Bouncing around.... on Design Wall Monday

As my dear father use to say, "you're bouncing around like a BB in a box car"... and I am. I couldn't focus on just one project this weekend. I have so many ideas I want to play with and my design wall shows it.

Design Wall for 4/15/13

The upper left corner is my first 4 nine patch blocks for this month's Vintage Schnibbles, Hat Trick. I'm using a new line from Moda, PB&J from Basic Grey. I'm using the same background for the whole quilt... a nice buttery yellow that is a Basic Grey Grunge fabric. I LOVE all the fabrics in this collection.

And those 3 blocks on the upper right are the start of another Scrappy Trips quilt. I know, I know... I've made this before but I can't get enough of it. This will be my 3rd quilts with this fabulous design from Bonnie Hunter. I'm using lots of fabrics from Westminster Fabrics - Kaffe Fassett, Philip Jacobs, Brandon Mabley - such wonderful colors and patterns. In order to keep some semblance of order in this version I'm using an almost solid looking fabric for the center diagonal. It is a new littler jelly roll Moda Marble Ombre Dots. The colors on these 2 1/2" strips shade from dark to light.

Moda Marble Ombre Dots

I was inspired to do this version by this quilt -- click here. I'm making mine a bit larger. My blocks are 7 X 7 squares versus 6 X 6 squares and should measure about 84" square.

And the last quilt in progress on my design wall is more rows of the Hourglass quilt from Kim Brackett's new book Scrap Basket Beauties. I have all the pieces cut out for this one... at least I think I do... but then you know my math skills aren't the sharpest so we'll have to see how it all turns out.

Well I didn't mean to be gone all week from the blog but boy what a crazy week it was. I had more appointments crammed into last week than I usually have in a month. I don't look forward to having another week like that one for a long long time. So here's hoping that your upcoming week and mine have lots of sewing time, since I obviously NEED lots of time to get these projects done!

Happy stitching-
carol fun

Some stitching for Sunday

I was going to show my progress on my BBD Anniversaries of the Heart, but there wasn't any last week. And then I remembered that I hadn't shown this sampler since I got it back from Bev at Joanns.

True Love by Stacy Nash Primitives

I really love how this one turned out. The chart is entitled True Love Sampler Bag & Pinkeep by Stacy Nash Primitives. Now I pretty much changed everything on this design except the graph. The fabric is an evenweave that I hand-dyed about a year ago. I call it "rosewood" - a very mottled shade I got using s mix of Rit dyes. I wonder it I can recreate it. And using different fabric resulted in changing all of the flosses. I think it has a sort of Valentine quality with that mother of pearl heart shaped button.

I personalized it by changing floss colors for my sons' intials - C and N - which fell right next to each other in this piece -- serendipity!


In looking for the info on this piece I shuffled through a bunch of charts in my stash. Oh I want to start something new, but then I also want to get my Anniversaries of the Heart finished, which isn't going to happen if I keep moving other projects in front of it. What I really need is a 36 hour day that doesn't include additional cooking, cleaning or laundry - that would be wonderful!

Happy stitching-
carol fun

A new start on Design Wall Monday

I had a little time last week to sew and started a new quilt. I only got 2 rows on my design wall but I'm very happy with this.

The pattern is Hourglass from the new book by Kim Brackett called Scrap-Basket Beauties. You can see it here.

The patterns in the book are designed for Jelly Rolls and the fabric I had was a layer cake, but I was able to get my pieces out of it. Here are two close ups of some of my blocks.

Here are some of the little animals that are hidden in the fabric.
This is an older collection from Moda called Wee Woodland by Keiki. I'm feeling virtuous because this came from my stash.

This is the fabric I'm going to use for the border. I love sampler feel of this collection.

Did you notice that while the letters appear to be randomly arranged, they aren't? Do you see where it says "MODA"? I didn't see it at all until I was cutting out some extra pieces for the blocks.

And I love this little bird and how the letters are C and U - see you! I have to believe that was intentional. How cute is that?

So I think this has all the makings of quite a fun quilt. Now to find some more sewing time... maybe next weekend... big sigh... I already miss my sewing machine.

Happy stitching-
carol fun

Slow Stitching on Sunday

I will say that stitching is the only thing that is slow around here. Last week just blew by me and the upcoming week has me running from appointment to appointment every day. How does this happen? I really just want to stay home and stitch.

I got started on another house for the BBD Anniversaries of the Heart last week. Its coming along nicely.

BBD AoH   Farm House Pattern 5

And when I finish this one I will be starting on the last row on this piece. It will measure about 27" wide and 18" deep when it is all done.

BBD Anniversaries of the Heart

Hope your week is less crazy than mine.
Happy stitching-
carol fun

On and off the needles

First I want to give a great big THANK YOU to all who left me a comment and send positive thoughts and prayers my way in my post on Tuesday. I truly appreciate them and it certainly lifts my spirits. The blogsphere is filled with wonderful people!!


I have been knitting a bit. Just plain vanilla stockinette socks but with pooling sock yarn for the challenge on Patchwork Times. You can read about it here.  This is my first pair for the challenge.

Pooling Opal sock yarn 

This is Opal Antonia Hand Dyes yarn. I can't find this colorway anymore but you can see what is left here. Now I've knit with this yarn before, but I have never gotten the mirror image on the leg that I got this time. And it just happened. I didn't manipulate the yarn in any way. Isn't that cool?

Front view

And here is what it looks like from the front. The legs are kinda mirror image but the feet are more similar.  Again, I have no idea why it knits up this way but I sure do LOVE it! (Note - I did 62 stitches on 2.75mm needles)

And this is my second start with pooling sock yarn. I'm not so sure about this one. I'm again doing 62 stitches on 2.75mm needles.

Schoppel Wolle Single Disk Cat Print yarn

This is Schoppel Wolle Single Disk Cat Print yarn. You can see it here. The yarn comes wound in 2 disks. Each disk is suppose to give you similar pooling socks. You can see that it started with a nice pool but changed to stripes before I got to the heel. My first impression was that blob at the top looked like the inside of a lava lamp which would be cool. However, if this continues to stripe on the foot I will probably drop this pair for a while and start another pair with a yarn I think has more pooling possibilities.

Well baseball season started this week and my beloved Cincinnati Reds opened with a winning series. I have high hopes for them this year.  One of their starting pitchers has a home in my neighborhood and I saw him jogging the other morning - I'm kinda star struck - LOL!  Now we just need some real baseball weather - not cold and spitting snow!!!  It is suppose to get into the 60's this weekend. I can't wait.

Have a great weekend - happy stitching and knitting!
carol fun

Claiming by blog on Bloglovin

Okay I hope I doing this correctly....

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

I'm claiming my blog on Bloglovin so you can follow me...

thanks!

Happy stitching-
carol fun

Meanwhile back at the blog...

So the last 2 weeks have been quite eventful and stressful, and little crafty productivity has occurred. I've been pondering how much I want to share here as I consider my crafty pursuits and my blogging to be part of the "happy place" of my life and I want to keep them that way. That said, I will tell you that I have made some major life changing decisions that will impact the time I have available to spend in my happy place for the next several months... perhaps longer. I am determined not to totally abandon the crafty stuff because it does keep me from going crazy... or at least keep me at a level of craziness that isn't considered grounds for an institutional stay. So if you so inclined ,a little prayer or positive thought send my way will be greatly appreciated.

Now onto things that resides in the happy place - ideas for new projects!!! Okay I saw on Sinta's blog, Pink Pincushion,  that the year of "Vintage Schnibbles" is starting. Oh I love doing Schnibbles! I already own the pattern for this month, Hat Trick.

 Now the hard part... deciding which charm packs to choose... and I'm not sure it is going to be any of these, but there are more to choose from in my stash and some new ones calling from Moda's website!

And I need to do another row of my Wiggly Whimsey project for the QAL on Terry's blog, Terry's Treasures.

I really like all the novelties I'm using in this one and I need to add the spacer row that goes in between - it really looks more "wiggly" that way.

On the knitting front, I'm shopping by stash for another pooling sock yarn for the Pooling Sock Yarn Challenge at Judy's blog, Patchwork Times. 

I think this one has great possibilities.

In the cross stitch arena, I did get some stitches put in my BBD Anniversaries of the Heart.

This is Pattern 6, called Happy Birthday. I'm planning on stitching "Home Sweet Home" or "There's No Place Like Home" in that empty frame area.

And I really really want to start this new BBD piece from the Maria Selby Humphrey -1831 booklet.

It has special meaning for me right now as I am in the process of getting a new home as part of my recent life decisions.

So with all of this on my plate and a heaping helping of life decisions, I think I'm going to have to give up cooking, and cleaning and maybe sleeping to get everything done. Wish me luck!

Happy stitching-
carol fun