Thoughts on Thursday

Source: avintageposter.com via Carol on Pinterest

Oh yeah I totally agree - and this is only the mess sitting to the right of my computer, you don't want to see the rest of the room - LOL!

Years ago I worked with a guy who's office looked like an episode of Hoarders and he had a little sign on his desk that said "Chaos is a sign of genius". He was a genius - I'm not. But I'd like to think that my clutter contributes to my creativity. I do know that making stuff makes me happy!

Happy stitching-

carol fun

Work in Progress for Wednesday

I have been pedal to the metal to get this sampler finished by this Saturday. Why you ask? Because Michael's had a coupon for 60% off plus and additional 15% off framing, that's why. That is a great deal and I can use it at Joanns, since they take competitors coupons,and my favorite framer Bev will do a great job on it.

It is a French chart from Tournicoton called Historie de Lettres. It has been a pretty quick stitch. I started this on April 6. I love how the Gentle Hearts hand-dyed floss looks - bright splotches and darker ones and all the little motifs a nice touch. Now stitching all those little motifs is a bit trying since I'm either rethreading with a new color every 2 minutes or jumping from one place to another and trying to be sure I didn't leave any stitches out. There is a section of stitching over one that I've been putting off for days, but I think I'm going to have to tackle it tonight. And then there will be thinking to do (and I try to avoid thinking where my cross stitch is concerned) since I want to make the little cat (done over one too arghh!!) look more like Big Dude - with gray and white splotches.

So I've parked myself out on the screen porch, as it is a lovely day, and I'll stitch till dinner time. I refilled the bird feeder so Big Dude will have bird TV to watch. Right now all I can hear is a woodpecker and some song birds. It is unusual not to hear lawn mowers or leaf blowers, so I need to soak up this peace and quiet. Oh crap, somebody just started up a lawn mower!

Happy stitching-
carol fun

Tidbits for Tuesday (and yes I do love alliteration!)

I had a great weekend of shopping at the International Quilt Festival in Cincinnati, Ohio. It is coming back again next year and if you have a chance to go, take it. There were tons of vendors and great quilts in a wonderful venue. Now I know some people got a bit turned around downtown but I believe my fair city is pretty easy to navigate. However, it might be because I've been shopping in downtown Cincinnati since I was 12. Yes it was another era - the dinosaurs still roamed the plains - but it was safe for a group of young girls to take the bus from the Kentucky side of the river to shop at the numerous downtown department stores. Good memories! Anyway do you wanna see some of the stuff I bought? You can click the pictures and biggify them.

I got a rainbow of fat quarters lots of them dotty!

And I know this was a quilt show but I got a lot of cross stitch-y goodness. I've never heard of this designer before- Rovaris - its Italian, like me! Those are little silver charms that you can attach to the piece, but I'm thinking about using them on a bracelet.

Barnwood Buttons by Rosewood Manor. I've been lusting after this one for a while and when I saw the buttons in person I had to have it. I'm planning on using a pale blue linen so it looks more like sky and I may replace the saying with an alphabet.

And what can be said about Quaker Diamonds that hasn't already been said. It is gorgeous! I've never used Valdani floss before but I can't wait to thread up my needle.

After the quilt show I drove back up to Fabric Shack in Waynesville as they were having a tent sale just for the show weekend. There were some great bargains. Older collections of layer cakes for $15 and charm squares for $5. Some yardage for $3/yd. I picked up this Chrysalis line by Sanae, one of my favorite designers for Moda. And I got this month's Schnibble pattern, Summer Day for "another year of Schnibbles". I'm not yet certain I'm using these charms squares for it - still on the fence. Oh did you see that Schnibbles can now be purchased as PDFs? Check here on Carrie's blog.

There is some more fabric to show but I'm waiting to use it for a blog anniversary giveaway next month. Now what I don't have to show is any pictures of the quilts. Several displays were "NO PHOTOS" and you were admonished to stop if caught. However, check out Everybody Loves Clark here. She has some nice pictures of the quilts.

Another random thought - have you used PicMonkey yet? I've never used a photo editing program before and I have to say this one is pretty easy. You can do a little tutorial kinda look but I find that just putzing around works best for me. So my helpful hints are when you want to start with your pictures click on the photo of the sunglasses (although I think anyone of the photos will work). Then look down the list on the left hand side and see where it says "upload". You can bring up your pictures and then play with them. I'm keeping it simple "crop" "exposure" and "color". I was able to brighten up my pictures quite quickly. Then hit "save" and then my software takes me back to my photo file where I "save" it again where the original photo was. Karen at Sew Many Ways... has a good post on PicMonkey.

Wow I sure rambled on today - think of it as a BIG tidbit - LOL!
Happy stitching-
carol fun

Coleslaw for a Design Wall Monday

Here are all 60 different Stack N Whack 4-patch blocks that I trimmed to 7 1/4".

And here is the Phillip Jacobs fabric I started with. It is called Brassica and it is the pastel colorway.

Here are some closer shots of the blocks.

I'm very partial to those yellow-y pink-y ones that look like roses and peonies. I've got a lovely tone on tone yellow for the sashing and a deep rose for the cornerstones. I'll let this sit on my design wall a day or two before I start sewing the rows together and see if I want to move any of the blocks around. By now you may be asking where does coleslaw come into this design. Well my oldest son looked at the fabric and the blocks and thought about it and said "Isn't chopped cabbage, coleslaw?" and it is!!! So this is the Coleslaw quilt.

And you would think that sewing up 60 SNW blocks would have gotten this out of my system but I don't think it has. While shopping this weekend my BFF was also smitten with the new Phillip Jacobs fabrics and she found this....

and I could not resist either and bought enough for another 4-patch SNW. I can't wait to see how these will turn out.

Have a great week!
Happy stitching-
carol fun

Another bunny for Sampler Sunday

Today I have a sampler that has a special place in my heart and my home, The Enchanted Alphabet from Told in a Garden.

This is a large piece - about 25" X 10"- framed. I stitched it at least 17 years ago and used a pale blue evenweave as the background for the DMC flosses. It was a sampler I fell in love with as soon as I saw it. The child with the head of blond curls reminded me of my youngest child when he was a toddler. As odd as it may seem, my son, who's ethnic background is Italian, German, Catalan and Chinese, had blond curls until he was around 5.

And this same son brought me to tears over this sampler. Of course it was a long term project and I was so happy when I finally got it framed. The leash from the child to the bunny is a tiny satin ribbon and is attached at the child's hand and the bunny's neck. My son who has Asperger's syndrome has always been inquisitive and had great fine motor skills. The sampler was sitting on the table in the dining room. Somehow he climbed up and untied the ribbon from the bunny. When I saw it I had no idea how I would fix this without completely taking the piece out of the frame and I was quite upset. After a day I decided to attempt to thread the ribbon and try to poke it back through. It took quite a few tries but I got it attached and had just enough slack to tie the bow. I quickly hung it in my bedroom over my bed and out of his reach and I get to enjoy it every day.

On Thursday and Friday I attended the International Quilt Festival in my fair city, Cincinnati, Ohio. It is a wonderful show and I got a little of this and a little of that. In addition to all the quilting paraphernalia there were 2 vendors selling cross stitch - Keepsakes, a shop in Sharonville a suburb of Cincinnati where I live, and Rosewood Manor. I'll take some pics of the 3 pieces I bought and post them later this week. I left a chunk of change at the show and even picked up a little something for a giveaway,as my blog anniversary is coming up in May. I was too busy shopping and looking and talking to take any pictures but if you search the web I've seen several blogs with some lovely photographs.

Well it is a lovely day here today and I'm planning a nice Italian dinner for my boys, along with catching up on the laundry. Hopefully I can reward myself this evening with some stitching. Have a great week!

Happy stitching-
carol fun

More fun with Blogger (I'm joking)

Ok- it all started when I tried to delete one blog from my blog list. I got this warning message that a particular blog contained malware. Soooooo, I thought I'd delete it so as not to infect me or anyone else. Somehow Blogger deleted my ENTIRE blog list and after banging my head on the wall for about an hour I got my blog list back. Now I'm getting the malware message when ever I try to access a blog that has content from Amy's Creative Side. Is anyone else getting this? I'm also wondering if any of you are getting the malware message when you come to my blog. Of course I'm hesitant to go to Amy's blog and I wonder if she even knows. I'm leery because yesterday I got the blue screen of death. It hasn't happened in a while so I wasn't too worried and I restarted without any problems. And I just realized that if you got the malware message on my blog you probably haven't read this far. Argghh - Blogger is not fun.

carol fun (but I am! really I am!)

WIP Wednesday

And now for something a bit different in my cross stitching life, I'll show you this sampler I just started on..

It is a French chart from Tournicoton called Historie de Lettres. I don't think I've seen any other samplers that have this almost cursive style of lettering and it really appealed to me. It is about 180 degrees different from the BBD stuff I've been working on and it is a nice change of pace.

It calls for DMC flosses which I'm using except for the letters themselves. Instead of DMC 815 I using Sampler Threads The Gentle Art Claret. I don't know how clearly you can see it but I love the border. It has an edging in a lime-y green (DMC 166) and a light lavender (DMC 211) - colors I don't think I've ever used before but I particularly like that lime-y one.

And now for a little (well maybe not so little) rant - when I purchased this pattern I saw a lovely photograph of in on the vendor's website (I don't remember who I actually purchased it from online). But when the pattern came the "picture" on the cover is a computer generated kinda sketch that really isn't attractive at all. If this was all I had to see when I chose it, well I wouldn't have chosen it. I keep having to go and look up a photo of the piece online to see how it is shaping up. In fact the cover of the pattern is so "sketchy" you can't even make out what some of the motifs are - is that a bird or a shoe???

Also do not trust the labels on the hand dyed flosses that say "Colorfast". I'm always skeptical of any reds and even those this Claret said "Colorfast" I gave it a quick dunk in water and laid it on a paper towel and there was definitely dye run off. Ugh -- so I rinsed it several more times and it seemed to help. I had a bad experience years ago with a burgundy hand dyed floss that ran so I always check out the bright ones before I stitch with them. I rinse, put them on a paper towel to see if they run and repeat the process if they do. Then I fold then in a clean paper towel and use my steam iron to set and dry them. I haven't had any problems with dye running when I do this. Since I don't use a hoop my pieces get quite wrinkly and the only way I know to get wrinkles out of linen is to use a little steam so I need to know that the floss won't be affected by a bit of moisture.

And to finish this rant - what's up with Blogger again? I upgraded reluctantly to their new format, I'm using Google Chrome and I can't get this post to show up as a preview. Some how it is easier to see any errors when I view it in "preview" so I hope this one is ok.

Happy stitching-
carol fun