SOMETHING BESIDES BILLS AND ADVERTISEMENTS

It is a good day when something besides bills and advertisements arrive in the mail box. The first to arrive was this half yard of purple fabric with cats on it. This was generously shared with me by Sue at Subee Sews. I have already thanked Sue for her generosity but I kept forgetting to photograph the fabric for my blog. And it has sat right in front of me at the computer for several days! This will go into my now sorely lacking Halloween fabric collection. I did have lots more fabrics but have used a lot the past two years. Sue said she bought a whole bolt of the fabric. She recently used some for the border of a quilt.
The next package to arrive was from another Sue. She signs her name Quilt Sue and her blog is titled Quilt Times. A while back, Sue had admired a quilt top I made and asked about the pattern. I e-mailed her the book name but she was unable to find it. I was done with my book, so I popped it in the mail and sent it to her. I was not expecting anything in return. Much to my surprise, she sent me a table runner, coasters, and a little chicken. The table runner has thread spools as the design and she found the block pattern in the book I sent to her. She used my kind of colors. Browns, rust, & gold for the main colors. All the items co-ordinate. I had visited Sue's blog several days ago and saw that she was sending out some parcels to bloggers with secret items inside. I had no idea that one was for me. I e-mailed Sue earlier today telling her that I was going to send her a Baltimore Album quilt pattern book and maybe she would make me a king size Baltimore Album quilt in return. She says she isn't falling for that. LOL! I have been trying to get someone to make me one for years and I haven't found anyone to take me up on it.

I made another needle/sewing kit following Kaaren's tutorial from her blog. If you remember back a bit, I purchased seven yards of fabric to make the first one. I got a little carried away. This time, I just used stash. I took my completed cross stitch design and framed it with fabric. I adjusted the measurements because this made my outer piece larger than the directions called for.
For the inside, I used some fabric from the Williamsburg line. I thought the blue alphabet sampler fabric was appropriate to use with the cross stitch design from the front of the kit. The rust color fabric and the top blue pocket print are also from that line. I don't know about the blue fabric I used for the lower pocket or for the outside of the kit. I had blue & rust colored wool in my stash that worked for the needle case part and little pin cushion. I found the cross stitch chart as a free pattern here.
I did a little shopping today. My first stop was to the pet store for crushed walnut shells. This is the third bag I have purchased. When I bought the first one, I wondered what I would do with all of it. I bought the smallest bag they had. Well, I made several pin wool pin cushions using this for the stuffing. I gave some to friends for them to make their own cushions. Then I was running low and went back for a second bag. That got used up so I went back for the third. I hope to make some more pin cushions some time soon. I have a little pin cushion collection and also like to give them for gifts.
Hope you are all enjoying the weekend and getting lots of sewing done.

Karen

SLOW GOING

For those of you that celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday, I hope your day was a good one. We were alone over the holiday and decided not to cook a big dinner. We went to a buffet instead. I was surprised at how many people were eating Thanksgiving dinner out. It was quite crowded even though we went later in the afternoon.

We in Blogland sometimes forget that other bloggers aren't celebrating a holiday at the same time as us. I read a post yesterday about a quilt group gathering that had happened earlier in the day. The writer mentioned that several people had not attended as usual. At first, I was thinking that it was a strange thing to have a quilter's gathering on a holiday and no wonder attendance was down. Then I remembered that it wasn't Thanksgiving where the writer lives.

It has been a slow going week since I last posted. My enthusiasm for projects started just wasn't up to par. I had a bad bout with my back and could barely move. That lasted for a day. Then I was cautious about moving because things were still kind of touchy. Things are better now.

I had cut out lots of triangles for a basket quilt. I decided to sew some of them together and see how the basket block is going to look. I am not totally happy with the blocks so far. The placement of lights and darks are different than I would normally do in a basket block. I keep thinking it should be dark triangles across the top of the basket. I am putting the project away for a while and will revisit it later. Below is a 2nd basket block not completely sewn together. I am not sure about the background behind the basket handle.
I finally got my order from an online cross stitch store and decided to sit quietly and do some stitching. It is definitely slow going. The project started out with two stitches other than a cross stitch. I had not done either before. One was the Algerian Eye stitch and the second was a satin stitch. Working on linen and over two threads, it confused me as to where to stick the needle down & where to come back up. The project is "Liberty Sampler" by the City Stitcher. It has a house, alphabet, and eagles. All of which I like. Some of the letters are quite large. I had pictured in my mind that the project would be smaller than it is going to be. I don't know how long it is going to take to finish this.
I have another little project almost done. I just need to stitch the binding down and then I will be able to take a picture for my blog. I am watching a DVD and am going to tackle that little job. Enjoy your day!

Karen

SURPRISE PACKAGE

Hello to all stopping by for a visit! I received a surprise package at my front door from Colleen. She had e-mailed to tell me to watch my mailbox for a package. I was not home when the mailman came so he left the package at our front door instead of trying to cram it in the mailbox. Thank you mailman! The package was kind of flat and had a box inside. I had no idea what to expect. Inside was this Moda Bake Shop Sampler. I have never seen one before.
Inside are 480 2 1/2" charm squares of different lines of Moda fabrics. My favorite stack is "Garden Party" by Blackbird Designs, "Butterfly Garden" by Kansas Troubles, "Martinique" by 3Sisters, and on and on.
It's like a box of chocolates. You have to stick your finger in the middle to find out what's in the center. Not the best shot of my arm. Trying to hold the camera and take a picture of my hand is not the easiest. I can see some fun in the future playing with these packs of fabrics. Thank you Colleen. We have been buddies right from the start of my first blog post. We both like prim style. I have a feeling that if I loosen the bands on the stacks and start playing, the pieces will never fit back into this box.
I am in the process of working on another three segments of a Christmas quilt. Here are some parts. I need to do the machine stitching on the blocks. I have another applique block to create maybe today and some pieced blocks. I don't know how many more parts there are to go. It is sort of like chapters in a book and I am just doing them as they come.

I made the stars that are the November blocks for Vicksburg which is a free block of the month by Dawn at Linen Closet Quilts. This month we were to make four stars. I don't know exactly how everything will be set in the final piece but I put them on the design wall the best way I could photograph.
I was asked to lay out my blocks for "Land of the Free" for a picture. It is a good thing I did as I find that I am missing a block. One of the blocks is repeated. Guess I should have read the directions. I just made one so I will have to get back into the sewing room and prep another. These are fused and will be machine stitched around the raw edges. Lots of stitching to do. I treated the center block as one big block instead of four small ones. The four blocks end up looking like one big block anyhow.
I finished the cross stitching. This piece will be made into something here very soon. I am trying to figure out the girl in the corner. Is she sitting at an old fashioned school desk? What do you see?
I finished making the Old Glory table runner. This is the back side. I used a Declaration of Independence panel on the back.
And here is the front of the runner. This was quick to make. The flag section is pieced, borders added around it and then the eagle panels added to the ends.
There was a shuttle launch on Monday. I tried to get a picture. We were standing in the screened pool area watching over the tree tops. This was our view. The night or close to sunset launches appear more dramatic but still we had a pretty good view in mid afternoon. There was a rocket launch a couple weeks ago. It was cloudy here so we only had a very short view of the rocket going up.
I am about to head to the sewing room to get more done on on-going projects. Come back soon for another visit.

Karen

CROSS STITCH PROJECTS

I am reporting in. I have not had my digital camera for three days. My husband needed to take it with him when he went out of town. I took some quick photos of what I have been working on. I usually take photos in the morning but have taken these this evening. Not the best light. You will be seeing pictures of the projects in the future, so hopefully they will turn out better.
The first is a cross stitch sampler type piece. This was a free chart from the internet. I have not done counted cross stitch in quite some time and never on linen, so this has been a bit of a challenge. I thought I would never get all those border stitches done and in the correct place. I did parts of them over at least three times. There is still a girl to stitch.
I know Halloween is over but I found this free chart on the internet not long before the event. I want to make a needle case with it. I worked this on Fiddler's cloth. The first time I used that cloth also. When I did cross stitch on a regular basis, I think all I ever used was Aida cloth. That was the most widely available and is easy to see where the needle should go down into and back up. Now my tastes have changed and I am exploring working with other fabric choices. I don't think I will be doing a lot of counted cross stitch. Quilting is still my main focus. I do have some patterns for cross stitch samplers that I am awaiting fabric to be shipped to me. There is a shop not too far from me that sells some flosses and pattern books but their main focus is yarns. There is no longer a shop that sells exclusively for embroidery and cross stitch. At least not that I know of.

I have been attempting to clean up my sewing room this week and evidently did too much bending over as I paid for it dearly with back pain the last two days. I have been trying to sit nicely today and stay away from the sewing room even though it still needs more work.

Back to stitching.

Karen

NEW PROJECTS

A week since my last post and I have been busy stitching. I finished this stitchery, added a border, a tiny bit of quilting, binding, and now have a small wall hanging. The pattern for the stitchery is a e-pattern from Chestnut Junction. I found it interesting that it has "Belmont County, Ohio" in the design. My in-laws lived in that county for many years. The designer lives in Ohio near that area. I am not sure if her city is actually in that county but it may be why she chose to incorporate it into the design. I did the stitching all in brown on tea dye muslin. I thought it looked a bit dull, so I chose a brown fabric with a bit of rust color in it and used a rust color binding. The design would have fit an 8"x10" frame but I liked the addition of the fabric border and finished as a small wall quilt.
The next photo is of a paper mache box that I covered with fabric. I followed directions that was found on Blackbird Designs' blog. I lined the inside of the box with paper. The directions said the lid would be a tight fit. Well, it turned out so tight that I have to bend in the box and struggle to get the lid on.

The next photo is a paper mache box I had finished a couple weeks ago. I followed Kaaren's instructions that are in a tutorial on her blog. The lid is too heavy but not because of Kaaren's instructions. My own doing there. I stuffed the pincushion with sand. Normally that would have been fine but not for the box lid. Also, the pincushion did not want to lay down flat close to the edges, so glue shows on the box lid. I want to do another using her instructions and a poly fil for the stuffing. The bird design was from a Jo Morton book.

I know Halloween is over but I forgot to show you this little pillow a friend gave me. It was given to me during the summer and I wanted to wait until October to post the picture. Then I forgot to do it. It is small but has a lot of design on it. I like it very much.
I have been prepping blocks for raw edge stitching for a new quilt. The pattern set is "Land of the Free" by Piece 'O Cake Designs. I have the large center block left to prep. You will be seeing more or this as I progress.
I am also working on a little cross stitch project. I didn't photograph it today but will show it to you soon.

Our weather is still summer-like here. Not as hot as it had been, but still warm.

Enjoy your day and come back for another visit soon.

Karen