Once in a blue moon...

It isn't often that I post twice in the same day...once in a blue moon...which it so happens is tonight! Imagine that! Now on Wednesday I thought it was only Tuesday, and today I thought it was the 30th. when in fact it is the 31th... yikes...half a year gone!

I just finished my Floret quilt top for Minis & More...the pattern is by Coriander Quilts and you can see it here.

The fabrics I've used are from Denyse Schmidt collections I got at Joanns back in 2011 and 2012, so they been well aged.

Now the monthly project is called Minis & More and this is a more... quite a bit more...I used 5" squares instead of the 2.5" mini charm squares so these 4 squares measure 45" square. I'm going to made 5 more blocks so the top will be 3 blocks by 3 blocks and with a border this will make a lovely quilt for my double bed.

Michele at Island Life Quilts and Sherri at A Quilting Life will have a parade of the Minis & More in the next couple of days so you can see what everyone else did.

happy stitching-
carol fun

Its a yarn-y kind of day...

I got another sock knitted this week...which is a good thing...except it is another single "looking for love in all the wrong places" sock, instead of a" found my solemate" kinda sock. Oh well, I blame it on the yarn as I couldn't resist casting on this colorway of Blue Moon Socks That Rock to see how it would knit up.

This is Beach Blanket Bingo... a homage (prononced oooo-mage) to Annette Funicello...a quintessential summer delight! This one gave me a little pooling around the ankle...and I'm intrigued with how the "stripes" on the foot seem narrower and closer together than on the leg even though there is the same number of stitches both sections. I wonder what the mate will look like...stay tuned, but don't hold your breath. It may be a while before I get back to this skein as 3 more skeins of BMSTR made an appearance in my mailbox yesterday.

These 3 don't have names other than being classified as Rare Gems. They are one of a kind skeins. I purchased them sight unseen... took a chance... a sort of yarn lottery...and I think I came out a winner. I have high hopes for pooling out of the first skein on the left. I probably wouldn't have chosen the middle skein but I like it and I think it will be pretty too. The last skein on the right I'm not sure of yet. The contrast between the teal and the hunter green isn't as pronounced as in the picture. I'm envisioning a pretty little shawl or perhaps a pair of patterned socks. I think patterned socks are better in more tone on tone kinda yarns.

And then there is this mindless project...Nerine by Drops Design... you can see it here. It is a free pattern.

The yarn is Drops Kid-Silk and it is like knitting a cloud. I'm using the color Sea Green (although to me it is more Sea Turquoise) and you can see all the colors here. I've had to work on keeping my stitches nice and loose. I can be a tight knitter but much improved from my first pair of socks that were so tight they cut off my circulation below the ankle..arghh!! I'm placing the blame for this project on Mary Ann who made sure I saw the pattern...and I couldn't resist.

Have you noticed there is a lot I can't resist where fabric, yarn and floss are concerned? It is good thing that my vices are liquor, drugs and gambling. LOL

Well, I'm waiting for the inspector from Duke to come and look at the electrical work I had done 2 weeks ago. Glad to have this project finished and feel my house is safer for it, although I could have bought a WHOLE LOT of yarn for what it cost me.

hope you have a great weekend!
happy knitting!
carol fun

Wednesday...already???

Boy time sure flies when you aren't looking...I could have sworn it was only Tuesday...oh well I have made a little progress on several projects. First I got two of my blocks sewn together for my Floret quilt. I really like how they look in the Denyse Schmidt fabrics and today on KatyQuilts I found another great scrap quilt idea with the same fabrics... you can check it out here. I have pieces cut for two more blocks and hopefully I'll get them sewn up tomorrow.

And after a week or so of rest I finally got my Farm Girl Vintage Crops table runner quilted. I did that elongated zig zag stitch...quick and easy.

You can see it a bit better on the back.

And here is how it looks on the chest I made it for...

I've got a bird theme going this summer in all my living room decorating, and birds and leaves seem to go together. Well it is raining and that is a good thing. It is suppose to cool us off and drop the temperature and humidity for a day or so. I'd like that, my flowers would like that, and my AC would like that.

I'm linking up with Freshly Pieced today... lots to see over there.

happy stitching-
carol fun

Hey look!!! A Chicken....

Really... among the many projects on my design wall this morning there is a chicken...we'll get to it in a minute. If you've read this blog for any amount of time you know I bounce around like a BB in a boxcar (my sainted Dad's description of me as a child). I haven't changed any.

So at the top of the wall I have the two rows of the Meadow Mist Designs pattern, Looking Glass that I started last week. And below that I have two blocks from a pattern by Coriander Quilts called Floret.

The blocks from the Floret pattern use my stash of Denyse Schmidt fabrics that I have been aging since 2011. There are several collections in these blocks and I like how they have a vintage 50's vibe when combined with a white on white background.

Along with cutting 5" squares for the Floret pattern, I also cut a 2.5" strip from each piece as I'd like to make another 16 patch quilt with these. I recently saw this quilt on Country Threads Chicken Scratch blog made with the new Gardenvale collection by Jen Kingwell and it put me in the mind of some of the Denyse Schmidt fabrics. Since mine have been properly aged and are now "free" fabric I'm feeling virtuous that I'm using fabric I already have to make a quilt, instead of buying a new collection. Oh I am so good... I may dislocate my shoulder patting myself on the back- LOL!

And the chicken... this is from Lori Holt's new book Vintage Farm Girl. On Friday she posted a chicken block with a sawtooth star and I immediately wondered how an Ohio Star would look on the chicken... so I made one.

An Ohio Polka Dot Chicken... I LOVE IT! Which has me bouncing off with an idea for another quilt...there are not enough hours in a day, I tell you.

Hopefully I'll get a lot of sewing time this week. So far there isn't much on my calendar... a dinner with the quilty ladies and a doctor's appointment for my younger son...I hope it stays that way.

happy stitching-
carol fun

Some Summertime Stitching...

Last week included some of the nicest days we've had all summer... temps in the low 80's and low humidity... it was glorious while it lasted...and I helped me with some summertime stitching.

I finished up this little piece on a scrap of some linen I dyed myself. This is from a recent release by Lizzie Kate called Seasons...you can see them all here. I like all of them and plan to stitch them in due time. This one finishes out to about 3" X 4.5". I have an idea about how to finish it but haven't gotten to it yet.

And finishing up that little piece got me to thinking about another summertime project I had started a long long time ago...I think the last time this saw the light of day was 5 years ago! Glad I remembered it!

This it Magic Garden by Shakespeare's Peddler and you can see it here. Now if you take a moment and look at the sampler in the link you are thinking, huh? First off I stitched this on a linen I dyed myself in shades of yellow and orange. I did that because I changed at least half of the colors in this piece. I love the design and the layout but can't for the life of my figure out why certain motifs were stitched in the colors the designer picked. Those flowers on the left hand side look like daylilies to me, and when I think of daylilies I think shades of yellow and orange... they are charted in GA Onyx...okay I've seen dark purple daylilies but I've never seen any black ones. And the carrot on the right... it is charted in GA Raspberry Frost... which is a tiny bit raspberry and a whole lot beige... which makes it look like a dried out parsnip to me. The slice of what I think is watermelon in the middle was charted in GA Hyacinth...purple...again I didn't get it, so I changed it to pink.

So in thinking about this, the title is Magic Garden, and perhaps the designer had a mythical garden in mind, or a garden at midnight...I don't have a clue. I'm happy with my changes as it is certainly a bright summery garden! I think I've got all my floss changes figured out except for random speckles stitched all over the background. The chart call for GA Hyacinth which look good on the linen in the picture but not for my linen. I need to look in my stash for a nice mottled yellow/orange... something a little lighter than the GA Orange Marmalade I used for the daylilies... or perhaps I selectively cut bits and pieces from the Orange Marmalade and use those. Sheesh... sometimes the decisions take longer than the stitching!

Now I'm off to listen to the baseball game until it is time to work on dinner. The talk today is all about whether our star pitcher Johnny Cueto has been traded or not. Last night the story was he was told 10 minutes before the game he was traded, but the deal fell apart. He went out and pitched a stellar game. At lunch time the story was yes he was traded to the Kansas City Royals...but just a little bit ago the story was NOPE... no deal. I have to say the management of the Cincinnati Reds is looking like a bunch of amateurs. I hate to see Johnny go... before I moved to my little house I lived in the same cul de sac as he lives during the baseball season. He is a nice kid... the same age as my older son and he treats his mother very nicely. He bought the house so his mom could come and cook for him during the baseball season. I'd certainly be willing to do that for my son if he as making $10 million a year, wouldn't you? LOL

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

happy stitching-
carol fun


happy stitching-
carol fun

Putzing on Pinterest...

I spend too much time on Pinterest... but if there is a 12 step program to help you stop...I don't want to know about it! LOL The other day I was studying researching wasting time on Pinterest and came across this wreath and here's a link to the directions.

It looked so cool and summery and I wanted a new wreath for my front door and it looked easy and quick... so I jumped in. Here's my version...

Now I couldn't find the turquoise striped mini cupcake liners she used but I did find these multi-color mini cupcake liners in the cake decorating department at Wallyworld. Here's close up of how they look flattened out.

Even though you flatten them out there is a lot of the white reverse side that shows and I'm not sure I like that but I went with it. I added the orange butterflies for some interest.

Now for my caveat on this project... it wasn't too expensive as I already had a Styrofoam wreath and some ribbon. The cupcake liners cost about $1.75 for 100 and I used somewhere between 200 - 250. The pins weren't expensive either until I ran into problems. It takes a while to flatten the liners and pin them into a Styrofoam wreath...I first covered my wreath with some orange ribbon I had on hand. However my choice of straight pins was not ideal. I  picked up some inexpensive short applique pins at Wallyworld thinking I didn't want to go all the way through the wreath. Hmmmm... not good. Not enough length in the pin to get a good bite of the wreath and the small heads sometimes just went through the liner leaving a hole as the liner fluttered to the floor...grrrrrr! So I got more pins, cheap ones with a bigger longer length and large glass/plastic heads and ended up repinning the entire wreath, which effectively made the whole project take twice as long... and therefore while interesting and fairly inexpensive,  it was not a fast project. Live and learn from my mistakes...if I ever make another one I'll just buy pins with the bigger heads the first time around.

I'm not sure how this would hold up to a lot of weather. My wreath hangs on my door behind my storm door on my front porch which is pretty sheltered. I wonder if eventually the humidity may cause the liners to get a bit limp but so far so good.

So go and spent some time studying researching wasting time on Pinterest. I'm sure you'll find some fun stuff. If you want you can always look at my boards... here's a link to the stuff I've collected.

happy stitching and crafting!
carol fun

A new shiny thing...

So, I said I was going to machine quilt the table runner I showed on Monday...ummm... not yet... something else shiny caught my attention and off I went in another direction. I recently purchased this pattern, Looking Glass from Meadow Mist Designs. You can see her patterns here.

And I was up at Fabric Shack on Tuesday and acquired a layer cake of the adorable collection by Ingrid Slyder called Forest Friends. One new pattern plus one new layer cake equals one new quilt started!

I quickly got 2 of the 5 rows on my design wall but had to stop to get dinner together and then I worked in the yard for a while. I'll get back to this tomorrow. In the meantime take a look at these adorable forest creatures...

aren't those the cutest little red foxes you've ever seen?

Even the bear and the skunk seem charming...LOL!   And I love the background fabric with the polka dots. This is the second quilt I've made that I've used grey fabric which comes as a surprise to me as I've always thought that gray was boring. I'm rethinking that opinion... its not boring...it is a nice supporting color for other colors!

I'm linking up with Freshly Pieced today... check out what everyone else is working on... so many quilts I want to make!

happy stitching-
carol fun