Craziness and kindness on a Slow Sunday...

Hello - well winter arrived this week in SW Ohio... it was low 60's on Monday and I took advantage of that  got out and put some winter greenery (fake) in my window boxes ...snow came on Thursday... I heard we set a record of 2" but most of it melted when it hit the ground... streets were wet, grass got a covering.... melted by Saturday morning, and a forecast of 60 for this coming Monday... ahhh... I love the weather here ... such variety...LOL...not sure what to do with the flowers in the yard as the dahlias appear to be okay and even the new shoots of cannas are looking good... crazy weather...

And the week had some crazy worked into it.... some drama (perhaps of my own making), but it had me hot and bothered for a couple of days and I did nothing productive on those days... the older I get the more I hate to waste time but there seems to be plenty of occasions where that is exactly what happens... sigh... and I also found out that a long distance internet friend passed away. .. that had me sad... sigh again...

As for kindness I was the recipient of some lovely goodies.... first was this arrangement of flowers from my son and DIL to thank me for watching Elliott during the funeral ...

I love the color of that rose in the middle.

Next was some cute bags from my friend Vicki... she's  retired to Florida but was in town for her grandson's wedding and we met for lunch... I LOVE the cross body bag.  Measure twice, cut once, curse, repeat... yep I've been there... and the little pouch with the diagonal zipper... LOVE that polka dotted chicken fabric... 

Vicki is super creative... and she loves to make little bags... she watches a bunch of YouTube videos and can design her own pattern from there... I envy that talent.

I can't believe Thanksgiving is this Thursday...ok I can believe it but I'm not liking it... November is moving waaay too fast for me... I have so many things I want to do for Christmas and I'm not making a lot of headway... now  I did do a little Santa stitching this week... I went through my stash of Prairie Schooler Christmas charts and decided this one has several images I like...

Here's a close up of the Santas I zoomed in on... I want to stitch the 3 that have toys  and finish each of them as a small pillow.

And here's the  Santa I stitched.

now this is a restart as my first choice of linen was a darker turquoise and I just wasn't liking the coverage of the white and there is a lot of  white beard on all these guys... this lighter blue is better IMHO...

Not only are those Santas cute, go look at the cover again... I think that reindeer in the middle on the right would make a cool pillow with a scattering of snowflakes around it... maybe a red reindeer on a  turquoise background?  And then I got to thinking how nice a small pillow would be if I stitched part of the bottom of the larger piece... just Santa's sleigh and reindeer and some rooftops... and well I just wanted to see how it might look sooooooo... I stitched up a couple of reindeer.. and I like it... I like it a lot!!

Now realistically I should start my Christmas decorating the end of this week... and I may start with the Christmas tree.  I bought a new one this year with colored lights... I LOVE colored lights... so I need to undecorate the tree that has been vacationing in the basement under the stairs and move all the ornaments onto the new tree I bought... and after Christmas I will place the entire decorated tree into a large plastic bag and return it to its resting spot under the stairs... my sainted Grandma was my inspiration for this ... she had a small tree (about 4 ft.) and every year she'd wrap a sheet around it and take it up to the attic to wait for next year. As you can tell I love to decorate, except where Christmas trees are involved... my past experience with strings of lights going out and ornaments falling off always drives me nuts... so having the tree fully decorated at the start of the season puts me in a better mood... I'm not looking forward to the undecorate/redecorate process but I think the end result will make me happy.   whoa... that was a tangent, wasn't it?  LOL

As for the Fall/Thanksgiving decorating... I'm very happy with that... here is the big shelf display...

There are some returning pieces from the Fall I put out in September and some pieces that are exclusive to November.  At the top is the Bent Creek All in a Row... sorry it got cut off... and the Blackbird Designs Harvest of Friendship returns and I love that skinny coppery/rose gold turkey... 

And I tucked in that itty bitty Fall Prairie Schooler among my collection of glass pumpkins...

A wide shot of the middle of the shelf unit...

and here are the details...  I have November from Prairie Schooler ... another piece where I painted the linen and I think it came out soooo good. I did some math (and we all know it ain't my best subject) and tried to position the stitching so it would like like a sunset... In the center is  Ever so Grateful by Threadwork Primitives  and tiny PS turkey in that new to me McCoy piece ...

and to the right side a new for this season purchase from Micheals, that vintage looking turkey mold and my Jim Shore cornucopia and a little Bent Creek leaf pillow...

Below is a Turkey Hill Farm from Ewe & Eye & Friends  with a sampler  pillow from Lizzie Kate...

and Autumn from Barbara Ana Designs.

And I did get the small shelf unit on the sunroom porch freshened up... 

from the top the Autumn Alphabet by Lizzie Kate and an almost vintage turkey tin from Debbie Mumm... gosh I still love all her decor stuff ... and her fabrics!

In the middle a sorta purply/burgundy glass plate..... it looks like the leaves on the Crimson Sunset maple in my front yard and  Give Thanks by Threadwork Primitives along with  the two Pinker N Punkin saltbox houses, Turkey Creek Manor and Thanksgiving House... this is the final 2 I wanted to complete the #pnpsixhouses2024sal... I finished them all as small pillows with chenille trim... and I have plans to add to this collection with some Christmas houses... perhaps not for this Christmas, next Christmas is more probable...

On the bottom I have the Primrose Cottage Autumn Quaker.... and I just got the Christmas Quaker pattern which like the PNP houses may get started this season but finished for Christmas 2025.

Plans for the week has a doctor appointment for Nick and food prep on Wednesday... the Thanksgiving feast is scheduled for 3pm on Thursday... I like that timing ... I don't have to get up early to do the prime rib and finish the deviled eggs... I'm not a morning person... I like to ease into the day ...and sometimes I don't finish easing until lunchtime...LOL

We shall see if the motivation holds out for a start on the Christmas decorating... I think if I can get the tree redone and get the Fall stuff put away that is enough to accomplish before Elliott returns on the  Tuesday after Thanksgiving... I don't like stuff out when he comes over so I can begin again on Wednesday 12/3... I'm still debating as to which Christmas quilt I'm going to hang on the wall... I've done the giant Santa with the HO HO HO the last couple of years... may do the wonky Christmas trees instead... I have one new throw size Christmas quilt to add to my collection... I started it last December, had it quilted in January and it has been waiting for a binding since then... LOL... no rush... oh and Delinda finished quilting my Jolly Good FQ 4 Patch... you can see it here.. I need to go to her house and pick it up.. that's on the agenda for after Thanksgiving... 

So my plans for today are to relax on the porch and stitch some Christmas ... the stuff that drove me crazy this last week has kinda worked it's way out... still some issues to deal with but I'm reluctantly resigned to the fact that the situation won't be settled till sometime in  2025 ... and I'm not a real patient person... but I don't have a choice.  I should have spent more time stitching and less time making myself crazy last week... perhaps I can take my own advice this week.

I hope that you have a lovely Thanksgiving... good food, good company and no drama... a time for kindness and no craziness... a time to reflect and be grateful... and eat pumpkin pie... 

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts and check out what everyone else was up to last week... 

happy stitching-

carol fun 

OH  OH... I wanted to say thank you for all the lovely comments last week... it appears that Blogger was cooperative  as several people who usually send me email comments were actually able to leave one on the blog... I have no idea what is up with Blogger but I happy it is still here... I don't want to learn any new tricks... 

The good and bad of waiting on a Slow Sunday...

Hello - well it has been a discombobulated week here... I'm writing this on Friday evening because I will be occupied watching Elliott on Saturday and I'm not sure how the day will go... or how tired I'll be by the evening... so waiting may have a bad outcome for the blog... I'll explain in a bit...

I'll start with a situation where waiting was a good thing... remember the Giant Disappearing 9 Patch quilt I started 2 weeks ago... and I had it waiting on my design wall last week as I wanted to see how this purple fabric would look in the quilt...

and my opinion is it looks FABULOUS!! and I'm so glad I waited to finish up the quilt top... here's the top...

and some close ups of the fabrics....

I think that the purple and the teal are a great additions to the Fall colors and make all the colors look richer... I'm not a big fan of purple but it sure does a great job here... I'm even going to bind this one with that purple fabric when I get it back from my long armer Delinda at  The T-Shirt Quilt Company... I'm going to have her use a thread with variegated Fall colors... and I'm sure she have a pretty Fall panto for the quilting...

Now a situation where waiting wasn't such a good thing... I putzed around this week and kept putting off fully finishing all the cross stitch pieces I showed last week... in my defense I went downstairs on Thursday with every intention to FFO them but instead got sidetracked by the GD9P quilt and spent hours sewing on it.  I did do the 2 pieces I was planning on framing... Autumn Quaker by Primrose Cottage fit nicely in this 6" square frame I got from Amazon. I did make it more reddish with a Copic  marker... 

and this piece is Give Thanks from Threadwork Primitive... it didn't come out a size that fit into a standard frame so my solution was to add some fabric to the  bottom to fill it out...

I know in the picture the purple fabric kinda blends into the frame but in real life it looks fine... 

As for the 2 houses from Pinker n Punkin this is as far as I got... cut them to size and added some woven fusible to the back... need to sew them and stuff  them and add some trim... I think I have some chenille that will work and I'm loving the polka dot grunge for the backs. 

And the Harvest Tiny Town is still sitting on my cutting table ... sigh... maybe tomorrow I can finish it... maybe.

I use posting on the blog on Sunday as a motivator to get stuff done so I have something somewhat interesting to share... and this week I waited too long to get the stuff done that I planned... the bad side of waiting... 

I do have a little more decor to share...I've rearranged some of the cross stitch I had out before Halloween and added a couple of Thanksgiving pieces. I love getting out my Jim Shore Thanksgiving  stuff .. several pieces are gifts from Nick and I cherish them.  I know lots of f people start decorating for Christmas right after Halloween... I was driving past Chik Fil A the other night and they have a huge tree all lit up inside... and there is a house I pass by that is all decorated ... looks like a gingerbread house with all the colorful lights... and that is fine... but I'm happy to wait till December to decorate for Christmas... the good side of waiting as far as I'm concerned. 

Here's the small shelf display...

Two Jim Shore pieces and a cornucopia  snippet from a Prairie Schooler Autumn Sampler.

Mini white pumpkin quilt with beloved Sandy Gervais prints and  Welcome Autumn by The Drawn Thread.

On the top I Love Fall by the Calico Confectionary flanked by 2 pumkin headed cuties from Pineberry Lane's Cats & Jacks.

On the bottom  Bittersweet September by Blackbird Designs and Autumn from LIzzie Kate's Autumn Smalls.

Up top on the right side is Gather from Pineberry Lane  and a turkey I don't remember where it came from... sorry....

Below a better show of the Lizzie Kate Autumn and Pinker n Punkin's  Pumpkin & Bittersweet.

and this is the tier table... 

I tucked in those little Prairie Schooler Fall pieces to keep that Jim Shore turkey company.

On the lower tier I have  WTN&T Holiday Hoopla Thanksgiving turkey... and cute salt & pepper set of autumn bounty and Fall from Prairie Schooler. 

And I want to have the shelf unit out on the sunroom porch redone for next week... 

The weather has been a bit gray and we got some much needed rain but the temperatures are still pretty nice... in fact I think it is unseasonably warm and here's an example...

this is a dahlia that I cut back to the ground about 5 weeks ago... we haven't had hardly any rain till this week but plenty of  warm temperatures and look at the this plant...can you see the budding bloom at the top??  The plant is  about a foot tall and incredibly healthy looking  and if this was March I'd be thrilled... but it is mid November... and this isn't the only dahlia I have that looks this way... the yard is filled with them and they all look just as healthy as this one...  I'm not sure what to do... I usually have the beds mulched by late November, but so far we haven't had a frost, much less a freeze and all these plants need to be gone before things can be mulched. I did hear the S word (snow) mentioned for this coming week, but the forecast I just looked at has some precipitation for mid week but the lowest temp I saw was 34 degrees... that ain't going make any snow... my sweet gum trees are the last to turn and they only have a couple of red leaves... and the redbud tree in my front yard is simultaneously dropping leaves and budding... what's going on here...can you see the pink buds in the middle of the dead leaves?

And here's a pic of the wildlife around here... this trio of garden destroyers was resting in my next door neighbors yard when I went outside Wednesday morning around 10 am...

and they were still there at 3pm when I returned... probably annoyed that what I do have growing in my yard isn't their preferred snack material... they decimated all the mums I bought this year... they've never touched them before so I'm mad at them about that... 

Looking ahead to next week... so far there is dinner with friends on Monday night, Elliott on Tuesday, Nick has a dentist appointment Wednesday morning and I'm getting together with the quilty ladies for lunch on Wednesday at noon, and Thursday I have an appointment to get my hair done... again there does appear to be time to get some stuff done... but it doesn't always work out that way.  

I'm itching to do a bit of Santa stitching... I dyed some fabric and went through my stash of Prairie Schoolers and found a couple I'd like to add to my displays this year... and I painted some fabric for the Blackbird Designs Christmas Rose Sampler...

 you can find the chart here... and this is my linen... I got a little bit of the border in...

It is a rich gold. I mixed Rit dye Golden Yellow with a glug of Cocoa Brown...not sure that this will be a finish for this year, but that's okay... 

As for why I'm watching Elliott on Saturday, I've alluded to the fact that there were health issues that members of my daughter-in-law's family was dealing with... and one was her 95 year old grandmother... Mary Ann was a very sweet woman and she passed on Wednesday and her funeral was Saturday.  I accompanied my son and Elliott for him to make a brief appearance and then I whisked him away to spend the day with me so the rest of the family could attend the visitation, service, burial and a reception without dealing with a rambunctious 5 year old... better for everyone I think. We put together a dynamite Lego set...

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts and Quilting is More Fun than Housework today... and I'll wait to see what next week brings...

happy stitching,

carol fun 

Some adult supervision was probably needed on a Slow Sunday...

Hello - well there was very little on my calendar last week ...lots of time to be productive... but in the end what I have to show for myself was more shopping related than crafty... I stayed up waaaaay too late on Tuesday night and as a result wasn't very focused on Wednesday...surfing the web was mindless... and FUN!... and a little costly...LOL... and I 'llshow you what I found and you can understand why some adult supervision was probably needed... remember you can't help getting older but you don't have to grow up!!  

So let me confess my transgressions right up front... first I wandered over to eBay... haven't been there in a while and there is probably a very good reason for that... some how I get in trouble over there as I find older items I wish I had gotten when they were new and I've lucked into some bargains... to begin you know my love for Debbie Mumm.... both her fabrics and her knickknacks... and you know I LOVE snowmen... so Debbie Mumm snowmen are doubly irresistible as evidenced here...

The bigger guy is missing a broom... I'm sure I can find or  make one for him before January... and I've never seen the skiing snowmen salt and pepper shakers... too stinking cute!

And there was this purchase which is crafty related... I didn't work on my Sandy Gervais GIANT Disappearing  9 patch as I determined that I needed to add something besides the teal to the mix... now Sandy also did some lovely purple Fall fabrics, and I've used them in almost every quilt I've made with her stuff... but all I have left is some scraps... nothing large enough to cut a 5 x 10 piece from... so I searched all over Etsy and then checked out eBay and found 2 yards of this print...

Love the leaves, can't get more Fall than that and this is a more dusty subtle purple ... I think it will go well in the quilt... I hope to play with it tomorrow.  And in thinking about the GIANT Disappearing 9 Patch I found that I had made another quilt with it.... you can see it here... as I recall this was just 1 layer cake and  some yardage for the 5" square to make a lap size quilt. 

Oh I was asked about the construction of this pattern... for a double bed sized quilt I use 2 layers cakes and it takes about 3/4 yds of another fabric for the 5" corner.... So you start by selecting your favorite 10" squares that you don't want to cut up ... you need 36... then you cut another 36 10" fabrics into 5" x 10" rectangles and add a 5" square to complete the block... 

Does that make sense?  The first time I tried this I sewed 9 10" squares together... yikes... that "block" was bigger than my cutting table  and I quickly realized I had to cut stuff smaller before I sewed it together. 

And while I had lots of fun on eBay I also moseyed on over to Amazon where an item I've looked at several times kept popping up as it is a seasonal Thanksgiving piece... and since I switched credit cards a couple of months ago from Discover to Amazon Prime I've accumulated a nice stash of "free money".. and well ... it just jumped into my cart and was paid for with the "free money" and is now living at my house... 

Yep a rather large resin turkey... according to the description he's 10"D x 11.5"W x 12.5"H... very handsome... and it is very evident that no adult supervision was involved in this purchase... LOL... I'm very happy with Tom... I was going to put him on the dining room table but the scale was wrong so he's sitting a stack of quilts in the living room... you'll see a bigger picture farther down.

And that certainly should have been enough  online shopping... but it wasn't there was one more item that I've been thinking about for  a while... and I really tried to talk myself out of it... really I did... but I'm weak and there is no adult here to keep me off my laptop AND it was on sale... so I bought it..

A 96" tall chicken dressed up for Christmas!!!  Wait, how tall is 96"???... 96 divided by 12... OMG... she's 8 FEET TALL!! ROFLMAO.... this is gonna be crazy... I'm going to put here in the small section of grass by the garage and patio... the neighbors dogs are gonna freak out... and my older son may suggest a mental health evaluation... he has told me several times that I am crazy, but it isn't the kind of crazy he can commit me for......... yet........ he's waiting for the right time...LOL   OH if you'd like a GIANT chicken in your yard you can find her here at Tractor Supply... you know you want one.... 

As you can see it was definitely a retail oriented week... no sewing was done, a bit of knitting occurred, and a new cross stitch piece was started.  I began what will be my 6th house from Pinker N Punkin...

on the right, this is the Thanksgiving House.... you can find it here... and I think it pairs nicely with Turkey Creek Manor....which you can see here... 

Now I did get my Halloween decor put away and my Thanksgiving stuff out... here's the living room with the Grungy Gourds quilt on the wall... and look closely in the bottom right corner and you'll see Tom...

The quilt is my version of the Pumpkins pattern from Cluck Cluck Sew all done in Moda Grunge fabrics... I modified a couple of the pumpkins to put my spin on it... 

The tier tray has a great turkey piece from Stone Street Stitch Works and tiny turkey pillow from Bent Creek on the top tier....

and below in the bed of the truck is a Pineberry Lane piece... I think the chart is Fruits of our Labor... 

sorry I'm not linking all the cross stitch today... I'm typing this very late on Saturday and I'm tired and want to go to bed and I'm having a hell of a time adding pictures and trying to fix the spacing... please bear with me...

Over on the right side of the TV cabinet I have another small tier tray with more stitched turkeys... the one on top is from Prairie Schooler and as I remember the bottom one was a freebie I found on Pinterest...and I have some cute turkey knickknacks...

On the left side I have my November monthly from Hands on Designs and more Thanksgiving knickknacks... love animals that have clothes on ... LOL

I'll show more decor next week as I have plans for an updated display out on the porch... but first I need to FFO of these...

I'm planning on giving the little shelf unit on the porch a makeover from squirrels to turkeys and these will be included.  I definitely need to be productive this week. So far I'll I've got on my calendar is Elliott on Tuesday, dinner with a friend on Wednesday and a mammogram on Friday... don't know about you but I'm still adjusting to the time change... it isn't as bad as Spring forward but I'm still a bit off... staying up late on Tuesday didn't help the situation. I did see on X where Thomas Massie called for the bill to come to the floor and stop changing the clocks twice a year... that would be soooo good... and maybe he can make it happen... he is one of those characters who gets attention. 

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts today... and I'll leave you with my personal Macy's Day Parade display... further evidence that there should be more adult supervision in my life...LOL

the turkeys and the Pilgrim boy with the Costco sized pumpkin pie are 6 ft tall and they light up at night!  and yes my neighbors think I'm crazy!!!

hope your week ahead is a good one!!

happy stitching!

carol fun