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