Just believe.....

that there is no such thing as too much snowman "decor".....I know I'm a believer! (another gratuitous vintage song reference) Anyway I have unpacked my snowman and placed them here and there throughout my house.



First, is this little arrangement. I love the giant platter, but I'm not sure exactly what I'm suppose to believe.... that spring will come again?, that being cooped up inside will make you crazy?, that around 100 snowmen is about the right amount one person should possess? I shall have to ponder this further. Meanwhile...



I also love these Jim Shore snow people and here are the special snowman that combine sewing and snow -- ohhhh... how perfect is that? Next, lets move to the mantle...



ummm... its a snowman flash mob! Or the undeniable proof that I am slightly (but only slightly) crazy about snowmen. My oldest son tells me that all these guys give him the creeps because they are staring at him with their little beady black eyes. I've told him that crazy doesn't fall far from the crazy tree and he has half of my DNA so he should keep these comments to himself (it doesn't happen - oh well). Let look closely at some of my favorites, shall we.....




I call his guy a pot head - get it? He's wearing a pot (actually measuring cups) on his head. And how about the disembodied giant snowman head? I have several of these. Is that strange? (no need to answer, I already know).




And this guy is another favorite- love the polka dot scarf and the slightly 50's retro look - reminds me of my childhood - and yes it was in the 50's.



And you can see there are lots and lots of little snow guys - mostly from Hallmark. There were a bunch called the Mitford snowmen (remember that book series by Jan Karon? I need to go back and reread them - I loved them). I have all of them. And do you see a chicken? I see a chicken -- he's stuffed into the snowman head mug - poor guy - he's definitely wandered into a strange crowd.

Well that will do it for my delusional rambling for today. I haven't had a chance to sew this week like I thought I would, but there is always hope for the 3 day weekend. I did get some more stitching done on my BBD AotH and I started another little shawlette - I am such a good starter, its the finishing part that eludes me.

Happy stitching-
carol fun

Snowman mania.....

ok, remember how I said I had a thing for gingerbread men? Well, I'm fickle. I also have a thing for snowmen too - hey love the one you're with (if you got that reference you are definitely as old as me - LOL!) Anyway today I started getting out my snowman decor. I like the word "decor" - it sounds classier than collection of crap that lives in the storage room. First I got out this quilt...



its called Three Wise Snow Guys and was a Debbie Mumm pattern from a long time ago. It was a little wall quilt and I enlarged it - A LOT- like 5 times the original size. Right now it is hanging in the hallway in the kitchen where the gingerbread guy quilt was. I liked the 3 dimensional accents like the red bird and the scarves and the noses.




Over the years the noses have gotten more and more realistic and now they resemble carrots that are in my vegetable bin - kinda withered and wrinkled! And I found my snowman table runner I made last year.



I had this cute snowman fabric in non-traditonal colors and sewed it up using the Disappearing 9 Patch pattern. It was quick and easy and I quilted it with my favorite big wavy line pattern.



You just start at one side and lazily swing back and forth. Then turn the piece 90 degrees and do it again. You get a big wavy grid that kinda resembles a fishing net - no marking needed. This is going on the table in the foyer - I'll show more "decor" tomorrow.

Now hopefully this admission will make someone else out there feel better - I still have Christmas stuff up! Yep, I didn't start putting the Christmas "decor" away till this afternoon and I still have the tree to dismantle. What can I say, I'm a slug and my oldest son always makes me feel guilty for putting the Christmas stuff away. He loves Christmas and tries to get me to promise to leave it up till his birthday which is the middle of January. When I try to convince him that the holidays are over he then starts referring to the Christmas tree as a MLK tree - Martin Luther King - and insists it has to stay up till that holiday. I figure that this week is close enough and I'm ready to see it put away.

Hope your week is going well. We had some snow today, but it wasn't the white death they predicted - a couple of inches and it got cleaned up pretty well today.

Happy stitching-
carol fun

A Sampler for Sunday.....

Okay, I'm trying to get back into some semblance of a routine. My youngest son is back in class and my husband is back to work (someone has waaaaaayyyy too much vacation time, if you know what I mean, and you do). I like having the house to myself for a bit of time each day. So nice and peaceful. Well my productivity of the beginning of the week has tapered off. There was no way I could keep up that breakneck pace - LOL! It a good thing that I still have lots of samplers that are already stitched so I have blog material. Here is my sampler for Sunday.....



I know this is a Ewe & Eye piece but I don't have a clue what the name of it is. It is a small sampler, the actual stitching is only 4" square. I love the incongruity of the GIANT woman next to the house. She's one BIG gal - I can identify with that!



Here is a close up - hmmmm... I wonder why I didn't make her hair more red (my ahem "natural" color - not!) And I love those spiderweb roses - they use a ton of thread but I love the dimension they add to a piece.

I spend some quality time this weekend stitching on my BBD AotH. And I spent some time thumbing through my cross stitch stash. There are certainly lots of cool graphs to chose from right in my own "personal" cross stitch store. I'm still very fond of the BBD pieces and there are 4 older ones from the "Remember Me" series that I visualize hanging together - When this you see, My Missouri Home, I Thee Wed, Mildred's Garden House. I think I need to kit up one of these and keep it close by when the mood hits me.

I also took some time and looked at another basket that is filled with giant ziploc bags each containing a UFO. I know I've told you how much I love Stack-N-White, well I found not one, not two, not three, not four but FIVE S-N-W UFOs. OMG - I should hang my head in shame but I'm not guilted that easily. One of the bags talked pretty loudly to me. (Oh come on, you know the fabric can talk. I swear some fabrics would be telemarketers if they could.) Again, it appears that all the blocks are made, they are hexagons. It just needs to be assembled. I think I want to play with this one later in the week. Somehow it doesn't seem wrong to cheat on the current project (Crazy Mom QAL) which was a UFO with another UFO. Yeah, I have serious logic issues here but I'm not even gonna try to figure it out. Onward and stitchward - more projects = more fun. And I'm all about the fun - LOL!

Happy stitching -
carol fun

Memory issues.....

So I unearthed the giant ziploc bag that held my Crazy Mom QAL project hostage and liberated the pieces. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I had already sewn each and every yellow square to a white background square. This is gonna save time, and it is discoveries like these that make me happy I forget - LOL!



So here it is on my design wall. The top and bottom of the 4th round have been sewn together and stitched to the center. The side rows need to be sewn. I find as this gets bigger and bigger I stress less and less about what is next to what which speeds up the process immensely. Each yellow square is a different yellow fabric. Yes I have A LOT of yellows. It is my favorite color and I've been collecting for over 25 years.

These are a couple of my favorites from this round.



Another chicken - you can't have too many.



And this guy - isn't he cute in a 50's retro way? I have a scribbled diagram sheet that I made when I started this and I have all kinds of notes scrawled every where. I think I am going to use 362 different yellows each cut 3 1/4". Yeah, I know that is an odd measurement but I wanted it to be a generous queen size and if I can make out my handwriting this should finish about 93 inches square. Oh remember when I said I was going to quilt this myself - insert slapping me up side the head- that ain't gonna happen. It is already a pain to wrestle under the presser foot and it doesn't include batting or backing. This baby is going off to the long arm quilter for her to work her magic.



Last night I pulled out my BBD Anniversaries of the Heart to stitch on. Now I thought I was further along (darn there is that memory thing again) but I do like what I have done. I started another section and I like the color of that urn on the left. I think I'll park myself in front of the tv tonight and watch the local college basketball rivalry - University of Cincinnati versus Xavier University. It is called the Crosstown Shootout since both of these colleges are really only about 10 minutes distance from each other. UC is the public one, Xavier is a private Jesuit college. My oldest son has tickets to go the game. He's rooting for UC since he got his law degree there. My team is gonna win no matter how it turns out since I have an undergrad degree from UC and a MBA from Xavier. It should be fun to watch.

Happy stitching-
carol fun

My first quilting finish for 2011.....

Last night was the quilt guild meeting and that deadline is my motivation to get a quilt top done so I can take it to my long arm quilter. I sewed the borders on my Kitchen Sink quilt on Sunday afternoon.




This is all Debbie Mumm fabric. There are LOTS of different fabrics here, probably over 150. Some more recent and others that are truly oldies but goodies. Of course, my version of this quilt got waaaaaay bigger than the one in Scrapbasket Surprises. There are 121 individual little paddlewheel blocks and it measures about 87" square.


For the inner border I used this wood grain piece and that outer border is little buttons. Not polka dots but close, real close. I was so pleased with myself for making this quilt out of fabric I already own -- free fabric, right??? I was going to go and buy a seamless big back for this quilt but I looked at my stash - my very large stash - and knew I could make a back out of something on those shelves. I grabbed 2 prints that I had about 3 to 3 1/2 yards of and sewed it up in no time. So the back was free too -- oh aren't I the thrifty one? (don't hurt yourself laughing at this statement - I am delusional and I like it that way - LOL).

So in the first week of 2011 I have finished a cross stitch project, a knitting project and a quilt project - I'm on fire! I don't know how long I can keep this up but I'm gonna try. Tomorrow I should have some time to work on my yellow Crazy Mom QAL top. I think I'd like to do the machine quilting on this myself since I envision just a diagonal grid done in a nice variegated yellow Sulky thread. Simple. I can do simple.

Hope you are having a nice productive week too!
Happy stitching-
carol fun

A sampler for Sunday and other finishes to start the year...

Well, yesterday I talked about my quilting goals and it was pointed out that I left out time spent on cooking, cleaning,chauffeuring, errand running, personal hygiene, stuff like that. Ummm, yeah, I will work diligently to do as little of those tasks as possible, except personal hygiene, I think my friends would preferred me to be clean and fresh and have my roots touched up every month - I know I would - LOL! Anyway I have been pretty productive so far this year. What is that about 44 hours? Hey, I'm on a roll. Anyway here is my first cross stitch finish of the year, the Beatrix Potter Quaker Sampler.



This is on 32 count Roasted Crown, a lovely golden color and I used DMC threads. It finished about 17" X 19". Here is a close up of the personalized motifs - my initials and my sons initials.



And I didn't notice this until last night when I was stitching it. There is a bee! I love bee motifs.



I started this last year sometime between Christmas and New Years so it has been a year long project which is the time frame I had set for myself so this is a big success. So for 2011 cross stitching wise I want to finish my Blackbird Designs Anniversaries in Time. This is my current progress.



Pattern #10 is due out this month and they still have to release the last 2 sections and the bonus section, so I have time on this. I perused my lovely stash of cross stitch patterns and saw several that are calling my name. Some are even kitted up and ready to go. There will definitely be more BBD in the next year - I'm thinking Willow House, Flea Market Souvenir (I'm only using one background fabric) and Summer Garden.

Knitting will bring more socks and more shawlettes. I love the portability and short finish time of these kinds of projects and I have ample sock yarn to select from -not that more purchases won't be made - like this week -LOL! And I have a finish in the knitting area to start the year. Here is my Shaelyn shawlette.



I used a Araucania Multi colorway #309. I love all the shades of golden yellow, peach and a bit of dusty lavender. I will be making this one again. I think I'll use a more semi-solid and I'll go up a size or two for the needles. Oh, aren't you glad there is no pic of my flabby white arms? I remembered I have a dressmaker dummy and its perfect for shots like this.

So armed with the glassy eyed enthusiasm of a fresh start I shall march forward and try to do as many fun projects as I can -- the heck with cleaning and cooking - no one on their death bed said they wished they'd spent more time in the office or cleaned more toilets.

Happy stitching everyone!
carol fun

Some quilty New Years thoughts.....

Happy New Year everyone! I'm so glad that I could spend the evening at home quietly with my stitching and my knitting. I am certainly no party animal but I am happy just the way I am (thank you Mr. Rogers.)

Well there has been lots of buzz on the blogs about plans for the new year. Now I don't do resolutions because I know I will not keep them, but I do like to think about what I'd like to hopefully, maybe, somehow, sort of, accomplish in the next 12 months. Nothing dramatic like losing 50 lbs or abstaining from buying fabric or yarn - God forbid! But I did come up with a list of projects I would like to play with.

In the quilting realm, I have a TON of Moda precuts that have been maturing and I believe have reached the proper aging to be sewn up. These quilts are on my list of ones I want to get to -

1. A larger size Paganini Schnibble done in Tweet Tweet by Keiki for Moda. I got the last of charms squares I need for this quilt today.

2. A larger size Bennington Schnibble done in Hoopla by Moda. Picked up 2 layer cakes to do this one, need to find the cute multi-color polka dot background fabric I've been saving for this one.

3. A larger size McGuffey Schnibble done in Wee Woodland by Keiki for Moda. Got all the fabric I need for this - I think.

Are we noticing a trend here? Oh you are sooo perceptive! LOL! Love Schnibbles big and small and Moda. Did you know you can go to Moda's site and see what is coming out in the next couple of months? Check here.

4. Finish up the Crazy Mom Quilts QAL I started this summer. This fits the bill for the monochromatic quilt challenge for January over at the Patchwork Times. Major butt kicking motivation, so this will move up the list and I'll post a WIP next week.

5. The scrappy butterfly quilt that all the cool ladies were doing last summer - here's a sample. I'm thinking all polka dot butterflies and a black Kona background. I found some wonderful black and white fabric for the bodies that has quilty words on it -- perfect!

6. In July, I want to start working on a Fall quilt. I have some Sandy Gervais "Fall Back in Time" and other fall-ish lines. If I start in July I hope to have it ready by October.

7., 8., and 9. In October, I want to return to the scene of the crime and work on my yellow Christmas quilt. Also in looking over my UFO's I found a lap size Christmas quilt of Sandy Gervais fabric and the blocks for a State Fair Schnibble done in Mary Engelbreit "Holly Jolly" collection. Wouldn't those be great additions to the 2011 Christmas holidays?

Wow - if I accomplish all of that I will be soooooo happy. But that doesn't include any knitting or cross stitch or crafty projects and I know that there will be some of them too. I'll talk about them tomorrow. I'm hoping to have a cross stitch finish to show. I was soooo close last night but I fell asleep with the needle in my hand.


Happy stitching -
carol fun