Lots and lots and lots of stuff on Slow Sunday Stitching...

 First off ... thank you for all the kind comments about Big Dude's passing... they touched my heart... I still miss him A LOT!  I miss him greeting me at the door when I come home... I miss him waiting for me to haul him up on the bed at night... at times I still think he's just in the other room... I wanted to share the thoughtful gift I got from my son and daughter-in-law... she had this hand painted by an artist she knows...

This canvas is  6" square... such sweetness ... I love how the artist captured his chubbiness! 

And while I was gone it was my birthday...we won't dwell on the number of birthdays that I have passed, will we??  My family hit it out of the park with my present....

This is a one of a kind Cat's Meow village wooden cutout of my house... it is about 3" tall and 7" long... my son took pictures of my house one morning when I was still asleep ... you can see their website here... years ago I collected Cat's Meow village pieces... I think I left them at my old house... they are probably still there in the storage room... anyway I love this piece... my window boxes and the landscaping looks great... was a special gift!!

As for the crafty stuff, well I've been monogamous to Elliott's stocking and I'm happy to reveal that it is just about done...

All I have left to stitch is this little area... the bow on the bear and the mane on the hobby horse...

Now this has not been without drama... about 3 weeks ago it became clear that I was going to run out of wool for the background... I hadn't finished the heel area and I hadn't put a stitch in the area with Elliott's name... so I jumped through hoops to go to the shop I purchased the stocking and the wool from... they didn't have any of this color...they said they would order it... I've checked back with them twice and I've haven't heard a single word.... arghh... so first I went online and found a shop in California that had the wool... I purchased several skeins, but while it was the same color it wasn't the same dye lot and it was noticeably different... ARGGGHHH!!!  So I finally thought to call the other local needlepoint shop to see if they might have some wool ... and THANK YOU LORD... they did ... and it was the same dye lot... I rushed over and bought all they had ... I ended up using 2 of the 3 skeins I bought ... I'm annoyed at the shop I purchased the stocking and wool from for several reasons... first they grossly undersold me the amount of wool I needed. This is why you go to a shop... for expert advice... when I went back to try and get more wool they were not helpful and suggested if  the new wool didn't match it would be okay... NO it wouldn't be okay... and then there is the poor customer service in getting back to me... needless to say I won't be taking it there to get it finished.   The new shop I went to was waaaay friendlier and helpful. 

As for seasonal decorating, I've done quite a bit... the weather here has cooled down nicely... highs in the upper 60's and low 70's... my favorite kind of weather...  I don't have any new Fall stitching to add to the displays this year and I decided to try and mix it up from what it looked like last year... now some pieces are so big they only fit in one spot in my house, but I was able to rearrange things and I'm happy with these updated displays.

The yellow cabinet...

A close up of the Lizzie Kate Autumn piece...

The view across the living room...

The quilt on the back of the couch is called Butterscotch Scrap Jar Stars... I made it back in 2012... and the quilt on the wall is my "original" design... I used a panel from Sandy Gervais' collection called Tranquility and I improv pieced the alternate blocks...

Here's a close up of the tier tray... I'd like to have more cross stitch on this ... need to do some smalls...

I had fun re-doing the shelf unit... I moved things around that were in other places like the wagon and added that picnic tin...

And here are some close up of the shelves...

Here's a view of the sunroom porch decor... so hard to take a picture as the room is only about 7 ft wide and 10 ft long ... but it is a favorite spot of mine to sit and stitch and watch the birds...

I tried to color block these shelves... green on the top, turquoise in the middle and white on the bottom... I wish I had a piece of cross stitch with a Fall theme on a turquoise linen for that middle shelf... I may be able to get something small done after I finish the stocking... fingers crossed...

Also the main function of that crossstitch piece is to obscure the electrical outlet... LOL ... and if I can find a cute white squirrel I'm getting that for the bottom shelf... I think I saw one somewhere but I don't remember ... I did get out to do a little shopping last week... was surprised that several places still didn't have much inventory... only my beloved Hobby Lobby was really well stocked... 

So are you still hanging in there with this giant post???  While I've been monogamous to Elliott's stocking and haven't done any crossstitch, I have done some sewing and got some tops started and a quilt bound ... first is my Fall 2 x 4 quilt... David did a great job on the panto... I picked pumpkins...

I made some new pillowcases to go with quilt... I used fabrics from Sandy Gervais' new collection from Riley Blake... and that pillow with the cute bird and pumpkin came from Hobby Lobby... I ogled for a couple of weeks before I broke down and bought it. 

Here's close up of one of the blocks and the panto...

And Saturday was National Jelly Roll Day... I always love this event and I never have a lack of jelly rolls... I thought long and hard about what I wanted to sew but in the end I couldn't make up my mind and chose between 2 different projects... what to do, what to do??  Well I ended up starting both projects... this first one was a night owl choice... I started around midnight and worked on it till around 2am... pretty much my normal bedtime... 

The fabric is from RJR, a collection from Alex Anderson called Mirage... I have no clue where I got this ... probably somewhere on line... the pattern is TipTop from Melanie at A Bit of Scrap... you can see the pattern here... I'm sashing this with some lime green Grunge from my stash... and I was able to find some yardage of this fabric and got enough of that print on the far left hand side to do a border... 

When I got up on Saturday I switched gears and started my second choice... another Fall quilt... because you CAN NOT have too many Fall  quilts... that's a FACT... like the sun coming up in the East... really, it is...LOL... anyway  delusional thoughts aside, I'm using a 2nd  jelly roll of Sandy Gervais  that I've been letting mature in a plastic bin... it is vintage... the price tag says $27.50... wonder how long ago that was?  I paired it with a new Grunge called Elafin...does anyone know what Elafin means?  It is a pretty color... a nice gold with some rusty red and tan highlights... I like it A LOT... and I'm happy to see another yellow/gold added to the Grunge line... 

This pattern is from a freebie from quiltjane  called Jelly Roll Whirl... you can find the pattern here... and she has several other free jelly roll patterns on her blog... now the pattern has the blocks set straight but I'm liking the look of it on point... I will have to figure out how to complete the pinwheels that would happen on the edges ... and while I thought this would just be a throw, right now there is a high probability that it will be a bed size quilt... because I rarely listen to myself when I say I'll make a throw... LOL... also I ended up adding fabrics from my stash to the jelly roll... I wanted more variety than the jelly roll had...Sandy Gervais did some lovely teals and purples in her later collections  and I wanted to include them... I'm also liking the light pieces ... I think it will make add a bit of sparkle... 

And while I had plenty of other things to work on ( 3 quilts to bind and 2 more quilts that just need backs) I played with another pattern about a week ago... this is one block from a QAL done by Fort Worth Fabric Studio...  here's a link to the all the patterns in the  Absolute Autumn quilt... I only used the acorn...

Each acorn is a different Grunge fabric... it still needs a border... but it is only a throw... so perhaps I can keep quilts down to a reasonable size every now and again... LOL

Soooo... that's what I've been up to... I'm looking forward to doing some crossstitch this upcoming week... while I haven't had time to stitch I have had time to buy some new charts... and there are some old charts I'd like to stitch too... just need more hours in the day...

A side note... didn't Blogger say you could stay with the old format?  I was avoiding changing over but when I logged in today it gave me no choice but to use the new format... I think I've figured it out, but I'm just trying to get it to work the way it use to... I'm an old dog and I don't want to learn any new tricks... fingers crossed that  all the links I put in work... 

I hope things are going well for you... I still have my up days and my down days... between the uncertainty of what's happening in the world and the passing of the Dude there are times I'm fed up with all of it... I am glad that I have my hobbies and my garden... my yard is still looking pretty good... some flowers are fading but my dahlias are just starting to bloom... don't know why they are so late this year... I do have zinnias and cosmos that are taller than me ... and I'm 5 ft... I know the seed packs DID NOT say I'd get such gargantuan flowers... and I didn't even fertilize that much... they are pretty... I was pleased that several people have stopped and told me how pretty my garden is... while I was out watering yesterday a car stopped and two young girls complimented the flowers... that was nice... I do it because I enjoy the flowers but it is nice to know that others enjoy it too. 

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts and check up what everyone else is up to... I'm sure I'll see something that catches my eye ... and leads me down a path to something else I'd like to do... take care...

happy stitching-carol fun 

Both Sad & Glad on Slow Stitching Sunday...

Hello - I know, I know... it was been a while since I checked in here... 2 weeks ago I had nothing blogworthy to talk about... and last week was a difficult one where I didn't want to talk... that said, let me get the sad news out of the way and then I can end on a happy note...

If you've read this blog for any time at all you've seen pictures of the world's most awesome cat, Big Dude...I'm sad to tell you that last week Big Dude went over the rainbow bridge... I knew he was slowing down... I've had him for 10 years but he entered my life as a full grown stray, so he was at least 11 - 12 years old, maybe older... he stopped eating and drinking and his breathing became quite labored... I took him to the vet who diagnosed congestive heart failure... nothing could be done, so I had to make the call to have him put to sleep... it broke my heart. Luckily the vet allowed me and my son Chris to stay with him till the end...I can hardly type this without getting weepy... I catch glimpses of him every where I turn in this little house... he was a constant companion and the house is empty without him... he was a legend who inspected my work and kept watch over the bird feeders from his perch on the back of the couch...

Rest in peace my sweet boy...

So I'll dry my tears for a bit here and shift to some crafty stuff...  I'm been monogamously stitching on Elliott's stocking...

got LOTS of the background done... realized the other day that the train I wanted to stitch in the space where I painted out the present, is too big to fit... arghh... need to come up with another plan... and get Elliott's name graphed for the top ....

And I spent some time with my sewing machine and put together another version of the 2 x 4 quilt done with a jelly roll this time...here's a link to the free pattern on Cluck Cluck Sew ....

I started with a vintage jelly roll from Sandy Gervias called "Fall Back in Time"... price on the tag, hand written, $27.50.... I did add bits and pieces from other Sandy Gervias Fall fabric collections and I alternated the 2 x 4 blocks with some Chiffon Grunge... this is gold-ier in real life... 

I began making blocks that paired 2 fabrics... 

and about halfway in I switched it up and made scrappier ones...

I really love the scrappy ones...

I'm putting this in the mail today to Quilting by David... I picked a panto with pumpkins...  hope to have it on my bed by mid-September. 

On the decorating scene I have 2 more vignettes to share... first is my display box in my kitchen... I continued the chicken theme in here with a bit of Pineberry Lane cross stitch and some Rae Dunn pieces and some chicken cookie jars...

And on the small yellow cabinet in the living room, more chickens mingle with a cross stitch pillow from Nikyscreations called Summer Scissors Sampler....

Not much on the calendar for this week... dinner with Chris and his family tonight... dinner with friends Monday night... weather hot, humid and no rain... want to stay focused on finishing Elliott's stocking but may spent some time quilting... I want to play with an idea I saw  here  on Instagram .... 

This is the Disappearing 9 Patch pattern done with layer cakes.... I sewed together 9  10" blocks like I would for a Disappearing 9 Patch and realized that it will be almost impossible to cut the resulting 29" block on my cutting table. I'm going to try again by cutting the layer cakes into 5" x 10" pieces and 5" x 5" pieces along with 10" squares and assemble blocks that way... we shall see how it  turns out.  I think it would make a nice quilt with my American Jane fabrics... I have at least a half dozen I  her layer cakes...and a new collection is coming any day now... 

Well I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts today... may sit on the sunroom porch and needlepoint a while... I love sitting out there but oh I miss having the Dude's company with me... I believe he thought I had the space enclosed just for him... and maybe I did...

Hope you have a great week ahead...

happy stitching-

carol fun

Spinning my wheels on a Slow Stitching Sunday...

Hello - so where have I been the past two weeks?  Absolutely nowhere... stuck close to home and it hasn't done anything to improve my mood about Covid.  At least the weather has been very nice the last week ... finally lower temperatures and humidity.  I've spent every minute I could sitting out on my sunroom porch. I've shut off the AC and opened the windows ... perhaps it will make this month's bill slightly lower than the gargantuan one I got for July... yikes... and then there was the water bill... both were the biggest bills I've gotten for utilities in the last 7 years.  I will say my flowers are looking good... the lawn... well, Mother Nature needs to pay a bit more attention... it could use some water...

As for crafty stuff, I've been almost totally monogamous to Elliott's stocking... my goal right now is to have it off to the finisher no later than mid-September... here's the back of the stocking right now...

And here is the front...

I got all the of the stuff in the sack, and the sack itself stitched. I did that arch around the window, the white trim on Santa's coat (although there is going to have to be some back stitching around that candy in his pockets),  the rockers on the rocking horse and a bit of background. I've decided to go with a dusty blue for the background... Bella Lusso yarn in colorway 563, cornflower.  And I went and painted out one of the packages and the rug and the decorations on the bows of the packages.  I'm going to stitch a train engine where the one package was and I'm just having bows on the other packages.  I'm copying the train from my son's stocking. Hopefully Elliott will love trains as much as his Daddy does.

And my mood had me procrastinating about putting away the patriotic decor and getting out my chickens... but yesterday I got my butt in gear and re-did the living room.  I like the chickens as a late summer display, but I'm looking forward to September and the Fall stuff... I LOVE LOVE LOVE FALL!!! But enough of that tangent... here's what I've got...

Now, the quilt on the wall is the same one I displayed last year... the flower and leaf blocks are from  Lori Holt's Farm Girl Vintage  book and the chicken is from Cluck Cluck Sew's appropriately titled pattern called Chickens.  I machine appliqued the chicken on after the quilt was quilted.

And the quilt on the back of the sofa is even older... I used  a portion of it as my blog header (and I really should figure out how to make it bigger there)... It is called Dotty Chickens with a Fried Egg border... circa 2001...

I like using the back of the sofa as another display area... I have a little house so not a lot of wall space.  I don't remember what pattern I used for the chickens... maybe one from Country Threads... I know the alternate blocks were my idea, as was orienting the chickens in different directions... and the eggs are just a snowball block with a yolk appliqued on... really simple.

Along with the wall quilt I have my tier tray...

lots and lots of chickens... I'd like to add some cross stitch to this display but I don't think it's gonna happen this year... I'm committed to the stocking (and yes I do need to keep telling myself that so I don't wander off into another project... I could easily find myself getting sidetracked by some new shiny thing... shiny things are soooooo seductive...LOL)

And I used several pieces from Pineberry Lane on my shelf display along with an assortment of chickens and a vintage picnic tin...

Here are some close ups ...

And no I didn't learn my lesson about that straw... it will go everywhere and be a pain in the butt to clean up ... but I LOVE it... and I'll use it in my Fall and Halloween and Thanksgiving displays so I don't have to think about cleaning it up till December... and then I'll break out the fake snow...followed by Easter grass... OMG... I never learn my lesson... LOL... good thing I have a great vacuum cleaner.

I still am working on two other smaller displays... I want to get back to my sewing machine and make 2 smaller table toppers using my American Jane fabrics. Hopefully that will happen this week. And I'd love to get some of those quilts languishing in my sewing room bound... and I want to start a Fall quilt for my bed... and I'm pretty obsessed with Elliott's stocking (see another reminder to myself) ... so many many things I want to do!!! Need to spend less time on the internet and more time with needles and thread.

So I've been up and down lately where Covid is concerned... it is nice to be able to go out and shop and eat in restaurants again, but it has been depressing to see the number of places that have closed up. Last week 2 of the places I shopped online went out of business ... and Friday I saw that one of the locations of a fast food Italian place we like and a Panera's near by it were gone too.  I understand the need to wear masks and socially distance but the demands to keep things shutdown until it is "safe" never seem to end... how many people need to go hungry?, or lose their jobs?, or their life savings?, or go bankrupt?, until people feel "safe"... life is not without risks... The unending nature of this situation is wearing me down... I want to look forward to a vacation or a quilt show or something fun and there is nothing on the horizon... I know I'm waaay better off than lots of people in this situation, but I want to see people's faces again and see that they are happy.  A local church has a marquee and puts up a positive quote each month... this month it says "Peace begins with a smile" - Mother Teresa... What a lovely sentiment... but since I can't see anyone's smile nor can they see mine I'm not sure this helps... okay... I'll climb down off the soapbox.

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts today... doing dinner with my older son's family ... carryout from somewhere... and think my younger son and I will go for a walk in the park... and perhaps stop for an ice cream sundae... cause it is a Sunday... LOL... corny joke...

Hope you have a good week ahead... other than babysitting on Tuesday my week has nothing going... not sure if that is a good thing... but I'm hoping to stitch some more on the stocking and spend time with my sewing machine... we shall see how it all turns out.

happy stitching-
carol fun

Quality time with my sewing machine...

Hello all - well last week was very nice... lots of good things happened... let me fill you in. When I was here last Sunday I said I had my fingers crossed that my son's house would sell before today... and it is sold... in fact, it sold in less than 24 hours, above asking price... the agent came and took pictures around noon on Sunday and didn't get them uploaded till around 4:30pm... within 15 minutes of it being listed they had a showing booked for that night... and before the night was over they had 2 more showings with appointments for a dozen more on Monday. They got their first bid by 7pm on Sunday ... and in the end they closed off the bids and the showings at 5pm on Monday when they had 5 bids... all for over the asking price. Now I knew the market was hot but I didn't realize that now days the asking price is a starting point, not the ending, and I thought the agent started at too low a price point... if I had been the agent I'd have started about $5K higher. They even had one bid sight unseen for more than the asking price but the buyer was upfront in that he was purchasing it to be rental property. My son and daughter-in-law would like it to stay owner occupied so they refused his bid. What surprised me was that every bid waived an inspection... OMG... I've never purchased a house without having it inspected. Now I assume people figured it would be fine because my son did disclose that the basement leaks some times and that they had done some work to mitigate that problem. Any other issue would have been cosmetic ... so now it is a done deal... they close the end of August.

And on the weather front we got some rain... oh we needed it... my grass is still a bit brown but I have my fingers crossed for more rain later this week and a forecast of lower temperatures. I even heard a long range forecast for a cooler August ... 80s being cooler than 90s... I'll take it!!

On the crafty front I was monogamous to  Elliott's stocking...  it is easier to see my progress on the back than on the front...

last week...

this week...

I got that garland and the ornaments at the top done, the blue bow on the package Santa is holding and all the silver garland on the tree.  I know these pictures are terribly interesting to you guys but they do let me look back and see if I made any progress.

I was able to make and appointment and go to the needlepoint shop Monday morning... got some more decorative threads and wool for the background.  I confirmed it has to be stitched by October to get finished by Christmas...

And I spent some quality time with my sewing machine this week. First I got my flag quilt assembled except for the borders...

This is my favorite flag...

All these fabrics are vintage Debbie Mumm...  I love the button prints and the little flags... I think the star fabric I used for the sashing was actually from a Christmas collection but it looks pretty patriotic here.  Oh, the pattern I used was a free one you can find here on Amy Smart's blog. Very easy to sew up...

And while I should have finished up the flag quilt something else shiny came along and I HAD TO DO IT!!!   I totally missed that this quilt was a SAL on Instagram not long ago ... but when I did find out about it I raced to my favorite local quilt shop, Homegrown, Homesewn  to purchase fabric for it... all Basic Grey Grunge... and here is my version of the Jumbo Spider quilt pattern from Pen and Paper Patterns... here's a link to her stuff and  you can see lots of the quilts that were made here.

It is a brighter green than is showing up in the picture... I thought the polka dot was a fun background and I got the Grunge Glitter for the spider and the web...

and instead of the eyes being pieced I'm going to put those googly eyes on after I get it quilted.  I want a spider web panto for this one... it is going to be so cute on the wall in my living room for Halloween!!

Then I got back to the quilts I wanted to get bound... I got 2 finished which was my goal ... first I got the binding on the biggest one I had waiting... my 2x4 yellow scrap quilt... here it is on my bed, freshly laundered... oh I LOVE the texture...

Here's a close up of one of my favorite blocks... little red polka dotted chickens...

I even made some new pillowcases to go with this quilt... I found this rose fabric in my stash.. I love the vintage look of it...

And I got the binding on my "Good Girl" quilt too... I have it draped over the chair in my bedroom...

A nice cozy spot to sit and read  in a lovely sunny room...

I still have 3 more quilts to bind and  I want to get the backs sewn for 2 Christmas tops... trying to get ahead of the holidays.  I hope to have some sewing time this week... my son has a dentist appointment, I babysit one day and we have dinner plans for  tomorrow night... I should call and see if I can get the oil changed in my car but nothing else is pressing at the moment.

Since I haven't gotten this posted yet on Sunday ... its almost 10pm... and I have a lot of quilting content for a change...I'm going to link up in a couple of places... Kathy's Quilts, Love Laugh Quilt,  and Small Quilts and Doll Quilts.

Hope you have a good week ahead... lots of time to do the things you want to do!!

happy stitching-
carol fun