A FINISH and some decor and some blathering on a Slow Sunday...

 Hello - so how was your week?  Mine got busier than I anticipated with an out of the blue lunch meet up with some woman I knew 35 years ago... we were all in a babysitting Co op group back then ... stay at home moms ... a bit on the older side... who'd left full time jobs to raise our kids... it was nice to catch up ... and I spent Tuesday with Elliott... he gave me an education on Minecraft... Grandma is getting hip...LOL.. and the guy came to clean the blinds and WOW they are so much brighter ...it has been about 8 years since I had them cleaned and he recommended having them done every 4-5 years... I'll try to remember that. 

The weather has taken a nice turn ...but it took getting through another week of upper 90's... my electric bill and my water bill hit my email on the same day... YIKES... I do hope that is the high point of this season. Forecast is for the week starting in the low 80's and working its way up... I was able to turn off the AC and open the windows yesterday... nice to air out the house. 

As for productivity... well instead of dividing my attention between a quilting project and a cross stitch project I decided to go all in on the cross stitch and I FINISHED the Noel Sampler!!!

Here's how it looked when I picked it back up mid July this year... 

And here is it FINISHED!! 

I did this on 32 count and it measures about 14" square. I love how the colors pop on the green linen. I dyed this with Apple Green Rit dye. (The color is the truest in the pic above and the pic of the two pieces below the bird.)   I made a couple of small personal changes to the piece. I eliminated the dogs ... one was replaced by a tree and the other by a star ... and instead of a date about the house I added more snowflakes.  I do think that portions of this sampler would make great little pillows... like this section for example...

This is the 2nd piece of what I plan for a trio of Christmas charts ... and this is how I plan to hang them..

That piece at the top is Prairie Schooler Christmas Alphabet.. and right now I'm thinking of doing Blackbird Designs The Bells on Christmas Day(you can see the chart in the bottom right hand corner of the cover)  for the 3rd piece of the trio and it would hang above these  2... a showcase of my favorite designers! I'm also thinking of doing the BBD piece in the DMC conversion since I used DMC on both of the other pieces... need to get a piece of linen dyed for it. 

Now I plan to turn my attention to 2 other pieces that are almost complete... and then I might do something Halloweeny ... I also have a couple of bigger sampler projects I haven't started ...but I really want to... I was watching Carol Saltbox Stitcher on Youtube and she was showing a bunch of projects she wanted to start even though she has tons of already started projects, and her attitude is I'm going to stitch what I want to stitch when I want to stitch it... I LOVE that attitude!! So I will continue to jump around like a BB in a box car (one of my Dad's favorite sayings about me) and stitch what I want to stitch, when I want to stitch it. Stay tuned there may be a tiny bit of a new start on something next week that you haven't seen before.

I was able to get out my garden/chicken decor... but I'm still tweaking some of the displays... I started out on the sunroom porch since I spend a lot of time out there and this is what I have...

Up top I have one of the pieces from Prairie Schooler No. 45 Garden Samplers   and that new to me Debbie Mumm cookie jar... ain't it cute?

In the middle I have some chicken knickknacks and the Magic Garden sampler from Shakespeare's Peddler... I started the one over 10 years ago and it took almost 5 years to get around to finishing it... I didn't understand why the chart had the lilies on the left side charted in black (I changed them to daylily orange) but the designer, Teresa Venette, said she had the idea for the piece from a Tim Burton film... so that makes some sense... but I'm happy I made them realistic.

On the bottom shelf I have a plate I found at Homegoods years ago and a little piece that seems to find its way into so many of my displays... this cute little bird pulling a wagon with button wheels is by Homespun Elegance and is called Delivering Posies...  

and I recently came across this chart  which hopped into my cart... Delivery Plenty... 

a turkey with a cart of Fall goodies... this would be so cute in my  November display!! 

Along with changing the decor in the living room  and sunroom porch, I changed out the quilt on my bed... 

This is a boho mish mash of some Tim Holtz fabrics and some vintage Moda from the Basic Grey Curio collection... I love the mix of all those patterns in the quilt and on the floor!

 And I have a chair that sits in the corner of the room and I like to put a coordinating quilt on it... I posted this a couple of weeks ago when I was talking about possible Christmas quilt patterns... at that time I couldn't find a pic of the quilt finished and last week for several days I couldn't find this quilt anywhere in my house... argh... I spent a chunk of time looking at the plastic bins in my attic area ...and boy was it hot up there... and then I gave up... and I came back downstairs and sat in my comfy stitching chair... and glanced across the room... and there in the TV display cabinet was this quilt... argh argh argh... I forgot I had stuck it in there instead of putting it in the bin with the coordinating bed quilt... anyway here it is ...

You can get the pattern as a freebie from MSQC... just watch this video...

And on the bed is a favorite pillow of mine... got it at Target a long time ago... it is yellow... my favorite color and it says HAPPY!!

and it makes me HAPPY!

So plans for next week... working out with Anna M/W... I've been seeing her for a couple of months and I can tell I am getting stronger... I continue to walk 3 miles or more a day and I'm  training with weights at Anna's. I kinda want to do it 3 times a week but it does break up the day ...have to talk to her about how to get her schedule (which is kinda full, she has a lot of clients) and my schedule to sync up more... I have Elliott on Tuesday... school starts in about 2 weeks for him... August 18 as I recall... gonna get my hair cut and colored on Thursday...and on Friday my SIL and her daughter are coming into town from San Diego...going to see them for dinner.  I'm sure other stuff will come up too... such is life... and it is a pretty good one dontcha know...LOL

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts today... read some blogs, watch some Flosstube videos and sit on the sunroom porch and stitch... Nick is fixing dinner again this Sunday ... it is becoming a very nice routine ...pot roast in the crockpot tonight... with a noodle side dish and watermelon... very tasty.  Hope you have a good week ... I'm working on getting my head wrapped around the fact that the year is half gone... I looked back through my posts to see what I've gotten done so far and I've definitely made some good progress on cross stitch stuff, but my quilting is lagging... sitting out here on the sunroom porch is my FAVORITE activity and it lends itself so well to cross stitching... the recliner is comfy and the sunlight coming through the windows on 3 sides of me is fantastic... so I'm going to do more of it!

happy stitching-

carol fun