Long and skinny on a Slow Stitching Sunday... (LOL the stitching ...not me)

First off as I sporadically sometimes occasionally ... okay almost ALWAYS complain about the weather I would like to say that today the weather in my little corner of the world is PERFECT!!!!   It is high noon, the sun is shining, there is a lovely breeze and it is only 76 degrees... I have all the windows open in the house and I am loving it!

I started my morning by sitting in my happy chair in my pjs finishing off the last chart of the Lizzie Kate Jingles....ta dah!!!

I will add the two border rows to the bottom of this tonight while I watch my PBS British shows and then all I need to do is add the buttons and embellishments.  Here's a more close up view of the piece...

Jingles top...

Jingles bottom...

Even though I can't do all 12 charts I'm still very happy  with this piece. It will fit nicely  in the narrow space next to my front door when Christmas arrives.

And speaking of the narrow space next to my front door this is what is adorning that spot right now...

My Little House Needlework ABC's  Sampler in all its glory...

Now this is the 2nd time I've had this pieced framed... I had a disastrous  experience at a local big box craft retailer who's name I won't mention but it starts with the letter that comes between Linen and Needles. I ended up taking it out of that  frame and trying a new to me place that is much closer to my house. I think they did a great job and I was pleasantly surprised that price wise they really aren't any more expensive than the big box store.  The first yuccky framing ran about $50 ... the second lovely framing was $60... I'm willing to pay that difference for a quality job. And I noticed that a the big box store the price started out waaaay higher and then is reduced by the coupon... at the new frame place they just gave me the price...and no pressure to add mats or glass like at the big box place.

I'm very happy with all my color changes... those pops of yellow make me soooooo happy... oh the floss I used was Crescent Colors Queen Bee... my favorite yellow!

Here's a couple of close ups...

The frame I picked is a slightly weathered creamy white wood...very simple...not too wide... I really like it ...and when I went to pick this one up I saw that they had several good candidates for my Jingles piece... great motivation to get it finished and framed before the holidays... yeah for me!

Well, I see a lot  more cross stitching in my future as this last week saw me clicking away on the internet purchasing charts and floss and linen... I just got on a roll and was carried away like a leaf on the breeze (OMG... it would have to be a gale force hurricane wind to carry me off...LOL) but anyway I did choose some pretty things.  I even signed up for Brenda Gervais With Thy Needle and Thread Summer Schoolhouse - Lessons in Abcedarian which you can see here.

I love the design that I've seen so far and she says that learning how to stitch over one on 28 count won't be  a problem...we shall see... I think I'm going to have to get a hoop... I have a q-snap frame somewhere, but  I saw she works in a small 5" hoop ... I figure I'll give it a try.

Well I hope the weather where you are is as nice  as it is here... I've got a lasagna prepped for dinner tonight prepared by the requests of my sons... life is good!!

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts today and Super Mom - No Cape tomorrow...

happy stitching-
carol fun

Oh carp... I don't believe I did that...

but I did!!!!   So I've been moving right along on my Lizzie Kate Christmas Jingles piece... excuse the wrinkles...

starting on the 9th chart... 3 more to go...when I realize that there doesn't seem to be a lot of linen left on this piece... so I pull out the charts that are left and add up the stitch count and then count the linen and  THERE IS NOT ENOUGH LINEN LEFT!!!!! arghhh........... Only then did I remember that last December when I started this piece  I realized after I stitched the 2nd chart that this cut of linen was too short... you know I have horrible math skills and I still don't know why I mis-counted or mis-measured but I did. I told myself then I'd have to start over... and in my memory I thought I had started this piece over on a new cut of linen... but I didn't... so I blithely picked this back up a couple of weeks ago thinking I'd restarted when I didn't.... no one to blame but me....

So after bad words were said and there was weeping and gnashing of teeth I took a  deep breath and realized this does not have to include all 12 charts... it will still look lovely with only 10 of the little designs and that is exactly what is going to happen.  I will finish the Love chart today and stitch the cute little owl that says Silent Night and then I'll add the border rows that Lizzie Kate included on Jingles and I will call it done... my version... and I am happy with that. The last two charts included a bell and a mitten with a Let it Snow tag line... I can live without them... I'll stitch them as ornaments someday...

Here's a closer look at what I've done in the past 2 weeks...

that section with merry took quite a while...lots of solid stitching... this is a cute piece and I look forward to it being framed and hanging by my front door for the 2107 Christmas season.

On a brighter note, I did some finishing of my own on my Lizzie Kate Summer piece...

I got my inspiration from Priscilla's blog again. The cross stitch is mounted on sticky board and the background piece is two cuts of a cotton that was left over from a quilt I recently made... they were sitting on my cutting table. At first I was just going to use the rose-y color fabric at the bottom but the piece was too short so I added the blue on the top and I like it even better!!  The ribbon was in my stash as was the little package of buttons you can cover yourself.  The whole thing is clipped to a little stand I got at Micheals last year.

Here's how it looks in the 3 tier tray...

I changed out the orange-y hydrangeas for these dusty plum ones but didn't touch the rest of the decorations, and hung my favorite  Petunia Stack N Whack quilt behind it.

A nice cool look for a hot summer day... well I'm taking it easy today...no dinner to cook ... I think I'll stitch tonight as I watch my PBS shows... Grantchester is back... I enjoy that one.

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts today and Super Mom - No Cape on Monday... I hope to have a quiet week... right now there is very little on my calendar... I like that A LOT!!!  Hope to get some sewing done. I have a table runner cut out and  need to fix one more seam (a long one) on a top I've been working on. I'm behind on several other BOM and BOTW projects... maybe I can catch up.

Hope your week if filled with whatever it is you want to do...

happy stitching-
carol fun

Flowers on Friday...

Oh baby it is hot hot hot outside... it is 7pm and it is still 90 degrees... glad I'm inside with my AC. I know I've been absent here for over a week...nothing going on...just life... but I do have a little something to show today...the fruits of my gardening labors and a little flower quilt...

First the quilt...

This only measures 12" x 24" and it is hanging on my back door... I think it looks bright and summery... the pattern is from Lori Holt's book Vintage Farmgirl and the fabrics are all American Jane... such happy fabrics... I love this flower a whole bunch and would like to make an entire quilt from them!  I'll put it on my list of things to do... which right now is about 3 feet long...oh well.

And now for  the other flowers in my life... my  yard/garden... I don't have a back yard since my house sits on the corner so what I have is a front yard and a side yard and all my gardening is visible to the street... sometimes I wish I had a more private space but then only I would enjoy my flowers. I remind myself that lots of people get to enjoy them this way and I do get lots of compliments when I'm out in the evenings watering.

It is nice for me to post pictures here so I can remember what the plantings look like as the season progresses. Everything seems so puny in the Spring but it has come on gangbusters in the last week.

The front of my house...

one window box and additional boxes on the porch ledge...

the side of the house... my favorite view of  my house...

window boxes and perennials and pots of flowers.

a close up of the front window box...

the petunias have filled in nicely.. if you make the picture bigger you can see there are 3 different colors... a light yellow, a light lavender and a pink with a yellow center... all of these are wave petunia varieties.

this spot is tucked into the corner and makes me very happy... lots of perennials with an edging of annuals... I was going for a English garden look chock full of different flowers... in bloom now are 2 types of cone flowers each a different shade of orange, my hydrangea is blooming pink, I've forgotten what that tall purple flower is but it is beautiful... there are day lilies in the back and some gallardia to the left side. Not yet blooming but will be soon are white daisies and tall phlox and 2 other perennials that I don't remember what I planted but they are looking good.

On the side of the house by the back door...

the pyramid of petunias ... I pass by this every time I come in and out of the house and I LOVE LOVE LOVE it... that rose tree smells so good!

And last year this began as a overflow area and it has become even more overflowing this year... lots of pretties have followed me home from the garden centers...

there is a little bit of everything here from snapdragons to zinnias to geraniums to more petunias... that big pot on the end has pink wave petunias which something munched on the other night and dahlias in the center...

this petunia was just too pretty to leave at the nursery last week...

my problem is I find ALL petunias to be pretty...LOL... and I want to give them all a good home...but I'm running out of space.  I didn't take a picture of my rose bushes but they are doing nicely... the deer did come for an evening buffet in spite of my spraying them and putting down the stinky deer scram stuff but they did leave some blooms... I know that the roses will be a constant battle but I'm hanging in there.  I'm very very happy with my garden yard this year... and I already have ideas for next year... so many pretty flowers... so little time... and dirt...LOL

Hope your weekend plans give you time to stop and smell the flowers... I need to water tonight but hopefully Mother Nature will do the job for me tomorrow and Sunday... I'm waiting till 8pm to go out and drag out the hose ... and then I'll be back inside for a cool shower and more AC.

happy stitching-
carol fun

Slow Sunday Stitching with Christmas in June...

So it appears that I can only manage one post a week... sorry... but in my defense last week found me to be extremely popular ... I had a lunch date every day last week... all were fun and tasty but I didn't get much accomplished otherwise.


No measurable knitting was finished... although I did buy some yarn...

I found this at my "big" Joanns... it is Superfine Merino a DK/Light Worsted ... it has 142 yds in a ball and it is super soft... it is also a bit pricey... $14.99 a ball... so of course this yarn can ONLY be purchased by me with a coupon... and I've lucked into several 50% off coupons. Now on Memorial Day I thought I was going to make out big time as I had 3 coupons for 60% off...except Joanns punked me as they marked this yarn down to $12.99 making my coupons useless...grrrr... this just makes me more determined to only buy this stuff with a coupon. OH I saw a great meme/t-shirt the other day ...

my situation EXACTLY...LOL!!

And fabric was purchased ... 2 jelly rolls and some bargain stuff from Instagram... but no sewing was done... insert frown-y face...

But there was progress on the cross stitching front... cross stitching is perfect for "watching" my beloved Reds play baseball... there were some good games, some great games, and so OMG terrible games... it softens the blow... LOL

First I want to show you a finished piece...now I finished this ages ago but I just recently got it framed and it looks great in my early summer decorating...

This is from the BBD Loose Feathers Abecedarian series... this was #3 and is called Forget me Not... my blue skeins were nice and bright and I love this  piece....and here is how it looks in my living room.

I love that I've been able to incorporate several cross stitch pieces on these display shelves...

on the top shelf I have my latest small finish ... and in the middle there is my beloved Lizzie Kate Spring sampler....

and at the bottom I have Forget me Not and a nice stack of summer-y looking quilts... along with lots of birds... you know I have a thing for fowl right???  LOL

And this is what I've been cross stitching.... my Lizzie Kate Jingles piece...

last time I touched this was December of '16 and I only had 2 of the charts finished... I got two and a half done this week...

love the snowman and the cardinals... and the cute heart frame...

the stocking and the cookies are fun motifs and while I like those peppermints they were a bear to stitch... hard to fit in the white stitches after I had the red ones complete...but they are stinking cute!

and this one should be complete tonight... just a couple of simple motifs to finish... that would give me 5 of the 12 charts done...yeah... I would like to have this one wrapped up by the July... maybe not the beginning of July but before it is over... I know exactly where I'm going to hang this and it will be a nice addition to my Christmas decorating.

So while I'd like to do some sewing next week I'm not promising anything... the other project on my list is cleaning out my garage... and this week looks like it would be perfect for that... dry weather, not too hot and so far, other than a doctor visit for my son tomorrow, there  is nothing on my social calendar ( oh that sounds so pretentious... snark)... there is stuff I want to take to Goodwill and stuff the just needs to be trashed. I have a shelving unit I want to assemble and organize my gardening stuff ...and I want to wipe down the shelves I have my grocery inventory on ( my older son teases me about my stockpile of toilet paper and boxed pasta, but if the zombies attack he'll be begging me for spaghetti and Charmin)... I figure if I say it outloud here on the blog that I'm going to clean out the garage I'll guilt myself into it... fingers crossed.

Hope you are having a nice Sunday...weather here has been sooooo nice... I love when the temps stay in the mid 70's to low 80's and the humidity isn't too high... that is perfect in my book. I've got dinner in the oven... a baked ziti dish with chicken and alfredo and lots of cheese... I'm making asparagus wrapped in prosciutto and a salad and rolls and a strawberry pie from Frisch's for dessert... can't wait till 6pm!

I'm linking up with Kathy's Quilts today and Super Mom - No Cape tomorrow...

happy stitching-
carol fun

A Slow Sunday Stitching ...where I have finished stuff to share...

Well another week just blew past me... now I didn't sew a single quilt block...and my knitting has been sporadic...but my cross stitching has been going gangbusters.

First... I finished my Blackbird Designs Garden Borders from the Abcedarian series...

this one stitched up very quickly for me and I LOVE how it turned out. That it has a house and an alphabet score big points with me, but then it also has 3 dramatically different borders...oh I LOVE that too! and these are all very pretty borders. The one at the top stitched up lickety split as it was a repeating count. I used the called for CC Camouflage which is a great green with lots of different values.  Those leaf sprigs on the right side used different colors... GA Dried Thyme (perhaps my most favorite green) and CC Avocado which is very nice too.

As always I made a few changes in thread colors to this one... those little bits of borders on the right side I brightened up with CC Country Redwood and the light portion of GA Dried Thyme and some CC Copper. They were all suppose to be done in GA Garden Gate... which is a dark gray... and I have very little love for gray...it has its place but the less of it the better for me.

I did change out the the called for GA Grecian Gold for GA Country Redwood on the two quilty looking star motifs (as I quilter I see a Lemoyne star on the left and a sawtooth star on the right). Using the Grecian Gold with GA Caramel Corn gave me no contrast at all... now I chalk this up to the difference in dye lots from one skein to another... which always drives me crazy. I was happy that my skein of GA Mountain Mist was nice a turquoise-y blue this time... sometimes it is just washed out... I thought about making it a yellow house but truth be told I've owned more blue or blue shuttered houses than yellow houses in my life... so it can be a ode to the house on Morrison Place, and the one on Kampen Court, and the one on Pond Woods Lane...

As for the heart... 1904  is the birth year of my sainted Grandma, Catherine Wasser Damon, and those are her initials. The chart has you stitch the year over one thread and then fill in stitching over one... ain't gonna happen... if I could have figured out how to do the date over 2 threads I would have...
I really like this one from the Abcedarian Series... now I need to get it framed!

And for some real finishes that I'm patting myself on the back for... first up...that little bird on the hand dyed turquoise Aida I showed last week...

I did an hand ruched satin ribbon finish on the edge... I have never done that before but I remembered seeing how to ruch the ribbon somewhere on this big wide web and well... it works! I think it looks quite elegant... I filled it with crushed walnut shells so it has a little heft...

and here is a glamour shot!

it looks great in this dish  as part of my Spring-y decor...

And I was so pleased with myself after this finish that I did another...

now I stitched this up and finished it all within about 4 days... I have no idea what has gotten into me... I wish this energy would stick around a while...LOL! The sampler is a free pattern from Marly at Samplers-and-Santas... check her blog out here.  Look up in the top left corner under her header and she has links to the free samplers she has designed... I printed off several of them. This one finished a petite 2.5" wide and 3.5" tall before I added that fabric at the bottom.  I had the snippet of velvet ribbon in my paper crafting stash which includes a large collection of ribbons and trims... and I'm soooo happy I have them... I love a pretty ribbon!

I stitched this on a scrap of 36 count linen of undetermined origin and used bits of mostly leftover flosses from my stash... CC Avocado,  Cappuccino, Jakey Brown, Mulled Berries and Wheatfields... and a bit of GA Dried Thyme. I did the big A and B in Smyrna cross and the bottom border in one ply of Jakey Brown in a satin stitch.

And here is it's glamour shot...

and yes I have multiple "bowls" with birds... this one came from Pier 1 a year or two ago... I would like to add more smalls and it will be my version of the dough bowls.

So cross stitch wise I've has a very productive week. I have spent a considerable amount of time with my left foot resting on the ottoman and it feels a bit better but every once in a while still gives me a twinge. I should probably go have it checked out...but I'm resisting... I spoke with a friend who had a stress fracture in her foot a couple of years ago and she spent about 6 weeks with her foot in one of those air cast boots... I know I wouldn't like that... so we'll see where this goes.

I'll be linking up with Kathy's Quilts today and Super Mom - No Cape on Monday.  I hope you are having a lovely holiday weekend... I'm going to my son and daughter-in-law's house this evening for  BBQ dinner...don't know what we'll do tomorrow but I do know we'll come up with something. Maybe we'll go downtown to Taste of Cincinnati... my younger son went yesterday and ate some delicious stuff... it is always a fun time.

happy stitching-
carol fun

A Slow Sunday with my feet up... cause I was real busy Saturday...

I'm taking it easy today... my left foot still hurts on and off... I suspect maybe a stress fracture... will need to get it looked at...ugh...but for today I'm sitting here with my feet up, eating some Famous Amos cookies  and stitching.

Now yesterday one thing let to another and I rediscovered this little gem...

I have no clue who's design this is or if it has a name... I have one very crumpled piece of paper that shows the chart and says Square 22 and the date I printed it out... July of 2010... so it has been maturing for a while. I know I dyed that aida... it is 18 count...  and I think I've matched whatever floss I was using. I found this in the bottom of my BIG box of floss.  And pawing through the BIG box of floss convinced me to organize the floss the way I did my linen and charts... that took a couple of hours but I know it was time well spent. Now I'll be able to find the right floss as easily as I can find my charts and linen.


Here's a pic of the BIG box of floss... it is one of those storage boxes from IKEA that fits their furniture.

a look inside...

on the top is a separate box with all my hand dyed flosses...

the hand dyed flosses are in little floss bags filed alphabetically for each of the 3 lines I have... Gentle Arts, Crescent Colors, Weeks..

and underneath this box is the rest of the floss...

all the DMC and Anchor are in ziploc bags... all the 200's in one bag, 300's in another, 400's... you get the idea... they are organized this way...

I put 4 bags on a metal ring so they stay somewhat in order  so there is less time spent looking for the right bag.  This is soooooo much better than the mess I had... which lead me to discovering that cute little bird...

I think I'll finish him like this piece done by Priscilla Blain on her blog... which you can see here.

She mounted it on  sticky needlework board and then mounted it to another piece of sticky needlework board that she covered with fabric. A  quick, simple finish that you can tuck into a lot of different decorating places.

And seeing this finish and this wreath that Priscilla did...

got me thinking how I could make something similar... and I did... Ta dah!!!

I started with the piece by With Thy Needle and Thread called Bluebird Out My Window and an inexpensive grapevine wreath I found at Wallyworld. I like how Priscilla uses a lot of burlap ribbon and I found that bow on sale at Hobby Lobby... I added the silk rose which I made at least 25 years ago from French wired ribbon... it is good to be a pack rat with some organizational skills as I had in this my stash with other ribbons. I really like the look of the silk with the burlap... and I always have fake ivy hanging around... I use it a lot in my little vignettes and 3 tier tray.

Now I'm not positive how Priscilla put her wreath together but this is what I did.   After mounting the cross stitched piece on the sticky board, I cut another piece a bit larger and covered it with fabric ...and then I punched 2 holes in the back piece that I threaded a twist tie through and attached it to the wreath that way so it would hang down a bit...

I used some orange tape double sized tape that is very very sticky to put everything together.

This is hanging on the inside of my front door and I can see it from my stitching chair... I'm really happy with this finish and I'm going to play with some other piece of cross stitch I have to do another wreath for my back hallway.

I'll link this up with Kathy's Quilts today and Super Mom - No Cape tomorrow... its a quiet Sunday for me...my son and DIL are available for dinner ... so Nick and I will do something easy...hope you are having a nice slow Sunday too!!

happy stitching-
carol fun

A knitting post where I ramble ...

Happy Friday... I've actually had 2 days this week where I haven't spent $500 ... that is great!  The AC unit came for my son's room so quick it almost made my head spin (oh that wouldn't be good...LOL) I ordered it on Tuesday afternoon around 4pm and it was on my front porch Wednesday before noon... great service from Home Depot... it was suppose to be 2 day delivery so I was amazed when the UPS showed up.  My son was very grateful as his room temperature had to be pushing 90 degrees...now he's cool and happy and that makes me happy!

So I think most of you have seen that Judy L of Patchwork Times isn't doing her linkups anymore including the Friday one about "what's on your needles?"... sorry to see it go as it motivated me to show some knitting progress on Friday... but I'm going to try to self- motivate...and we'll see where that goes.

Today I'm doing well in the self-motivation arena and I have some stuff to share... and yes some of it requires your imagination and trust ...but I know you can do it.

However, first we will start out with a finished project...

these are shortie socks done with my Blue Moon Socks that Rock skein of Rare Gems... very bright. Since it is summer-y here in southwest Ohio it is too warm for full socks... I thought these would be nice to wear with sneakers.  I got the idea for these from socks I saw on Ravelry... and my pea brain thought the pattern was called Bay City Rollers.... but my pea brain had gotten stuck in the 70's... do you remember who the Bay City Rollers were?  They were "the tartan teen sensations from Edinburgh Scotland"...ROFL... here's a link to their Wikipedia  page... and since the name Bay City Rollers stuck in my brain I got an earworm of their big hit "Saturday Night" ... and because I am every so slightly crazy (my own diagnosis) I will give you a link to this classic teeny bopper hit... listen to this at your own risk...LOL ...

Anyway  that isn't the pattern I was looking for ... it is called Rose City Rollers and here in the link to the free pattern. Now I just used it as a jumping off point for this pair... I ended up doing a ribbed cuff and did my  favorite eye of Partridge heel... but for my next pair I'm doing the rolled cuff which takes waaaay less time than a ribbed one... here is my start ...

the yarn is a well aged Blue Moon from my stash and I think it was called Watermelon Tourmaline... nice mindless knitting.

But other projects have caught my eye too... to begin this convoluted tale, I saw this free pattern called Debut...

 you can find it here. Now it calls for DK weight yarn but my stash is woefully thin in that category but then I saw this yarn at Joanns...

it is Australian Merino and very very soft... a DK/Light worsted weight, 142 yards... they had about 12- 15 colors and it was priced at.... wait for it... $14.99 a ball ...YIKES!!! Now this is really nice quality but I didn't want to pay that much... and I didn't... I had an email coupon and a text message coupon each for 50% off... now you're talking. The shawl takes 3 or 4 colors so I'll go back and get some more when I get more coupons... there was a nice plum... and a chocolate brown...and a grey...and an aqua... among several other choices.

Sooooo.... I was going to cast this on and went searching for my size 6 needles... and I have a couple of pairs of size 6's but the were ALL occupied with other projects ...shoved into ziploc bags with assorted cryptic notes I had left myself...  and of the bunch these projects, this seems closest to the finish line and I really like the happy colors of this yarn...

The pattern is called One and Done by Casapinka and you can see it here.  As the title says all you need is one skein of yarn... this yarn is from Kaleidoscope Dyeworks from Canada... a small indie dyer who I see is taking a break right now.  This colorway is called Gilligan's Island... great a new earworm song...LOL

Anyway I have 2 more repeats of the pattern and then I drop the stitches and do the edging. I knit this one back in October...but it still is in its unblocked blob form... its on my list of things to do... a list I'm ignoring at the moment.

So I have lots of things to knit ... and the weather forecast says there will be plenty of knitting time... more rain in the next week...ugghhhh.... my flowers have barely dried out ...and some got drowned and I had to yank them out of the pots and trash them...not a good start to summer.

Well I hope the weather is nice where you are...
happy knitting-
carol fun