Whatever Wednesday

I don't have a good reason why I haven't gotten my act together until so late this Wednesday, I just been feeling blaaaahhh... no energy. I'd like to blame it on the heat but I spent most of the day inside with the AC going full blast. I do have a couple of things I want to share though.

First this is where my BBD Mystery Sampler stands.


I'm working on the last 2 sections at the same time since I discovered that I made a counting error somewhere along the line and there is NO WAY I'm going back and frogging anything. I'm off 2 stitches on the top to the bottom borders. I'm soooo glad that this piece isn't symmetrical. I'm going to have to shorten a flower stalk here or there or leave out a little motif but I doubt anyone will notice it. I am very happy with this piece and can't wait to see it finished and framed. There is another BBD graph that should arrive tomorrow that I want to start,and getting one piece finished is the best motivation I know of.

And isn't this a great quilt?



Unfortuately, it isn't mine. My friend Laurey made this and it is a gift for her future DIL. The flowers are done in wool on a cotton background. She appliqued this with her Janome. Don't you love the button centers? This is such a happy quilt.


And then there is this cutie --



My niece, Angela, crocheted this adorable polka dot chicken potholder. I love it and I can assure you that I will never tempt fate by actually using it. I intend to hang it on the fridge so I can admire it. It makes me smile!

Hope your week has been more productive than mine. The most I have to show for the week is clean laundry and I doubt that any of you need to see that!

Happy stitching,
carol fun

Whatever Wednesday

First thing before I forget, and I will, I had several comments and emails asking where I got my bargains last weekend. The local store that is closing out its quilting inventory is Lambikins Hideaway in Hamilton, Ohio. The store carries a wonderful collection of yarns and was going to expand into quilting, but the owner has had life deal her a change of plans, so she is only going to concentrate on yarn. She has some wonderful fabrics and is offering great discounts, and there is a special deal everyday. Check her blog to see what is going on. Now she only has a little of the cross stitch supplies. At one point she thought she'd carry these lines but it didn't fully materialize. The WDW flosses are older colors but I don't care since I often change colors in my pieces and I go with what I like.

Well as per my normal modus operandi, my productive weekend has been followed by a couple of rather nothing days. I've only spent a little time behind my sewing machine,and I've gotten about 1/3 of my son's quilt done. I'd like to finish up the quilting on this real soon. When I'm finished I'll show a picture. It isn't my usual style, but it is my son's choice- all black and white and red with a bit of flame fabric. He likes it and that is all that matters, isn't it?

I did have some noticeable progress on my BBD Mystery Sampler.

I am soooooo glad to have that middle section finished. There was so much stitching in this section and this section is almost 20 stitches wider than the 2 sections that flank it. I think it is quite feasible for this sampler to be done by mid-August at the latest, which would please me no end, so I can start something new!

And I did get another pair of socks knitted!

This pair is for Stephie. We dyed the sock yarn last summer, but Stephie likes dyeing it more than she likes knitting it. They are plain stockinette but I think the yarn striped in a very cool fashion. I do better at finishing when I knit for someone else. In my own stash I have at least 7 or 8 single socks that are longingly waiting for a mate to appear, and they are probably going to be waiting a while longer. Like all my other projects, starting a new pair of socks is just so much more fun than knitting up a mate.

Hope you are having a great week. Thanks for all the nice comments and emails, I really appreciate you taking the time to leave them!

Happy stitching!
carol fun

Whatever Wednesday

Mid-week already? Time flys whether or not you're having fun, doesn't it? But I have had some fun. I've gotten all 362 different yellow squares cut for the Crazy Mom Quilts project. I can't wait to start sewing them together with the background fabric. I'm planning on rechecking to be sure that each one is a unique piece of fabric by sorting them into categories before I start sewing - dots, stripes, tone on tone, flowers, novelties. And I have to decide just which square will be right smack in the center. I'm leaning toward the little red polka dot chicken, but that
doesn't surprise you does it? LOL




And I finished my Between Charming Friends little quilt.I did a different border because I wasn't convinced I had enough fabrics to do the piano key border. I cut some squares wrong and I discarded some and I didn't feel like going back to get another charm pack. I like this border because it shows off the little squares and that golden dotty circle fabric. I'm thinking that an all over stipple in a pretty variegated thread would be a nice quilting design. I gotta finish this one before the week is over.



No new pic of the BBD Mystery Sampler since I have put very few stitches in it. There weren't any evening baseball games last week and that is my prime cross stitching time. However, I did want to share this picture I took the other day. Since I've started this blog chickens seem to be appearing in the strangest places. I saw this guy in front of an fruit market on SR73. Isn't he something? He'd look great in my garden, wouldn't he? A giant mutant chicken. Gotta cut back on the fertilizer.



Happy stitching,
carol fun

Whatever Wednesday

Hey it actually is Wednesday, boy this week is moving fast. I thought I was going to be home today but I got the dates mixed up and have to do a trip to Columbus today. At least the weather is nice and I should be home by dinner.



Here is my progress on the BBD Mystery Sampler 2008. This is a very dense section, lots and lots of stitching. I'm trying to get all the "stuff" finished inside the borders of the house and roof so I'll have some mindless stitching for the weekend. Once I finish this section I can consider myself over half way done. Section 1 and 2 should go pretty quickly, I hope!



I got all the 9 patch blocks finished for the Cherry Salsa quilt - now to get them assembled -another project for the long weekend. I'm anxious to finish this top since I still have to finish the Charming Chatter QAL and I have several new things I want to start.

Why is starting a new project so exciting?? Now I can resist anything but temptation(very very true - LOL) and I have been sorely tempted in the last couple of days. First there is this new cross stitch project - The Magic Garden Sampler by Shakespeare's Peddler.


I picked up the graph on Friday, and hand dyed some evenweave a tannish yellow on Saturday, and bought the flosses yesterday. I still didn't remember to find rubber gloves so my hands have a nice jaundiced look -oh well. I have no business starting a new cross stitch project since I'm making good progress on the BBD piece and I do want it finished, but this one is calling.

And then there are not one but two new quilts I want to start. First Darlene of Quilting Daze showed this beauty.
I have this Whistlepig pattern and I have a group of fat quarters that would be very pretty for this. They are well aged fat quarters, at least 2 years old. Ripe for the sewing!

And then there is this QAL with Crazy Mama Sews. Simple and classy and it would work perfectly with an idea I have for a charm quilt. Now the way she's doing it makes this easy - strip piecing- and the way I'd need to do it - pieceing each and every square to another would take longer but I know I'd LOVE the result. I always subscribe to the philosphy that if 20 different fabrics are good then 200 are 10 times better. My plan for this pattern would have me cutting a TON of squares - one from each fabric. It isn't the cutting that takes so long it is the folding and then the refolding and putting it back on the shelf and you know how fabrics get puffier when you remove them from their extremely tight quarters. They never fit back into the space without lots of coaxing and shoving. However,this is my absolute favorite kind of project, big and messy! Crazy Mama is doing a nice sized twin quilt and I want to make an extremely generous queen size (remember I told you I'm genetically incapable of making a little bed size quilt.) I'm still playing with the math for the size and number of pieces but I want it to come out at least 90" square.

I figure I'll succumb to starting all of these in the near future, unless I'm distracted by another temptation which is entirely possible. The ADHD is strong - oh look there's a chicken - gotta go!

Happy stitching,

carol fun

Whatever Wednesday

Well I was quite productive yesterday. I wanted to make a new tote bag to take to the NQA show in Columbus and I ended up making 3 !!! I was on a roll and I had all the pieces I needed and I just kept sewing. All of these bags use the plastic screen mesh. I have found it in several colors on the web to go along with the standard black that you can find at Home Depot --

Bag #1 - Black and white and red -- always a great combo!



Bag #2- Some Wonderland twill by Momo and off white screening - kinda funky!





Bag #3 - Purpley blue batik with navy bluish screening and leather handles - I picked up these handles at a shop in Louisville and I love the look but they were a pain to sew on -- all hand sewing and it took me forever - hope they hold up to the load.



As for cross stitching, here's where I am on the BBD Mystery sampler -- I want to take a snap of this each week to chart my progress. The last week was definitely more quilty sewing and less cross stitching but I got to work on several projects so that was good.



So, I'm off today for Columbus - I need to take care of some family issues today and tomorrow morning and then I'm going to the quilt show and the knitting show at the convention center. I'm sure I'll get into trouble at both events and I'm hoping to stop at the cross stitch store, Cross My Heart and hit Dick Blick's for some Copic markers. Sooo many hobbies, soooo little time!! ( and money - LOL)

Note - since I changed the template I found that I couldn't double click on the pictures to make them bigger, instead you have to right click and open another window. Hope this helps.

Happy stitching,
carol fun

Whatever Wednesday

This is the large pond up the street from my house. You can see that it has a lot of Canada geese -or poop machines as we call them. And then there are these guys - two white domestic geese and a male mallard duck.



The geese were dropped off at this pond two years ago. I have no idea why someone would abandon these guys since they can't fly and can't fend for themselves. My kind hearted older son has taken it on himself to keep them fed. Through the last two winters, cold snowy winters, he has gone up to the pond almost every single day and brought them something to eat. Now that the weather is nicer and people are taking evening walks in the neighborhood they get fed a bit more since people let their kids feed them. When the geese see my son walking up they come running to him, squawking all the way. We've gotten quite fond of these guys. I consider them our birds since the homeowner's association won't let me keep chickens (they're no fun at all). Well this spring the little male mallard duck showed up. He doesn't have a mate and has attached himself to these geese. They are the 3 amigoes. a tight trio and this little guy has a definite Napoleon complex. He totally bosses them around and runs off any other fowl that might get close. He's funny as he charges with his head down, full speed toward any interloper. I wonder if he'll migrate and fly away this fall. He doesn't seem to be in any hurry to leave at the moment and my son will continue to see that they stay fed.

The weather here has been lovely, temperatures in the 80's - perfect weather to finish up another pair of socks. These beauties are my favorite "vanilla" sock- just stockinette, mindless knitting. The yarn is from Blue Moon Fibers. It is a lovely yarn and it knits up like butter. This colorway is called Lemongrass. I have 3 more skeins of this Blue Moon yarn waiting to be knit up. I think my next pair will be out of the Cattywampus colorway. I've already knit up a skein of the Spawn of Brawn and Fire on the Mountain. Dontcha love the names? Every time I go to their web site I find more colors I want.



And on the cross stitching front, I took another sampler to the framers tonight. I can't wait to show it to you when I get it back. This is the Blackbird Designs Mystery Sampler 2008. It will be a big one about 24" wide by 12" high. Now I started in what I thougth was the middle with that outer border. I stitched to the left and then to the right corners. It fits nicely and I have lots of extra fabric on those edges, but I totally miscounted from top to bottom - it is about 2" higher than I wanted but I had waaaayyy too much stitched to frog it when I figured it out. I'm sure the framer will say bad words when he works on it, but there is enough to work with. I'm liking this a lot. The basket is a turquoise color - very pretty. I've been working on this for about a week and I'm making good progress. I hope I can keep it up and not lose interest. I saw a frame tonight that would look great on this piece, so that should provide some motivation.



Hope your week is going well - happy stitching!

carol fun