I love Sundays!

I have always loved Sundays because it is the one day of the weekend I can usually relax on.  Do I want to do cross stitch?  Do I want to quilt or embroider?  Do I just want to be lazy and not do anything or perhaps read a book.  Of course the answer to those questions would be YES to all.  That, perhaps, is why I don't get as much done as I should.  LOL.

I was reading a book the other day and ran across something that stuck with me.  The male character was telling the female why he had so many philosophy books which were obviously well worn from reading them over and over again.  When she questioned him on it, his reply was put into a maritime analogy since that was his background.  He said "The wisdom in those pages keeps me anchored when I'm drifting into ambiguous waters."  As soon as I read it I could relate.  Not to reading philosophy books but to doing crafts.  It doesn't matter too much which craft I do for they all "center" me.  When I feel adrift and can't think straight, crafts bring me into focus more.  Do that happen to you too?  I'd like to hear what calms and centers you.

Even though this was my gaming weekend I did manage to finish up a couple of things.

I managed to get the July Beginner BOM from Creative Rectangles Group on Facebook done ahead of time.  I post up the PDFs for the group so I knew which one to do.  :)

The light color in this is more like a light cream.  I believe it is called Vintage Tiles and can be found at QuiltersCache.

I also had a nice surprise this week.  Years ago I started what I used to call Elf Envelopes.  It was a place where people could get Elf names and just send periodic things to others for no other reason than to lift their spirits.  This week I was surprised to see an envelope with a return address of "Angeline Elf".  I got an ELF ENVELOPE!

There was this cute apple tree block which had been needle turned.  Did she do a great job?  And then one of my favorite things.  An oven towel.  At least that is what my mother used to call them.  The towel with the crocheted top to them so that I can attach it to the oven door.  It too had apples on it.  I love them both and think I might turn that apple block into a mini wall hanging for the office.  It would be JUST the right size to hang up by my desk.

With inspiration like that, I went and finished up a block that I will mail out tomorrow.  I'm only half way satisfied with the block.  I forgot that I had readjusted my hoop when I embroidered my name and year on it so it's not centered like I wanted it to be.  THEN, at the last minute when I was trimming it, my template moved and now one side is a little shorter.  I showed it to the person I will be sending it to and she said that if it is too short and she can't use it that way, she'll trim it down more and put a border on the block so it will be 12 1/2" again.   I am pretty pleased with how the stitching came out.

That is my report this time.  Between the Fourth of July holiday, my birthday on the 12th, and my gaming friends going on vacation, I will have 3-4 weeks of crafting without being interrupted for gaming.  I wonder what I will work on.

Where did the time go?

Wow, I hadn't realized it had been awhile since I posted.  My apologizes to all my readers.  What have I been doing?  Good question.  A little of this and a little of that.  So let's see.  First of all I had a bit of depression where I didn't want to do anything.  Nothing serious but no motivation, etc.  Then I had to kick myself to get off my behind and start to do some stuff. This is what I've been working on.

Exiting stuff isn't it?  When I didn't want to work on anything I decided to get out my spools of thread and plastic wrap. After cutting strips of plastic wrap, I wrapped it around my thread so now all those those ends are tucked in and it is so much neater.  It doesn't take much plastic wrap so I can easily replace it when I need to.

Next up was working on some more cross stitch.  I was hoping to work on the delft blue piece but I realized I didn't like the saying on it much so now I will have to figure out what I want to say on the sampler.

I did get the fabric ready for when I decide what to do.  This time my Aida cloth looks different because I had some binding that I wasn't using so I it to keep my fabric from fraying.

I also stitched my center marking lines.

While I was trying to figure that out, I ran across some more cross stitch kits.  There was this one....

Before I start the animals I am doing one which says "Hang in There".  As you can see I'm making progress.

I'm finally getting into the mood to quilt again so I signed up to do a block to mail off to somebody.  We all are doing the same block so here is what I am doing.  I haven't finished cross stitching it or squaring it up yet.

The pink fabric is actually the back of a metallic.  A Facebook friend surprised me with a box of fabric!  I just love it and when I saw the pink metallic I thought if I used the back it would be cute for the flower.  Here is a picture of the box of fabric.  Aren't they unique and cute?!!!!   Thank you dear friend.  It certainly brightened my day.

So that is what I have been working on.  I also was going to work on a half hexie braid since I had a template for the half hexie but there was a problem with it.  I perceived that there was a problem but upon checking with Missouri Star Quilt Company, they said there wasn't.  I'm not sure what to do now but I"ll talk about that another time.  Time to get back to stitching the leaves and flower.  I might be able to finish it today.  If so, then I might be able to get another flower block done this week and mail them both out.  Sometimes doing just one block will get you back into quilting again.

So I'll leave you now and hope you all have a great day/night.