Busy busy busy, but not a bunch to show on a Slow Sunday...

 Hello ...well I knew last week was going to be a busy one ... lots of social times... several lunches and a birthday party... along with babysitting... which I also knew that meant there wouldn't be a lot of time to do crafty stuff... and there wasn't... however the upcoming week looks promising for crafty time... fingers crossed.

Monday was the solar eclipse day... Nick and I opted to just stay put and see what we saw from our front porch... we didn't get 100% totality but it was pretty close... it didn't go totally dark but it was definitely "dusky" and the temperature dropped... it was exciting to see. My older son took his family a bit north of here and they did get to see the totality and the corona... Elliott was suitably impressed... they spent several hours waiting for the event in a lovely park which had anticipated lots of visitors and had set up an inflatable obstacle course for the kids to play on and there was free water and cupcakes ... they had a great time and avoided most of the traffic by keeping to the back roads which my son is very familiar with. By about 11am here the expressways going west were already bumper to bumper and the eclipse didn't start till after 2 pm... glad I didn't go  anywhere...

Tuesday I had a lovely time ...lunch with friends and a trip to Delinda the long arm quilter... I picked up this quilt... 

I'm calling it Kaffe's  Spools but the pattern is actually titled Banana Split from the book The Cake Mix Quilt book by Sew Emma... I love the grunge background..it  is the color way Pear... and the panto is called Whirling Swirls... 

 and get a load of this back fabric... it was a 108" wide and has a very sateen quality.

Wednesday was spent with Elliott... we went to  McDonalds and then spent the afternoon watching Number Block videos... it's his current fav and was the theme for his birthday parties... there were 3... one a school , one with family, and one with some neighborhood friends... he is a very lucky boy... 

Thursday I thought I had nothing on my agenda but then my neighbor Sylvia asked if she and her daughter Cecelia could come up and would I help them with a table runner project  that is going to be a retirement gift for one of Cecelia's co- workers... and this is what we collaborated on...

yes I see that there is a HST turned the wrong way on the right side... I'll fix that before added some sashing in the middle and down the sides.

Friday I went to lunch with my quilty lady friends and then they came back to my house so we could talk and eat pie... Stephie brought a Key Lime pie... it was delicious!  Then the evening was spent celebrating Elliott's 5th birthday... 

I've started a tradition of wrapping his birthday and Christmas presents in a themed pillow case ... this year I chose Star Wars as I've found several cool Star War Lego sets...this is a quick way to wrap multiple gifts and he likes pulling things out of the "magic" pillowcase as he call it...

and this pillow case has some history too it...

now the Star Wars fabric came from Hobby Lobby last week but that red cuff with the shooting stars... that is about 35 years old... a VIP Cranston print ... and I used it in the first quilt I made for Elliott's daddy... I still have the quilt... it was a train and the pattern came from Quilter's Newsletter... do you remember that magazine?  At the time it was the premier quilting publication and I anxiously awaited ever monthly issue... sigh... I miss good magazines... I don't have any subscriptions anymore... I occasionally pick up a magazine at the grocery  but lots of times I flip through them and put them back on the rack... 

So that brings me to Saturday and I'm writing this as I sit out on my sunroom porch... the weather this week was primarily gray and dreary... except for the eclipse day which was 70 and sunny... thanks for the little gift Mother Nature... today it appears we may have turned the corner on weather... sunny, very breezy but upper 60's and a forecast for 70's for the rest of the week... along with some crafty time I will be scoping out the garden centers... I can't wait to plant up my window boxes and some big pots... I will restrain myself from putting stuff in the ground as I'm not safe from frost till mid May... 

As you can tell there wasn't a lot of crafty endeavors... I did stitch a pear from the Annie Beez pattern Spring Green Pears... 

now the kinda bumpy lump is a test run of how to assemble this... there should be a stem and some leaves which I didn't bother with at the moment.  The instructions on the pattern left me scratching my head but I was able to find these great instructions on the blog Jo's Country Junction... you can find them here.  I was hoping to display the fabric pear but I'm not sure now...  I'm thinking part of the problem is that fabric is too busy for this ... hard to see the outline of the pear... but I do get how to put it together...

And I couldn't resist starting  the Teresa Kogut Patreon piece Faith, Hope, Peace and Love...

This isn't a great capture of the color of the linen... the green is pretty vibrant...not washed out... very close to DMC 470... if I get this square done  before next Sunday take a pic in daylight and  I'll post a pic to IG... 

Anyway, I'm very happy with my additions of floss... love the peachy pink and I think the called for blues pop nicely against the olive green linen... it is hard to see but in real life there are splotches of tan which go well with all the tan/beige flosses.  And can I say that I really really really LOVE stitching on 32 ct... the pear was one ply of silk on 36ct... it does give nice coverage but I have trouble seeing the holes even with strong magnification and I didn't enjoy the process... 32 ct is my sweet spot... and I'm gonna stay with it. 

I was surprised when I watched Teresa's latest Flosstube... she showed my finish of her chart Remember Me and had some very nice words to say about it... you can watch the Flosstube here ... and my sampler shows up around the 37 minute mark.  Here is the sampler again in case you missed it...

As for decor I did get all of the bunnies back into their plastic bins and I broke out the birds... and I also brought out some brightly colored quilts that haven't seen the light of day for a while... it is nice to change things up...  here's the small shelf display unit... right now it is the only display that I feel is totally complete... I have little things I still want to add to other displays ...

Up top I have a sunny yellow table runner ... all those squares are different tone on tone yellows... I'm still displaying that little tulip quilt as the tulips are just coming up here is SW Ohio... the cross stitched bird pulling the cart is from Homespun Elegance...

 and the little beaded alphabet pillow is  Hello Spring from Sub Rosa Designs.

The two shelves below are loaded with cross stitch... front left to right is Good Deeds from With Thy Needle and Thread, in the middle is Welcome, dear August from the Blackbird Design book In Friendship's Way and on the right side is the very first cross stitch piece I ever did!!

On the bottom shelf I have Brite Birds by Kathy Barrick is is a freebie you can find here... in the middle is the tulip pincushion from the book Thank you Sarah Tobias  by Blackbird Designs and  Bobbin' Along by Not Forgotten Farms. 

I would have stitched this piece in 1985... it came as a kit... and true to my habits of never leaving well enough alone I changed out the Aida for a sage-y green color and added the word Nesting... I had just given birth to my first child and I was deep into nesting...

Hopefully this week I'll get the Tulip House from Pinker n Punkin FFO'd and the Annie Beez pear... I'm itching to start a new quilt project... actually 2 new quilt projects... I want to play with my Tilda fabrics and right now I'd like to make a bed sized quilt with the pattern  Coffee Quilt., from the It's Sew Emma book  Perfect 10 Quilts and I'd like to make a throw size quilt, again with my Tilda fabrics, using the pattern  Biscuit Quilt from the It's Sew Emma book Simply Jelly Rolls. I have yardage of a pretty low volume fabric I picked up at Hobby Lobby this week that I want to use as background on both quilts. If you look back at the picture of the pears you can see the fabric I'm talking about.   I'd like to have the bed sized quilt on my bed...duh... and the throw to throw over the chair in the corner. I really like having multiple quilts using the same fabrics ... similar, yet different...

And after dithering over whether to add borders to the blocks from the Kim Brackett book, Scrap-Basket Sensations, that she called Flowers for Nana's Girl and I'm calling the daffodil quilt ... (pause take a breath ..LOL) I decided to forgo them... now it probably would look a bit better but I want to display this on my living room wall next Spring and if I add borders it will be too big to fit the display space. Instead I will do a wider binding... maybe with a little flange... I'm very happy with this top but I'm ready to move on to something else. 

So other than watching Elliott on Tuesday ... and making several visits to my neighborhood soft serve ice cream stand that has pineapple Dole Whip on them menu this week... I don't have any definitive plans for my upcoming week. The weather forecast is wonderful... sunny... temps in the 70's... the kind of weather you can open the windows and air the house out... and turn off the furnace and deprive Duke energy of a few pennies... my chair out out here on the sunroom porch is quite comfy...and the lighting  is great to stitch by... and I can watch my bird feeders... just saw a cardinal which always makes me think of my loved ones who have passed... and I say a prayer for them and me and you...

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts today... I've discovered a couple of new to me blogs that are fun to read... I even figured out how to add one to my side bar... LOL... I really should try to clean it up and post a new header but I'm terrified of messing it up and not being able to get back into the blog... I'm just tech savvy enough to get myself into trouble but not out of trouble... and now that I've checked on my blog format somehow I messed something up... it is only showing 10 blogs and when I click on "Show All" I'm not getting any more to show... drat drat drat... 

edited to add - this morning when I hit "Show All" it shows all of the blogs on the list...yeah!

I hope you have a lovely week ahead... good weather makes everything better for me... my mood improves and my aches and pains seem to subside a bit... and I truly love seeing all of the flowering trees right now... so many pretty pinks and creamy white and peachy ones... I'd love to have more trees in my yard but I've run out of yard! I have fantasies of purchasing the house next door to mine so I could garden in that back yard along with what I have now... they are the kind of neighbors that mow the grass but don't do much else with their yard... and I'd love to have a couple more raised beds ... oh I can dream...

happy stitching-

carol fun