Stories I tell myself on Design Wall Monday

So I got 42 little kiss blocks sewn this week and I like the way they turned out. And yes I remember that last Monday I thought I needed 40, but I you know I have trouble with counting. It is an ongoing struggle - LOL!

Now that I have them on the wall I'm reconsidering making this a strippy quilt. In order to stretch the yardage I have of that big rose print that I LOVE, I would have to cut the strips to finish 4" wide and I think I'll end up with more of a chopped rose mulch than a rose garden. Not what I envisioned. I'm leaning toward plain sashing and a variety of fabrics for cornerstones, and then add a nice wide rose border.

It was fun to play with my bits of these Sweet and Swell collections - if they reprinted these I'd buy them again!

Love that red check...

and tulips on yellow with birds -- my favorite!

And, I told myself that I would have this top and my American Jane Alpha Bits & Pieces top done by this evening's guild meeting so I could pass them off to the long arm quilter. Yeah, go ahead and laugh. What was I thinking? That we now have 40 hour days? That the weekends are 5 days long? That little elves would slave away in my studio for cookies? Not gonna happen. In my normal fashion I got sidetracked by several other projects. I suppose telling myself I could finish two tops isn't as bad as when I tell myself "oh I'll remember to that" and then I totally forget whatever it was I wanted to remember. The spirit is willing by the mind is weak.

These tops will get done when they get done, and it doesn't look like this is their week. Lots of things I have to do and places I have to go.

Hope you have a great week!
Happy stitching!
carol fun

BBD Her/My Sampler finished on a Slow Stitching Sunday

Ta dah!  My version of the BBD Her Sampler SAL is complete!  I love how it turned out and I'm particularly happy with my personal touches - changing colors of floss, stitches and substituting bands and images that mean something to me.

This picture gives you a nice view of my personalization's -- substituted giant Smyrna cross for eyelet stitch, removed number band and stitched honeysuckle, eliminated diamond motif and added a chicken, and placed a crown near the date as every stitcher deserves a crown or two, dontcha know?

I stitched this on 28ct linen R & R Old Parchment, and the flosses I used were Crescent Colors - Honeycomb, Jakey Brown, and Tennessee Red Clay; Weeks Colors - Honeysuckle; Gentle Arts - Dried Thyme,Mountain Mist and Mustard Seed, I need to get this off to Bev at Joanns to be framed. I found a coupon for 60% off -- should be very helpful.

Hope you are enjoying a nice Sunday afternoon.
Happy stitching!

carol fun

A little knitting and a little stash enhancement

I only knit a little this week. I've been more in the mood to cross stitch, but I did put a few more rows in on my Carolina socks - the free pattern is here. This is a Kaffe Fassett yarn by Regia.

And as I was knitting ,I vaguely remembered knitting another pair of socks with this yarn a couple of years ago. Look how different the pattern makes the same yarn appear.

Now the brown color in the vanilla sock appears a bit different, but it may have faded. The vanilla socks have been machined washed and dried numerous times.  Love Regia for its ease of care and durability.

About a week ago I found a group on Facebook called Addicted to Sock Knitting - you can see their page here. Well I haven't posted anything to the page but boy have I been impressed with what I've seen. Lots of newbie sock knitters and I love that, and lots of wonderful yarns that have called my name. This has resulted in unplanned stash enhancement... LOL as if stash enhancement were ever really planned. Now in my defense I purchased these skeins with my cashback option on my credit card, so to my little pea brain this is FREE yarn!


First their was this yarn - Fluormania - another Regia yarn. It looks like an entire package of highlighters leaked all over it. Can't wait to cast it on.

And then there was this Regia - it is an older one, and as far as I can tell, out of production.

When I opened the package I was so enamoured with it I went right to my laptop and ordered another 2 skeins.  I have no idea what I'll knit with it but when I did a search online there wasn't much of it out there, so I figured I better get it while I can. I've found that it isn't the yarn, fabric, thread, etc. that I buy that haunts me, it is the stuff that got away that I regret. And after this stash enhancement I was still feeling virtuous as this was FREE yarn and I patted myself on the back that  I didn't succumb to purchasing any of the new  Blue Moon Fibers Socks that Rock on Simply Socks website... at least I haven't succumbed yet - stay tuned, I'll probably cave, cause the one called Cockamamie is  calling my name!

Hope you have a great weekend!
Happy knitting!
carol fun

UFOs are important to have on Design Wall Monday

First on this Memorial Day,  I want to offer my heartfelt gratitude to all those brave men and women who  made the ultimate sacrifice for the freedom we enjoy. Thank you doesn't seem adequate, but I'm coupling it with prayers too.

Second, this doesn't seem like Monday, I woke up thinking it was Sunday and all week long I'll be off a day.

Third, to the point of this post, we all have UFOs (and if you don't I don't want to know). I think it is very important to have UFOs. Why, you ask. Because if you have a UFO and you put it away for a while to age and season and mature, and then you go back and pull it out and start again you already have a partially done quilt top -- slightly pre-assembled - a jump start on a finished project - satisfaction that you have already accomplished something!   I don't feel guilt, I feel joy! This is my current UFO redux... a strippy quilt done with little kiss blocks using some old old collections of Urban Chiks fabric called Swell and Sweet.

According to the scrawled note I left myself, I plan to make 40 blocks.  I have enough of that lovely yellow fabric with the big red roses and polka dots to do strips for 6 vertical rows . If I want to put a border across the top and bottom I'm either going to have to piece it or use another fabric as this is all I have of this fabric and as far as I can tell, there ain't no more available anywhere.

I cut  all the squares I need for the 40 blocks yesterday, so now it is just lovely mindless sewing. Hope to get a few more done today as I have most of my dinner prep done - grilling out tonight, made a couple of salads and we're having strawberry shortcake - yum!

Hope you are having a wonderful day!
Happy stitching!
carol fun

Summer time peeking in on Slow Stitching Sunday

I am enjoying stitching up the BBD SAL for Her Sampler. I'm happy with the changes I've made to floss colors and stitches, and I made a big change today

After finishing the big alphabet using Smyrna crosses instead of eyelets (try it... it goes sooooo much faster) I decided the row with the numbers didn't do anything for me. I started paging through this book, Sampler Workbook by Caroline Vincent, you can see it here.

And I found this...honeysuckle... I love the smell of honeysuckle and it reminds me of my sainted Grandma who gave me some Avon honeysuckle cologne when I was about 12. A sweet memory in so many ways!

Now seeing the picture I realize I've left off a stitch at the top of each of the petals on first two motifs - gotta fix that. Under this band I have plans for another  personal band and I think that will finish it up. I'm not concerned about the border as the original pattern has 4 different corners and so will mine, maybe ever different from the four BBD came up with. This has been a fun stitch. I'm envisioning a pretty gold frame, something kinda frilly and feminine. Have to see what's available at Joanns. I know Bev will do a great job as always.

Here are a couple of close ups of what I've done so far.  LOVE the big bump of the Smyrna cross.

Like the look of the four sided stitch but don't like stitching it. Oh just noticed that alphabet should have a small row of four sided stitch in between. Need to think about that. Maybe I can come up with a substitution I like stitching.

Hope you are having a great weekend. So far mine has been lovely, great weather and time to sew.

Happy stitching-
carol fun

One sock leads to another and another

Edited to fix bad link for pattern -- thanks for letting me know Mary Ann!


Have I ever told you how much I LOVE LOVE LOVE knitting socks? Well I do! There is something so satisfying and soothing about knit knit knit. It makes me HAPPY! So last week I finished this pair. This is Opal sock yarn Schafpate 5 in the color Heidi. In real life they are more coral rose than orange. I couldn't get the color right in the picture.

And a completed pair of socks leads to starting a new pair of socks. This is Blue Moon Fibers Socks that Rock lightweight in the Lemonellow colorway. You can see it here. A lovely lemony shade with fleck of aqua and a greeny gray.

I used a pattern I've done before call Carolina, Last Queen of Naples. It is a free pattern and you can see it here. It is a simple to remember 4 row repeat. The only change I made is instead of the knit 3 together (K3tog) in the first row, I do slip one purlwise, knit 2 together and then pass the slipped stitch over. Much easier. I love the zig zag and that purl ridge row.

And as I was finishing up this sock I had a thought (almost always a dangerous moment - LOL) that I hadn't ever done this pattern with a striped yarn. Sooooooo... I went downstairs and rummaged through my ever so nicely organized yarn stash sealed in their very own plastic storage containers and found 2 skeins of this Kaffe Fassett yarn by Regia. Oooooohhhh... I like this a lot!

So far the stripes seem to be changing colors at the purl row but I think that will change as some of the stripe sections in the yarn are longer than others. It will definitely keep my attention.

And I curbed my urge to cast on another pair. I found this pattern, Show-off Stranded Socks. You can see it here and it is also free - dontcha just love free patterns? Me too! This looks great in lots of the Blue Moon Fibers Socks that Rock yarns and I have several all wound in cakes and ready to go. And I have 2 new sets of Hiya Hiya needles. I LOVE these needles. I picked them up a couple of weeks ago at Lambikins Hideaway. I've used Knitpicks needles since I began knitting but wanted to upgrade as I've had some problems with cables that have come loose. The Hiya Hiya have very flexible cables, and nice long pointy points and I swear they coated with something that makes them ever so smooth. The yarn just slips so easily off the needles. Effortless knitting.

So do you have lots of plans for the 3 day weekend? We are going to the local food festival, Taste of Cincinnati, on Saturday morning and I have plans to grill out on Memorial day but other than that I think there is going to be some quality and quantity time to knit, cross stitch and sew.

Hope you have a great weekend! Say a prayer for those who sacrificed so much for our freedom. It is the least we can do.

Happy knittng and stitching!

carol fun

And you picked...... on Design Wall Monday

So I put on my best Monty Hall plaid sport coat and you  picked.... Door #2!!!! Applause, applause! Now when I posted the poll last Thursday I was certain that no matter what the outcome I would sew it together in the Door #1 mode. But the more I read your comments and the more I looked at it Door #2, I could see it was a winner.

All the rows are sewn together and I really like the look of the black and white prints with the Kaffe fabric. Thanks for inspiration Melinda!

There was a comment that the black and white prints are low volume. I hadn't thought of them that way, but if they are the are hanging with the wrong crowd cause the Kaffe fabrics are the heavy metal guys in the room - LOL!

I found this fabric last week at Joanns for the back. Now to get this one packed off to my long arm quilter.

Like any week I have high hopes for lots of sewing time, tempered with the knowledge that there are lots of other things I am committed to do. Painting woodwork at my older son's house, chauffeuring duties for my younger son, appointments with contractors... its going to be a busy week. But the upcoming weekend is Memorial Day and that off day  next Monday is looking pretty sweet.

Happy stitching-
carol fun