A case of Spring-y startitis on a Slow Sunday...

 Hello... well last week was a good week... the weather overall was lovely...we had a couple of stellar days and now are having a weekend of seasonal temps - upper 50's, low 60's -  and the forecast for this week is mid-60's and no rain... we still aren't past the cut off for no chance of frost... which keeps me from buying annuals... well that the fact that I haven't seen anything more than a hanging basket of petunias  for sale, as far as annuals go. I expect lots of inventory will come in starting this week as Mother's Day is in  3 weeks ... and I can hardly wait to buy petunias and marigolds and coleus and cleome and sedum and lavender and you get the idea.

However, I don't have a  lot of open space in my garden beds yet. The daffodils need to die back and the alliums  are coming on really strong... they definitely mutliplied and they are taking up a lot of space.  But that won't keep me from filling up my window boxes and other pots and those new raised beds. There will be lots to do... in the meantime my energy has been bouncing around in my basement sewing room and a bad case of startitis developed... I started not ONE, not TWO, but THREE new quilt projects... and here's where it all is right now.

Let's break it down... first we have these 8 spool blocks all done in Tilda's... the block is the Biscuit quilt,  from the It's Sew Emma  book called Simply Jelly Rolls... except I'm not using a jelly roll, I'm fussy cutting  each 2.5" piece and trying to gradate the colors...

I have 10 blocks done and I want to make 20 for a nice size throw... so far I'm not having any trouble  making gradations, but there may be some fabrics that get repeated.. and I'm having all my spools in a vertical orientation so the directional prints are right side up... makes my OCD happy!!

Here's some close ups...

I was putting away the fabrics from the Kim Brackett quilt I'm calling daffodils and I got to thinking how much I like to make yellow scrap quilts. The daffodil one is scrappy ... 32 different yellow fabrics... and my stash of yellows is pretty substantial... and I want to play some more with them and with my low volumes... 

I was laying in bed one night thinking about this and came up with the idea of 10" sawtooth stars in a positive/negative configuration... oooooohhh  I like this.... I like this A LOT!!

So far I've only done 4 blocks... currently I envision this as a quilt for my full size bed... 9 blocks wide and 9 blocks long... 81 different  blocks... I may revise this idea but in the meantime it is FUN and gives me an opportunity to go visit a couple of quilt shops to add in some new yellows and low volumes.

And then I was just minding my own business when I got an email from FQS talking about an upcoming SAL with the new Fig Tree Quilt book, Strawberry Garden. They are going to be doing the bow tie pattern...now I have no idea what size their block is but I'm happy with an 8" finished block...and I'm making it scrappy and green!!

I may post these to IG for the SAL but it depends on how long my enthusiasm lasts... I'm awful at SALs ... I start out all excited and then another shiny block comes along and I'm off on another tangent... there are just so many many many many many many many many things I want to do!!!  Every bow tie will be a different green fabric but the background fabric will be the same as I have 5 yards of that white with the little green flower. Don't remember why I bought 5 yards of this... maybe it was on sale??  Who knows... but my current plan (always subject to revision...LOL) is to do 56 bow ties... 7 across and 8 down and then a nice border of the background fabric. So far with just these 10 blocks I have several wildly different styles of fabrics... there is a bow tie in Tilda fabrics (it was sitting on my cutting table with the stash I'm using for the spools)... and there is a piece from Lori Holt, those little scissors on green... and some really old fabrics... one from KP Kids and another from a collection by I think Cheri Saffiote... I'm going to do at least one bow tie with Kaffe fabrics and one with Debbie Mumm and one with American Jane and one with Momo and one with Cathe Holden and one with Jen Kingwell  and on and on and one... I love rummaging through my fabrics  and remembering all the wonderful fabric collections I've gotten a piece or two of... 

 I'm feeling virtuous as 2 of these projects I only plan to do a throw size quilt...fingers crossed I can stay virtuous... I have my doubts... LOL

As for cross stitching I had plans to get the pear and the little house from Pinker n Punkin FFO'd...but it didn't happen... maybe today... I only stitched on one project (perhaps this was to balance out the startitis down in my sewing room)... I finished the top square of Faith, Hope, Piece and Love from Teresa Kogut...

it is so hard to accurately capture the color of this linen... think DMC 470 ... 

 I like the additions of the peach flosses for the flowers and I filled in the house. I frogged the letters and restitched them in 842... not sure but I may frog them again and go back to the called for 841... just got a bit of stitching in on the second block... I'm feeling a bit antsy so I may start another chart... we shall see.

As for decor, well I'm still tweaking my displays but I did change up the quilts on my bed... 

I moved the tulip quilt to the foot board and put on my American Jane quilt from the pattern Simple Pleasures by Brenda Riddle... now each block is comprised of 49 squares and the pattern is written for strip piecing with a jelly roll but I individually cut all the squares so I could make every square a different fabric... and yes I never do anything the easy way... LOL

Some of my favorite squares are yellow (surprise surprise surprise) and   include a teddy bear...

and an elephant  in the little yellow square...

and letters and chickens and a cat and paper doll clothes and polka dots on yellow... as Julie Andrews sang... these are a few of my favorite things!

 

I hope to have some sewing and stitching time this week but I never know how the days will play out until they do. I'm babysitting Elliott  for our regular Tuesday and on Thursday evening so his parents can to out to dinner and celebrate their wedding anniversary. I have an appointment to get my hair cut and colored on Wednesday. And next Saturday we are doing a dim sum brunch for my younger son's birthday ... he'll be 34... time flys exceedingly fast... 

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts and then spend some time reading blogs as I sit out on sunroom porch... no plans to go anywhere except maybe a trip to our favorite soft serve ice cream place... flavor of the week is a cherry Dole Whip... I have them add those mini chocolate chips... sooooo good!! Hope you have a great week ahead filled with time to do the stuff you want to do!!

happy stitching-

carol fun 

Busy busy busy, but not a bunch to show on a Slow Sunday...

 Hello ...well I knew last week was going to be a busy one ... lots of social times... several lunches and a birthday party... along with babysitting... which I also knew that meant there wouldn't be a lot of time to do crafty stuff... and there wasn't... however the upcoming week looks promising for crafty time... fingers crossed.

Monday was the solar eclipse day... Nick and I opted to just stay put and see what we saw from our front porch... we didn't get 100% totality but it was pretty close... it didn't go totally dark but it was definitely "dusky" and the temperature dropped... it was exciting to see. My older son took his family a bit north of here and they did get to see the totality and the corona... Elliott was suitably impressed... they spent several hours waiting for the event in a lovely park which had anticipated lots of visitors and had set up an inflatable obstacle course for the kids to play on and there was free water and cupcakes ... they had a great time and avoided most of the traffic by keeping to the back roads which my son is very familiar with. By about 11am here the expressways going west were already bumper to bumper and the eclipse didn't start till after 2 pm... glad I didn't go  anywhere...

Tuesday I had a lovely time ...lunch with friends and a trip to Delinda the long arm quilter... I picked up this quilt... 

I'm calling it Kaffe's  Spools but the pattern is actually titled Banana Split from the book The Cake Mix Quilt book by Sew Emma... I love the grunge background..it  is the color way Pear... and the panto is called Whirling Swirls... 

 and get a load of this back fabric... it was a 108" wide and has a very sateen quality.

Wednesday was spent with Elliott... we went to  McDonalds and then spent the afternoon watching Number Block videos... it's his current fav and was the theme for his birthday parties... there were 3... one a school , one with family, and one with some neighborhood friends... he is a very lucky boy... 

Thursday I thought I had nothing on my agenda but then my neighbor Sylvia asked if she and her daughter Cecelia could come up and would I help them with a table runner project  that is going to be a retirement gift for one of Cecelia's co- workers... and this is what we collaborated on...

yes I see that there is a HST turned the wrong way on the right side... I'll fix that before added some sashing in the middle and down the sides.

Friday I went to lunch with my quilty lady friends and then they came back to my house so we could talk and eat pie... Stephie brought a Key Lime pie... it was delicious!  Then the evening was spent celebrating Elliott's 5th birthday... 

I've started a tradition of wrapping his birthday and Christmas presents in a themed pillow case ... this year I chose Star Wars as I've found several cool Star War Lego sets...this is a quick way to wrap multiple gifts and he likes pulling things out of the "magic" pillowcase as he call it...

and this pillow case has some history too it...

now the Star Wars fabric came from Hobby Lobby last week but that red cuff with the shooting stars... that is about 35 years old... a VIP Cranston print ... and I used it in the first quilt I made for Elliott's daddy... I still have the quilt... it was a train and the pattern came from Quilter's Newsletter... do you remember that magazine?  At the time it was the premier quilting publication and I anxiously awaited ever monthly issue... sigh... I miss good magazines... I don't have any subscriptions anymore... I occasionally pick up a magazine at the grocery  but lots of times I flip through them and put them back on the rack... 

So that brings me to Saturday and I'm writing this as I sit out on my sunroom porch... the weather this week was primarily gray and dreary... except for the eclipse day which was 70 and sunny... thanks for the little gift Mother Nature... today it appears we may have turned the corner on weather... sunny, very breezy but upper 60's and a forecast for 70's for the rest of the week... along with some crafty time I will be scoping out the garden centers... I can't wait to plant up my window boxes and some big pots... I will restrain myself from putting stuff in the ground as I'm not safe from frost till mid May... 

As you can tell there wasn't a lot of crafty endeavors... I did stitch a pear from the Annie Beez pattern Spring Green Pears... 

now the kinda bumpy lump is a test run of how to assemble this... there should be a stem and some leaves which I didn't bother with at the moment.  The instructions on the pattern left me scratching my head but I was able to find these great instructions on the blog Jo's Country Junction... you can find them here.  I was hoping to display the fabric pear but I'm not sure now...  I'm thinking part of the problem is that fabric is too busy for this ... hard to see the outline of the pear... but I do get how to put it together...

And I couldn't resist starting  the Teresa Kogut Patreon piece Faith, Hope, Peace and Love...

This isn't a great capture of the color of the linen... the green is pretty vibrant...not washed out... very close to DMC 470... if I get this square done  before next Sunday take a pic in daylight and  I'll post a pic to IG... 

Anyway, I'm very happy with my additions of floss... love the peachy pink and I think the called for blues pop nicely against the olive green linen... it is hard to see but in real life there are splotches of tan which go well with all the tan/beige flosses.  And can I say that I really really really LOVE stitching on 32 ct... the pear was one ply of silk on 36ct... it does give nice coverage but I have trouble seeing the holes even with strong magnification and I didn't enjoy the process... 32 ct is my sweet spot... and I'm gonna stay with it. 

I was surprised when I watched Teresa's latest Flosstube... she showed my finish of her chart Remember Me and had some very nice words to say about it... you can watch the Flosstube here ... and my sampler shows up around the 37 minute mark.  Here is the sampler again in case you missed it...

As for decor I did get all of the bunnies back into their plastic bins and I broke out the birds... and I also brought out some brightly colored quilts that haven't seen the light of day for a while... it is nice to change things up...  here's the small shelf display unit... right now it is the only display that I feel is totally complete... I have little things I still want to add to other displays ...

Up top I have a sunny yellow table runner ... all those squares are different tone on tone yellows... I'm still displaying that little tulip quilt as the tulips are just coming up here is SW Ohio... the cross stitched bird pulling the cart is from Homespun Elegance...

 and the little beaded alphabet pillow is  Hello Spring from Sub Rosa Designs.

The two shelves below are loaded with cross stitch... front left to right is Good Deeds from With Thy Needle and Thread, in the middle is Welcome, dear August from the Blackbird Design book In Friendship's Way and on the right side is the very first cross stitch piece I ever did!!

On the bottom shelf I have Brite Birds by Kathy Barrick is is a freebie you can find here... in the middle is the tulip pincushion from the book Thank you Sarah Tobias  by Blackbird Designs and  Bobbin' Along by Not Forgotten Farms. 

I would have stitched this piece in 1985... it came as a kit... and true to my habits of never leaving well enough alone I changed out the Aida for a sage-y green color and added the word Nesting... I had just given birth to my first child and I was deep into nesting...

Hopefully this week I'll get the Tulip House from Pinker n Punkin FFO'd and the Annie Beez pear... I'm itching to start a new quilt project... actually 2 new quilt projects... I want to play with my Tilda fabrics and right now I'd like to make a bed sized quilt with the pattern  Coffee Quilt., from the It's Sew Emma book  Perfect 10 Quilts and I'd like to make a throw size quilt, again with my Tilda fabrics, using the pattern  Biscuit Quilt from the It's Sew Emma book Simply Jelly Rolls. I have yardage of a pretty low volume fabric I picked up at Hobby Lobby this week that I want to use as background on both quilts. If you look back at the picture of the pears you can see the fabric I'm talking about.   I'd like to have the bed sized quilt on my bed...duh... and the throw to throw over the chair in the corner. I really like having multiple quilts using the same fabrics ... similar, yet different...

And after dithering over whether to add borders to the blocks from the Kim Brackett book, Scrap-Basket Sensations, that she called Flowers for Nana's Girl and I'm calling the daffodil quilt ... (pause take a breath ..LOL) I decided to forgo them... now it probably would look a bit better but I want to display this on my living room wall next Spring and if I add borders it will be too big to fit the display space. Instead I will do a wider binding... maybe with a little flange... I'm very happy with this top but I'm ready to move on to something else. 

So other than watching Elliott on Tuesday ... and making several visits to my neighborhood soft serve ice cream stand that has pineapple Dole Whip on them menu this week... I don't have any definitive plans for my upcoming week. The weather forecast is wonderful... sunny... temps in the 70's... the kind of weather you can open the windows and air the house out... and turn off the furnace and deprive Duke energy of a few pennies... my chair out out here on the sunroom porch is quite comfy...and the lighting  is great to stitch by... and I can watch my bird feeders... just saw a cardinal which always makes me think of my loved ones who have passed... and I say a prayer for them and me and you...

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts today... I've discovered a couple of new to me blogs that are fun to read... I even figured out how to add one to my side bar... LOL... I really should try to clean it up and post a new header but I'm terrified of messing it up and not being able to get back into the blog... I'm just tech savvy enough to get myself into trouble but not out of trouble... and now that I've checked on my blog format somehow I messed something up... it is only showing 10 blogs and when I click on "Show All" I'm not getting any more to show... drat drat drat... 

edited to add - this morning when I hit "Show All" it shows all of the blogs on the list...yeah!

I hope you have a lovely week ahead... good weather makes everything better for me... my mood improves and my aches and pains seem to subside a bit... and I truly love seeing all of the flowering trees right now... so many pretty pinks and creamy white and peachy ones... I'd love to have more trees in my yard but I've run out of yard! I have fantasies of purchasing the house next door to mine so I could garden in that back yard along with what I have now... they are the kind of neighbors that mow the grass but don't do much else with their yard... and I'd love to have a couple more raised beds ... oh I can dream...

happy stitching-

carol fun 

What to do? What to doooo?? on a Slow Sunday...

 Hello-  I hope you all had a lovely Easter... we had a yummy meal with family a great dessert... my DIL's mother made a Pavlova, which was divine! ... and lots of enjoyable conversation... and it was so much fun we are going to do another version of it this coming Friday to celebrate Elliott's 5th birthday.... oh my goodness, where does the time go???  Last I heard the theme for the party was Number Blocks... it is an animated series Elliott is super into... along with reciting numbers and adding numbers and counting to 100 by 2's and 5's and 10's and multiplying numbers by 10 and informing you that 1 million is a 1 with 6 zeros and that is a VERY VERY big number... LOL   I found some cool looking Star Wars fabric at Hobby Lobby the other day... need to make a pillow case to "wrap" his present... and the way I'm moving I'll be making it right before the party...

Oh my there are just so so so  many many many things I want to do right now... and I really really really want to do them NOW!!  But I only have 2 hands and  there are only 24 hours in the day... where to start?  I'm just gonna jump in...

I'm writing this on Saturday afternoon as I sit on the sunroom porch... Mother Nature is marginally cooperating and while the temperature isn't that warm at least there is sun today and I want to enjoy it. I also want to put away the bunnies and break out my birds... but there are other things I think I need to get to before that... like this quilt...

There is one looooooong diagonal seam left to join the upper and bottom halves... 

and when I added those pretty connector corner "leaves" that make a star,  it did not occur to me that  I was adding extra points that would need to be matched...

and I will say that my standards of what is good enough have dropped significantly as I've put this together... if it doesn't look good on the first pass, I am picking it out and trying again... and I've had pretty good luck with that, but sometimes it requires a third  try... arghh... I want to have this sewn up and the borders on by Monday night as I already have an meet up at Delinda the long-armer scheduled for Tuesday lunchtime...  

Oh a tangent... are you in the path of the solar eclipse?  I'm on the edge of 100% totality... to be certain that one would see 100% totality one would have to drive a bit northwest of Cincinnati... and I could do that ... but I'm not sure I will... I'll still be able to see pretty much from my front yard... I have my eclipse glasses and right now the weather forecast says it won't be cloudy... it will be a last minute decision about what to do... was checking with my older son and he had been thinking of driving a bit north, but he's still on the fence now too. 

Okay back to  the quilting... along with taking the yellow quilt I'm taking up 2 panels  that I want quilted so I can hang them in my back hallway... first is this one I found online not to long ago by the designer Marcia Derse...

I love this collage ephemera look... and I'm thinking a graphic panto... maybe a chevron pattern...

And then I opened a drawer to shove something in it the other day and found this panel by Carrie Bloomston... I have no clue when I bought this and  had totally forgot about it... again it has that collage ephemera vibe...

I'm thinking this needs some kinda butterfly panto ...

I'm still debating what quilt project to pick up next...got lots of plastic bins with UFO's that are interesting... but before that I want to make a table runner with these little 9 patches done in Tilda fabrics...

remember there was a SAL for these?  It started back at the beginning of the year... and my commitment to the project was extremely short... like nanoseconds short...  anyway,  I think what I have here is enough to do a table runner for the small display shelf in the living room... and this will sort of fulfill my goal of doing something with some of the giant stash of Tilda fabrics I have...sheesh... letting myself off easy here...

As for cross stitch... oh what an embarrassment of riches I have... first I did finish  The Red Bird Sampler by WTN&T... this makes the 3rd month in a row I've finished  sampler... now in January I did the Prairie Schooler Christmas ABC's from start to finish... in February I went back and picked up the Prairie Schooler Garden Sampler I started back in September as part of the ill-fated "7 for my 70th"... and  The Red Bird was about 2/3rd done when I picked it up in March... according to my notes it was started back in January of 2022... some things take longer than others... 

I put my initials in the center... and on the bottom row I put the maiden initials of my Mom... PD - Phyllis Damon and the maiden  initials of my Grandma ... CW -  Catherine Wasser.  I chose their maiden initials as I still use my maiden name... I'm very happy with this one and when I was at Hobby Lobby the other day I saw some pretty moldings in the framing department...need to watch for a sale or coupon and get this one framed.

I'm also pleased with myself that I stitched up this darling house from Melisa at Pinker n Punkin Quilting & Stitching  in less than 2 weeks.... this is her Tulip House... I stitched this on 16 ct Aida painted with a pale Apple Green Rit Dye...

now the house was charted in yellow... my favorite color for a house...but I changed the flosses and went lighter... I was envisioning lemon meringue pie (my favorite) and I've made the tulips more peachy pinky and the greens more olive-y and the blues more turquoise-y... now to get this FFO'd so I can add it to the Spring displays... this makes the second house for the hashtag  #pnpsixhouses2024sal... 4 more to go an plenty to chose from... think I'l make one or two of the patriotic houses. 

And now I will move onto the decision dilemma I find myself in ... sooooo many things I  want to stitch RIGHT NOW!!!  

Any and all of the following charts would look great added to my Spring displays ...and yes I want  to stitch ALL of them but I don't think that is possible... maybe if I don't work on any other  large sampler but there are a couple of them calling my name ...  and I'll show you the newest shiny one I can't wait to start here in a minute... 

Anyway there is Blooming Tiny Town...this would look great on my dining table...

And these adorable robins by WTN&T... I LOVE birds and birds dressed up in cute clothes are simply irresistible!

And there is this chart called Pollinator's Garden by October House ... I'm envisioning a shorter version that I could display  on the phone book shelf of the telephone niche in my hallway... and it looks like a quick stitch that I can just pull floss from my stash...

And there are these pears... as you can see I have all 3 patterns from Annie Beez... each chart has an alphabet pear and those are what  I want to stitch ...

and I want to stitch them all on a green fabric, like real pears... this is a 36 ct linen I dyed with Apple Green Rit dye and I have some silk and some Sulky to try for the floss... now on one side it is quite wrinkly mottled looking...

and on the other side is it mottled but not as much... 

I think the real wrinkly looking side is quite interesting but I'm not sure it would play well with the stitching... and I MUST find a cute little compote dish to display these in!! Check out the bottom right corner of the Spring Green pear pattern... I MUST find a cute little dish like that... maybe 2 or 3!!

But wait... like that Ginsu knife commercial there is MORE... a couple of months ago  I'm signed up for Teresa Kogut's Patreon and I was considering dropping the membership, as all the charts she releases there will eventually be released to the public ... and then she posted the charts you have access to as a True Blue Whimsy for April and I was a goner... first one that caught my eye was this ornament..

and then there is this band sampler...

and this little piece titled Faith... I'll bet there will be a Hope and Love before long...

and who doesn't identify with this one....

but this is the one that knocked my socks off... 

now I'm going to do this as a long vertical piece and stack each of those quadrants...I'm going to stitch it on this piece of linen that I had dyed for some other chart in my stash ... it's a lovely olive green with some kinda bronze-y brown  patches ... and along with the colors that were charted, I pulled some extra colors I want to add ...here's my floss toss...

And while I know I really don't need another BIG project... I also know I'm gonna start this one as soon as possible.  I like to come up with a bit of a plan for myself each month and have one or two doable goals I can  accomplish... the last 3 months it has been to finish a sampler... I don't think this one is doable in one month ...and lets not forget the Summer Schoolhouse series by WTN&T that I started on Leap Year Day... at this point in time my goal for that one is the end of February 2025... seems reasonable, right?  I think I should focus on one or two of the smaller Spring-y charts and perhaps gets one quadrant of this  done...  now to pick which two... the pears would be quick to stitch but then there is the FFO-ing... Tiny Town and the Pollinator's would also be quick stitching and I plan to FFO them as long pillow like a Tootsie roll wrapper or a English Christmas cracker... I did that at Christmas with Lizzie Kate string... and the robins might fit into a frame, which is a super easy finish... decision dilemma...what to do? what to do??

I will ponder this as I put away the bunnies and get out the birds ... I'm not going to hold myself to the goal of getting another sampler done this month... unless a real small one sneaks in... all the WIP samplers still have a ways to go. I remember back to when I first started cross stitching and my focus was only samplers with houses... each chart had to have an alphabet and a house...somehow I thought this would limit my choices... insert ROFLMAO...over and over and over... at last count I've stitched over 100 samplers with houses and I'm not gonna stop!!  And then in the last 10 years I fell down the rabbit hole of seasonal stitching and changing up my decor... I blame Priscilla of Stitchin' with the Housewives for this ... and while I get torn between samplers and seasonal I sure do LOVE both genres... cross stitching today is so much more than it was 38 years ago when I stitched my first little piece... it was a bird in a nest that was a kit and the first thing I did was toss out the fabric and pick another Aida... that might have been an omen for what was to come as I rarely stitch anything on the called for fabric. Before I got into painting and dyeing my own linen I was always selecting linen that was more colorful than the pattern was stitched on. I've always felt this was a way to put a bit of my own personal touch on a piece... and in these later years I've gone further and further afield on my choices of linens and flosses... and that is so much FUN!!

So now that I've totally talked waaay too much  I'll direct you to check out the posts on Kathy's Quilts and hope you have a wonderful week ahead!  Between the eclipse and Elliott's birthday and a trip to see Delinda and lunch with my quilty friends mine is shaping up to be jam packed!

happy stitching-

carol fun