Hello - well I think the last week was less busy than the week before... but in looking at my calendar I was out and about somewhere every single day... sheesh... lots of things that needed to be taken care of but most weren't my errands but stuff that others needed done... and they are now done...
It has been hotter than blazes here... got to 96 yesterday and I heard that was the hottest day we've had this year!! Hello, Mother Nature... it is September, not July... we are supposed to have cool temps, falling leaves, pumpkin goodies... sheesh... the only thing I got were pumpkin stuff... had some pumpkin spice donuts and a sundae with a slice of pumpkin roll ... hope to get a piece of my favorite pumpkin pie this weekend at a local restaurant...and I'm working on my Fall decor. As I write this it is strewn about the living room... some spaces are done, others are a work in progress ... I want it finished before sundown on Sunday... and that should be doable... fingers crossed.
As for crafty stuff well there is a fair amount of it this week... let me start with the cross stitch... I really LOVE this piece... Be Thankful by Bent Creek... here's where I was last week..
and here's where I am this week...
and this pic is a pretty good capture of the colors. Now I dithered last week about whether I'm going to have enough of the Weeks Hazelnut to complete this piece. At the halfway point (about the letter "e" in be) I stopped and measured how much floss I had left ... and by my measurements I had just about half of the skein left. I had a skein in my stash but it wasn't a match for the color. So to be on the safe side I ordered more floss from 123Stitch which arrived yesterday and it is a great match... so I don't have to worry... now to get it stitched and off to the framer.
I hunkered down in my basement lair AKA my sewing studio a day or two to escape the heat and while there are several Christmas quilts that are started and I should give attention to, instead I started a new one... cause starting stuff is always FUN!!! I'm using that Weathered Whimsey pattern from Moonkin Stitchery. The directions are easy to follow. I went and measured every FQ to be sure they would be 18" and they were all a generous 18" ... some even close to 18.5"... however these are Ruby Star fabrics and they have deep printed selvedge... about an inch wide... so while the FQ is cut 22" wide you only have 21" of usable fabric... luckily for this pattern that is enough.
So I went and cut up all the FQ... here are the strips to make the pieced blocks...
now I eliminated a couple of pieces... you know I LOVE yellow but I didn't think there was enough of it... I would have ended up with just 2 pieces... I like to repeat a fabric/color 3 times...that's more balanced IMHO... that pink piece and the one with the yellow one with the packages is just waaaaay too neon for me and had to go...
So here's how it started...
Then I moved on to the layout of the pattern ... full blocks next to pieced blocks... and it didn't take long for me to realize this was gonna be WAY TOO BUSY!!!
I had a flashback to a Momo quilt project I did a couple of years ago... you can see it here... in that situation one quilt became two quilts in order to tone things down... now I considered making two quilts... but I really don't want two quilts from this collection... like I mentioned before my plan is to give this to Chris/Jenny/Elliott... I think it will be more their vibe... so now my plan is to make the quilt larger and do some sort of mix up between the plain blocks and the pieced blocks...
and to use this fabric from the collection as an alternate block for some quiet space... cause this quilt really needs a bit of calm... IMHO...
I'm waiting for more of the background fabric to arrive...so it will be try, try again for this quilt...perhaps I can sew up some more of the pieced blocks this coming week.. and it's gonna be hot for a while still so back to the basement for me!
As for the knitting project... the Opal blanket with knitted mitered squares... I sat down and watched this video and got started... this is my first square... I cast on 60 stitches with 2.75mm needles... at least I thought it was on 2.75mm needles... I may be mistaken...
and it is pretty, but took more yarn than I wanted to use... 6 grams of yarn to be exact... I want the square to be 5 grams so I can get 2 squares out of the little 10 gram mini skeins... so I started a second square...this time I cast on 50 stitches and I know the needles are 2.75mm...
ummm...not only is it considerably smaller... it only used 3 grams of yarn... so I need to try, try again... OR I may scuttle the idea of getting 2 squares from each mini skein, as I don't want the squares as small as the yellow sample... according to my calculations I need about 220 squares to make a nice size blanket if they are about 4" square... which is the size of the green sample... can you tell I'm already talking myself into the one square per mini skein idea? Try, try again.
So that is a nice mix of crafty stuff and I enjoyed all of them even though each one involved a bit of a try, try again.. and should we even talk about the decorating? Yes, yes we should... cause I thought I could get the chickens back in their plastic bins in about an hour... it took all day Wednesday...I'd work a little and then take a break and that would lead to mindless scrolling on my phone until I realized that I needed to get back to the task at hand and I'd put more chickens away but then I'd sit back down and the mindless scrolling would resume... try, try again.
On Thursday Nick returned the plastic bins of chickens to the basement storage room and brought up 5 bins of Fall stuff... I do love Fall most of all!! And these 5 bins don't include the one for Halloween or the one for Thanksgiving... sheesh...
Well here's a couple of pics of some of the smaller displays I put out.... I'm trying to take a pic of everything this year, because when I revisit stuff next year I hope that I won't have to scroll through several different years of posts on this blog to figure out what I did before. Sometimes I just put stuff in the place it was the previous year... other times I try to mix it up ... and this year is a combo of that... some stuff is where it was last year...a couple of things have been moved around... the problem is I have limited space and the Fall decor always seems to expand from year to year... think I need another purge the end of this season... we shall see how that works out...
Here's the display area in the TV cabinet... a side tangent... this cabinet is from IKEA... here how it looked at Christmas..
I looked online and I don't think they make this exact style anymore... I liked it for the glass door spaces to display quilts (they are hidden behind the stockings) and the shelf area for seasonal knickknacks. Well, for a long time I wished I had gotten a console that had an electric fireplace in it... and I saw this one at Costco the other day... I almost bought it but had a thought that I should go home and measure how much space I have... good thing I did as the Costco one is about 20" too big... so I've been looking online... I know I'll have to give up either some quilt space or some decorating space... Nick loves the idea of a fireplace too so I need to figure this out... could be a Christmas gift for us...
Back to the display...
I love those mercury glass pumpkins.. and they both light up... so pretty at night... the cross stitch pieces are both from Blackbird Designs... the one on top is Bittersweet September and the one on the bottom is Bittersweet Lane ... from looking back on the blog I stitched these 10 years ago... where does the time go??
Now for another tangent... these were both framed with the idea they would hang on a wall... which they never have... I've always displayed them propped up, using little wire stands like this one...
and I have a ton of these in various sizes... got them at Hobby Lobby. Well earlier this year carolinacajuncreates on IG showed how you could add a stand to the back of pieces like this... she got them here on Amazon and I bought them too... 2 pieces... that plastic part that has adhesive on the back and the metal stand part...
I've been adding these to my "stand-less" pieces each season when I get them out of storage... I love the look and I don't have to constantly juggle the wire stands. If you check out Amazon they have other sizes and configurations. I just ordered some larger ones which you can see here.
Here's the little telephone niche in the hallway... I'm going with a bit of a scarecrow theme here...
the salt and pepper shaker scarecrows are a new purchase from Cracker Barrel. The cross stitch is from Prairie Schooler No. 50 Seasons ... I've stitched all four of the seasons... I'm thinking I'd like to add a bit more cross stitch to this display... I remembered the scarecrows from this Teresa Kogut chart.... it has always been my plan to stitch parts of this as separate little pieces and I LOVE the scarecrows... they would look so cute in this display...sorry another tangent...
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I'll show more decorating pics next week...
