quite talky ... also pretty headstrong... I find it is better to call it tenacious rather than stubborn...LOL...sounds nicer but its the same thing... he wants what he wants when he wants it....and don't we all..

Have a great week!

happy stitching-

carol fun 

A different location of messy on a Slow Sunday...

 Hello - well as I start to write this post I'm filled with trepidation... for some reason none of the pictures I've sent from my phone aren't showing up on my computer...argghhh... some days they show up immediately ... others it takes a bit of time... but this is taking a really long time... soooooo I hope I have some pictures to show you ...otherwise this is not going to be very interesting at all... wait wait... oh they are showing up now... thank you Lord!

So it has been a busy busy week.. one where I had some appointment or engagement every single day...  Monday I had Dan the Handyman here finishing up the 6 bookcases (much more on that below), Tuesday I babysat all day, came home pooped... he's cute but so much energy... Gwandma Carol had to resort to letting him zone out to Cocomelon (think this generation's Sesame Street) .... Wednesday I got my hair cut and colored...an appointment I never miss...LOL ... Thursday my son had an appointment ...Friday  I took my son to meet his friend for lunch and hanging out... his friend lives about 30 miles from here and we were gone most of the day... Saturday I did stay home and I'll show you what I got done further down....and I don't know about you but I don't juggle that kind of thing as well as I use to... somehow when I go out and do something and then come home lots of time I'm not motivated to get anything done at home... so I sit and piddle around on my computer or scroll endlessly through Instagram... not productive... but I really tried to overcome that this week and to a small extent I did... although there is still a LOT of messy going on around here...

I'm going to start with something pretty... I did get my Easter/Spring decor out last Sunday... it took ALL day and I was pooped by 6pm... I wear a pedometer to try and get in 10,000 steps a day... and I walked almost 8,000 steps without ever leaving the living room,.. and it is not that big a room!! For me decorating is a physical activity because I'm constantly re-thinking and re-arranging stuff... I thought I would start with the big displays and then move on to the small ones... but somehow the small ones got my attention first and wouldn't let go... but by the end of the day everything was arranged and my dear son took all the empty plastic bins back to the basement...  

So here is a little bit of what I did... that niche in my hallway...where the phone would have been installed in 1953... I'm really enjoying seeing it decorated even if I'm the only one who does see it... here's what it looks like before...

and after...

I've got Delivering Posies from Homespun Elegance... I love the buttons as wheels on this piece... and I like how the pillow I made from Lizzie Kate's Spring String fit perfectly on that lower shelf where the phone book would have sat... and since I've done a couple of those String pieces for other seasons I think I'll be displaying them here in the future... 

I did a rather simple (for me)  display out on the sunroom porch....

The cross stitch on the top is a portion of a chart from Blackbird Designs... I like that new little table runner I made last week and I think the three bunny heads are cute and weird at the same time... sometimes when I look at then they appear to have just popped up out of the tray/ground... I do LOVE the one with the yellow glasses... got him last year but I don't remember where....oh well... that shelf unit does look particularly spring-y with that apple green paint.. glad I gave it a makeover a couple of years ago.

In the living room I've hung a quilt that I started in 2011 and finally finished in 2014...this is my  inaccurate version of Fig Tree Quilts pattern Jam and Jelly...

The fabric line was Verna from Kate Spain... so pretty and spring-y...  and I pulled a tier tray out of my storage room that I haven't used in ages... I love the Spring-y green (pretty much the same color  I painted that shelf unit on the sunroom porch)... 

At the top I have Easter Holiday Hoopla from With Thy Needle & Thread ... and in the little galvanized tubs I have the small pillows I made with Prairie Schooler's No. 178 Bunnies chart... and yes that carrot is enormous...LOL... this tray is a little harder to style as it is tricky getting things to stay put on the wire base... but it does look fresh and airy....IMHO...LOL

So now that I've shown some pretty things we are going to move on to the messy... and it is very very messy... ugh... Dan was here Friday, Saturday and then Monday... it took longer (doesn't it always) to do the bookcases in the basement than I anticipated, primarily because the old bookcases had to be removed and then totally disassembled in order to get them out of my basement... they came in flat packed as IKEA does all the Billy bookcases... and my house has this breezeway/hallway right outside the back door which makes it  nearly impossible to get any large item inside... lots of maneuvering and contorting needs to happen to get things through that door... so disassembling the bookcases was the solution... and I had thought that as Dan was putting together a new bookcase I could put the fabric back on an assembled bookcase, but that was really wishful thinking on my part.

Now it turns out that I don't have to re-fold every piece of fabric, but I do have to re-stack them more neatly... and I figure this would be a good time to thin out my stash... my goal was to reduce it by 20-25% and I think I'm accomplishing this but it is hard to be certain as I'm rearranging the stacks and the fabrics... this takes time... LOTS of time... I'm pretty good at looking at a piece of fabric and deciding whether I want to keep it or have it move on, the problem arises when I look at a piece and I can't decide if it should go into the red stack or the pink stack... or maybe the purple stack... it this piece blue or teal... is this one yellow or light orange... arghhh... I drive myself nuts with this... 

Here's where I left off yesterday... so far I've worked on this a bit on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday ... and I put in some substantial time on Saturday...

AWWWWWW... and it doesn't get much better as I look around the room...

Those last two pictures show all the stacks that came off of one bookcase!!  It is amazing how much I crammed into each one...

And here is a look at how things are shaping up... I may move stuff around again... I've already re-done several shelves a couple of times... starting from the far right and moving to the left...

Instead of having a stack of bright reds in one spot and then a stack of more muted reds on another shelf I'm bringing them together ... I was able to get my Momo's and my American Jane fabric out of bins and onto shelves where I can see them... (last picture, second bookcase from the left)... I'm trying out different baskets for some stuff... I was able to get some from IKEA that are a perfect fit for the Billy shelves...  a new one called Tating...you can see it here... I bought about 6 of them and then went back later in the day and bought 4 more... I may have too many but they were low in stock and I can take back what I don't use... I want them for the shelves and to re do the storage under my cutting table... because you know one re-arranging project always leads to another and another and another and another....

I do LOVE how the white bookcases look... they make the room brighter and look larger... Dan has to come back though for some finishing touches... the basement of the house was never expected to be "finished" ... that concept wasn't around in 1953... it was a basement... concrete floors that slope from the sides to the drain in the almost center of the space... so Dan tried hard to get the shelves to be level at the top (the former contractor didn't bother to do this and it was noticeable that they slanted from one end to the other)... and in getting the shelves pretty level at the top there is a gap at the bottom... he'd going to put some toe molding to hide the gap and he's going to make me a display shelf for the top of the bump out that hides my water meter shut off... however it will probably be a couple of weeks before he returns... the guy is super super busy... my projects are small and he has some major remodeling work he's doing for several people... he's happy to be so busy and I'm grateful for whenever I can get him for my projects... I don't have anything major inside on my list of things to do right now... but that can always change... I do want him to to repaint the foundation of my house and the front steps ... the weather has taken a toll on them... and the weather is definitely trending better around here.... several sunny days and we even hit 60 once or twice... Spring is coming!!!

So that's where I am today... I'm going to go back downstairs and tackle more piles of fabric... I'd love to spend the day out on the sunroom porch stitching but the mess is getting to me... I like my stuff...oh I LOVE MY STUFF...but it has to be organized... and when it is organized I can have more stuff... so that is a win-win situation....

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts today.... after I get through a couple more piles I'll reward myself with some time reading blogs... the upcoming week doesn't appear too busy... hope it stays that way...I'd like to have the sewing room re-organization finished by the end of next week...cause I'm already thinking about a deep cleaning and re-organization of the cabinets in my kitchen.... and I'd like to get it done before the weather lets me work in the yard... I've bought sooooo many seeds and I picked up 5 bags of dahlia tubers at Costco the other day, along with some caladiums and some elephant ears... and I have more dahlia tubers that will be arriving soon... I ordered them in January....I also suspect that annual bedding plants will go quickly again this year... last year garden centers were picked clean just a couple of weeks into Spring... I'm not going to hesitate to buy things when I see them... I'm already planning different combinations for my big pots and I'm thinking of doing things a little differently in my window boxes... and all of the re-organization in the basement has me itching to sew too... I need to clone myself...that would be very helpful.. but weird...LOL

Hope you have a good week ahead of you... along with all I need to get done in the sewing room I want to finish  my little cross stitch pieces from Jellybean Jubilee... but I still have one that needs a few more stitches and one I haven't started yet... gotta get moving!!

happy stitching-

carol fun