December 30, 2016 - Storm at Sea

The new project for 2017 is Storm at Sea.  You can google it to see all the possibilities but today I managed to get my fabric for it.  I think on New Years Day I will start to cut out some of the pieces and see how it goes.

My fabric came from Hobby Lobby.  It is the only place in town that I can get fabric at, other than Walmart, but this is nice fabric.  It passed my feel and see through tests.  In other words, it feels good already and should feel better after it is washed and I can't see my hands through it when held up to the light.  The employee who was cutting it out, was nice enough to write down the numbers I would need to show them if I needed to order more although she did say that they usually carry it.

The background is a cross between a white on white and a cream on cream.  I like the pattern on the dark blue and the light blue  has similar to a mottled light blue.  The yellow will be at the center and is mottled too.  The yellow makes me smile which means I might have to go back and get more ven though I don't normally like yellows.

Did I mention that I also managed to finish my Noel redwork?  That's another finish, or close enough to call it a finish, for 2016.

Another thing that I can't remember if I mentioned was the little clips that I got.  I used them on the t-shirt when sewing the rows together and can't figure out how come I didn't try them earlier!  I am falling in love with them.

Another pattern that I am in the middle of is the cross patterns for 2017 from one of my Facebook groups.  There are 3 patterns available that Marsha Willetts Clark.  I am actually doing a variation on pattern 2 and 3.

I had done some HSTs but couldn't decide on what color I wanted for the background material.  So I switched to pattern 3 which was basic.  Instead of doing solid colors to form the cross and a separate color for the background, I am going to use my HST to make the cross.  There is a total of six squares going down for the long edge of the cross.  I see that I have the left corner HST positioned wrong since it is not forming a flying geese type unit.  With all the darker colors on the outside, I can use the white with gold that I used for the major portion of the HST as the background.

That's about it for this trip.  Time to get something to eat and drink and then back to stitching something.

I hope everybody is having a great day!

December 28, 2016 - Closing down 2016

We're getting close to the end of 2016 and I can't say that I'm sorry to say good bye to it.  I always like the end of the year because it means I can start a new year and planning on how to get more organized.  I had some finishes in 2016 which is always good to say but now that I only have a couple of days to finish projects.  What shall I finish?

One of the projects that I hope to finish is the t-shirt quilt so I can get it mailed off in early January.

Another project will be to get started on a new project for 2017.  It will be like a small BOM that I am doing with a friend.  8" finished squares.  It is a pattern that I found for the GO!  Not sure that I will use the GO! for all of it since I don't have all of the dies but it is simple enough to fill in by hand with what I don't have.

Remember the Santa wall hanging that I said Janine gave me for Christmas?  Here is a picture of it.

What kind of weather do you have in your neck of the woods?  Here is what it says for DeKalb.  Can you believe it?  It's almost 2017 and we are still doing ok.  Of course traditionally we won't get hit with bad weather until the night before I have to return to work or the day of.

I hope everybody has a great day.  It's time for me to get working on some things.

HOURLY 10 DAYS

TODAYCLOUDY

HIGH42°10%

TONIGHT

LOW28°10%

THU

HIGH32°20%

THU NIGHT

LOW22°20%

FRI

HIGH30°

Merry Christmas and afterwards

Merry Christmas (even if a little late) everybody!

It has been a good Christmas.  I exchanged presents with my friend Janine while she was here and she gave me a wall hanging which has a Santa with the moon in the background.  She said it reminded her of me.  She doesn't quilt but she does know I like that type of thing.  I'll take a picture of it in a day or two.  She also gave me a small dream catcher.    I gave her my NOEL Cross Stitch in a frame.  It's about time that she has something cross stitched from me.  Of course while she was here she spotted fabric that she would like to be made into something for her.  I rolled my eyes but didn't admit that I had bought that fabric with her in mind.  She also wanted me to do a wall hanging for her niece out of soccer t-shirts.  We argued a bit but finally settled on a layout.

Then I noticed that we have 4 blocks that were cut out but weren't soccer.  They were running.t-shirts so I put them together to quickly make something she could have now.  It's only 4 blocks but at least it is still her t-shirts.

Janine will be seeing her niece in early January so she said if I could get the other wall hanging done before that she could take it with her.  We'll see.

That means my storm at sea will be delayed a bit.  I am planning on it.  Today I cut up my pattern that I had colored in.  They are all taped into my book now so I know how many "units" I will have to make.  I still need to get the fabric but at least I feel it is a little more organized.  I also labeled and sorted out my new templates for it.

I hope everybody had a great holiday.

Merry Christmas....Eve

Merry Christmas to my friends who are far enough away to celebrate it now.  :)   I have company until Monday or Tuesday so this will have to be quick.

I hope everybody is having a safe holiday and enjoying it no matter what you end up doing.

I received a gingerbread man from my sister in law.  I haven't had one of her loaves since Mom first moved into the nursing home.

I thought you might like to see him BEFORE he loses his head which will probably be tomorrow morning for breakfast.  LOL.

Two times a day Janine and I are going to McDonald's (yes they are open 24/7 even on Christmas Day) so she can use their WiFi to do computer stuff on her iPAD.  I don't have WiFi at home (since it is only me).  It gives us something to get out for but tomorrow we are going to be cooking also so that will be fun.  Tonight she made her

She made it with 2 pounds of ground venison and 1 pound of lean ground beef.  Of course you can use any ground meat.  Janine can't process pork products or a lot of different ones so she brought what she could handle.  I now have some of them in my freezer.  :)

Tomorrow will be Turkey and dressing, coconut cream pie, Cranberry sauce, and green bean casserole.  Not sure if I will have time to make bread or bake some cookies.  We will exchange presents tonight and I will give her the NOEL that I cross stitched.  She has plenty of my quilty things but nothing cross stitched.

Everybody have a great holiday and I"ll talk to you later.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Winter is here!

I was going to post up a lot of pictures for you today of everything that I had accomplished.   Hmmm.  There is a problem with that.  I haven't gotten a lot done lately because it is so cold and my car isn't starting.  Excuses Bonni.  That is what it is.  :)   The other reason why you won't get a lot of pictures this time is because my monitor on my desktop computer went out.  Everything was on that hard drive but without the monitor I can't see it or figure out where it is.  LOL.  So I'm on my laptop which doesn't have everything recent.  I will post more tomorrow because I think I have some of the pictures on Facebook and the work computer.  In the meantime.....

This is how far I've gotten on my NOEL redwork.  It's getting down to the last scroll work.

Since it is Christmas soon let me just finish this post with some of my favorite winter pictures.

Niters everybody!

Tuesdays Treasures

Woo hoo!  I got a couple of packages in the mail today.  First of all my back order from Nancy's Notions came in.  I had ordered a mini screwdrive set - One flat head mini screwdriver and one Philips head mini screwdriver.  But what to my wondering eyes did appear?  Two of each!

Next to open up was the order from Connecting Threads.  That was a Redwork Festival Panel -$1, Mendocino Charm pack -  $1 (15 pieces), Mendocino Stack - $4.29 (part of a layer cake - 15 pieces), Essential Thread - Mauve - $1, Essential Thread - Iris - $1 and a six pack of Black Gold Needles (no. 9 quilting between).  The whole order only came to $9.29 so I was pretty excited to get it.

Has anybody used Essential thread before?  I haven't but I thought 1200 yards for $1 I would try it.

That's all for now.  I just wanted to share some good news.

Everybody have a great day.

Needle Minders and projects

Hello everybody!

I hope you have had a great day.  I am having fun still being on vacation even though I did go into the office to take care of a couple of emails that I didn't think could wait.  It was fun being able to leave when I wanted to.  :)

So when I got home I made a couple of Needle Minders and think these might become addictive.  Do you know what they are?  They are little things that hold your needles for you.  EASY to make.  You find something cute that you like.  It could be a button or a charm, etc. and then you glue (I used gorilla glue) a magnet to the back side.  Let it dry 24 hours and then it is ready to use.  You need two magnets (mine were round ones) because the pretty side goes on top of your fabric and the plain magnet goes on the back and it holds it in place.  THEN when you need to park a needle or pin someplace, it is right there.  In this picture I had a small dragon charm and I am using my needle minder on my redwork Noel that I am doing.  The needles are held in place because of the magnet on the back!

Here is another one that I quickly did.

That one is being used on some cross stitch that I am doing.  I didn't have a threaded needle handy so just stuck on a straight pin to show it off a bit.

I did get to finish a top on a UFO.  This was the Quilt Magazine's BOM a couple (?) of years ago?  I finally put the squares together.  Now I have to get it quilted.

That's it for this report.  Time to start to address some Christmas cards and put in a Christmas movie.  Have a great day!

Sales

I have ordered a lot of things that were on sale but haven't gotten yet, but I also proud of what I picked up on sale at Hobby Lobby.  I can turn these three things into gifts.

The first  is this little cross stitch kit.  It was originally marked as $13.99 but I got it on sale for $3.01.  I can do it as a present for my friend Janine who is taking classes on decorating cupcakes and such.

Next is this Debbie Mumm Mini Banner.  It was originally $12.99 but I got it for $2.80.  It comes with the little hanger that is shown in the picture also and the floss is already separated so that is nice.

The third great sale I got was for a stamped embroidery wall/lap quilt.

It is the shortened version of the Serenity Prayer and once finished it should be 36" x 36".  It was originally marked $12.99 but I got it for $2.80.  It only uses the stem stitch and takes 3 skeins of Dark Delft Blue and 2 of Dark Straw so that isn't bad.

Now....on to the quilting part.  Remember when I showed you my little snowman and then showed you my mistake?

I was calling the mistake the snowman in a blizzard.  I set it aside and then figured, what the heck, let me try to take off the interfacing.  It WORKED!

So I was able to mostly finish it.  Tomorrow I am going to try and put on the binding.

This was the first time that I did raw edge applique and while not perfect it is good enough and I might try it again some time.

It's getting late.  I just got home from gaming night with friends and I want to unwind a bit.  Today I was working on white cross stitches on black aida cloth so my eyes can use the break.

I hope everybody has a great day.

Today's Progress and new gadgets

Hello everybody!  Today has been a rainy cool day which means I don't want to go out but I did.  I had to pick up some more floss...who'd believe THAT?!  While I was getting my floss I found two little gadgets which looked like too much fun to use (if they worked).  Guess what?  They worked!!!!!

Here are the two gadgets.

Yep, I broke down and bought a floss winder.  I  thought for 99 cents why not?  I discovered that I liked it enough that I am going to go back to Hobby Lobby and get a couple more for back up.  Remember yesterday when I posted that huge pile of floss?  It is all wound up on the bobbins and organized already thanks to the floss winder.

The other gadget I bought hasn't been tried yet but it will in the next day or two.  It's a Tail End Weaver.

This is to use when your tail is too short to hide normally .  Supposedly from the back of the fabric you thread your tails through the needle of this thing.  First you thread this needle through your stitches in the back and then  you thread your tails through the needle.  Then yu pull teh threads through the back.  Sort of hard to explain logically but I think you got the idea.  When I do it I'll let you know how I like it.  The eye of these Tail end weavers is pretty wide so you can probably use it for needlepoint yarn as well.

I worked a little bit on my rustic snowman.  most of it will not be stitched and he's pretty small.  The finished size is less than 12" if I remember right.  Tomorrow I will sew on a star and then put on the borders and perhaps finish it.

I haven't posted a picture of the Gnome and Critter Christmas lately so I shall throw that in here also.

The green bits are the tree.  The bluebird should be finished soon.  Besides the back stitching on it, the rabbit it is finished.

That's it for now.  I need to find some batting and get things all ready to work on tomorrow.

I hope everybody who celebrates Thanksgiving has a great one.  I am thankful for all my friends no matter if they are distant ones or not.  Have a great day.

Tired on Tuesday

Another busy day for me.
   - Made a big batch of bean soup after cutting up an 8 pound ham.
   - Went to H&R block for an appointment.
   - Went to the DMV to get my renewal sticker for my car license plates
   - Figured out what I wanted to work on
   - Bought the DMC floss and Aida cloth for it.

So what do you do after all of that?  You straighten out this mess and start to wind it onto the bobbins!

I still need four colors for one of the projects but I will have time to gather them up.  I might actually have them in my storage so will look there first.

What do I need all those colors for?  Most of them will be going into a Theresa Wentzler pattern called Tradewinds.

The rest of it will go into a quick little holiday one which is one of my nine projects that I listed the other day.

These aren't what I had planned on doing next but as I was TRYING to clean, I ran across the patterns and they spoke to me.  Yes I have a TON of patterns and they will get worked on in rotation or sooner or later but for now these are next in rotation.  I am still working on the Gnome and Critter Christmas too so I'm not giving up on that.

I also started a quick micro Quilt.  I'm calling it micro since it is only going to be around 9" x 12".  I ran across that today also.  I have it cut out and mostly fused together so tomorrow might be a quilting day interspersed with winding embroidery floss.

That's it for now.  I hope everybody has a great day/night.

Sunday Stitching

It has been a nice and tranquil Sunday so far.  now that I am thinking on what I did, I am surprise at how productive I was.

I managed to cook a couple of dishes and put half of each in the freezer for later.  I finished up the snowflake wall hanging, worked on the Gnome and Critter Christmas cross stitch, made cranberry sauce and put it in the freezer for later (it lasts up to 8-12 months in the freezer) and took a nap after grocery shopping and before watching Wizard of Oz.  :)

Ready for a couple of pictures?

This is the finished snowflake wall hanging.  I will probably put it up at the office when I return in January.  Right now there is a red quilt (or coverlet) hanging which is pretty festive which I will leave up for December.

It's not as wrinkly as it looks.  I will need to take the iron to it before hanging it up at the office I think.

The Gnome and Critter cross stitch is a fun piece to work on.  The rabbit is almost finished.  The green that you see is the base for the Christmas tree.  There is a bird by the rabbit that is starting to come into being now.  It wont' be done for this Christmas but I'm sure I can finish it for next Christmas.

It's getting late and I want to get some more stitching in so I'll leave you with a winter scene since it was a tad chilly today (barely above 30F).  This is a place I'd love to be stuck in as long as I had my craft stuff with me.  :)

Saturday's progress

It's a chilly Saturday but I was up early chatting with a friend and decided I needed to get things done.  You'd think that making that decision would make it easier to get up and do it wouldn't you?  It didn't.  I stayed in bed and snuggled in while we chatted until I finally decided that I *had* to get up.  Actually Mother Nature made that decision for me.  Sort of like when my mother used to say "get up NOW".  You knew that you had to listen, right?

So once I was up I got dressed and got some groceries so tonight will probably be cooking night.  I'm on vacation and don't want to cook too much on it. I plan to be relatively lazy and do crafting.  I think that sounds like a delightful vacation to me!  After coming home I found a package in my mailbox!  YIPPEE!  My order from Nancy's Notions came in.  Want to see what I ordered?

The blue in the background is actually a much darker blue...almost navy.  It is 108" wide though so even though I only ordered 1 yard of it, I will get a lot out of it.

Night Shadow Batik Vine

 I thought this cat panel was really cute.  I don't normally order panels because I haven't had much luck with them.  I haven't decided yet if I'm going to keep the panel in one piece or split it up.  It will probably be a future present(s) for my friend Janine who is crazy about cats.

Four Paws Cats Fabric Panel

This fabric is called Gray Daisy Batik and is 106" wide.  Once again I only ordered 1 yard but I'll get a lot of use out of it.    It has gray on gray daisy's as well as a little bit of yellow in the fabric.

Gray Daisy Batik

I also ordered a mini screw driver set which is on back order.  They are only around 1 1/2" tall and I hope they will fit under my clearance for my sewing machine.

The last thing that I ordered was a 10 piece wonder clip pack.  I haven't used them before so I didn't want to get too many but as soon as I saw them, I thought I needed more so found a sale on FB from Quilter's Mart to get 50 of a larger size of them for $7.00.  Considering that I paid $5.39 for the 10 of the smaller size I thought that was too good of a deal to pass up.

I decided to finish up an UFO today.  This is my snowflake hexie that was from a BOM a year or so ago.  I had Rose from Custom Quilts cut out my hexies and made them larger.  I didn't finish the BOM but did collect the Hexie so now need to finish them.  I have this one assembled and the February one which was a red heart.  I'll work on that a bit more and get it finished in 2017.  Then I might just take all the hexies that weren't put together for the rest of the months together in a quilt top or table topper.  I'll figure out something later to do with them.

The quilt sandwich is made so it is time for me to get off Facebook and start to quilt the snowflake.  I think that I will use a minimal approach (so I can get it done) and just quilt inside the white hexies and just around the outside.

Perhaps tomorrow you will see the finished wall hanging.  In the meantime I'll let Sven clean my computer screen.

Have a great day everybody!

Making progress

I've made some progress on my NOEL as well as getting an idea thanks to Dollar Tree.

First here is my progress on NOEL.

The NOEL itself will be fun to work on because it has more straight lines.  Not that I will totally stitch them straight but I'll try to get close.

Then I was getting a few things at Dollar Tree and I saw some huge ornaments.  These were flat and I thought that I could take one and make it into a mini wall hanging.  Here are a couple that I picked up.

I also picked up a pack of 12 foam angels. They will be glued to card stock or something and I can make smaller blocks out of them.  Overall I think it is a good plan.  Now to see if I can get them made and work them into the 9.

What's the 9?  I had a friend pick a number between 1 and 13 and he picked the number 9.  That is my goal in 2017.  To finish 9  craft projects.  Of course that means I will have to make a list and I have already started on that.

1.  The Hexie Snowflake mini wall hanging.  This is from the Hexie BOM but since I had LARGE hexies one snowflake design can be made into a mini wall hanging.  I have the top all done, just need to finish it so it is a UFO that would be finished also.

2-3-4.  The three ornaments from Dollar Tree to turn into mini wall hangings.

5.  Finish up Gnome and Critter Christmas cross stitch.

6.  Start and finish Snowmen on a Sled cross stitch with my friend Connie.  I'm not sure if Connie is going to stitch the same pattern with me or pick another pattern and work to start and finish it in 2017.

7.  Finish the teapot BOM (another UFO).

8.  Finish the Dinorawr quilt (another UFO).

9.  Work on Storm at Sea Blocks and perhaps get the flimsy (top) done.

Those are my tentative projects to work on.  Of course I have lots more I can choose from and if I finish those I might add more to the list.

Not sure what Storm at Sea blocks look like when put together?  Here are some Pinterest links showing ones I like.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/36802921930196702/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/72409506481524689/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/231653974560134039/

There are a ton and a half of different ways to do that pattern.  CyberQuilters 4-CBees (one of my yahoo groups) will be working on Storm at Sea so I won't be the only one trying to figure it out.  Sometimes the hardest part is to pick which one to do!

Have a great night/day everybody.

The Weather Outside is delightful?

Have you ever had one of those days when all of a sudden you just got cold.  You were fine for the majority of the day but as soon as the sun starts to think about going down you get chilled.  That is where I was at.  What do you do?  What did I do?

First of all I changed clothes so I had warmer clothes on (ie, added socks) and put on my heavy sweater.  Not enough.  Next I gave in and turned up the baseboard heater by the computer.  Not enough.  Hmmm.  Aha!  Throw a...throw across my legs.  Better.  Double Aha!  I decided I needed to warm upon the inside so I made pumpkin pudding (pumpkin pie without the crust).  Obviously I didn't wait too long after it came out of the oven before I grabbed a bowl.  Yes that is a snowman off to the side.  He's there to remind Christmas is right around the corner or, according to my blog countdown, it is 41 days, 5 hours....and counting.  :)  Hmmmm, I wonder if HE was the cause of me becoming cold all of a sudden.

I'm warm now and just have to show you my new seasonal coin purse.  Isn't it cute?!

Tis the season ....   LOL.

I did manage, in between all of this, to stitch a bit more on my NOEL redwork.

I bought some ornaments from Dollar Tree which I plan to use as templates for mini quilts.  Hopefully you will see them soon.

That's it for my report for tonight.  I hope everybody is having a great day/night.

Crazy with Cross Stitch

I went a little crazy the other day and ordered four patterns from Heaven and Earth Designs (HAED).  It wasn't my fault.  Really it wasn't.  They were on sale for 50% off.  It was a Veteran's Day sale so it was only running for 24-48 hours.  See?  I just HAD to get them right?  Before I show you wish patterns I got, I picked up my Noel and stitched a little bit on that.  I do like doing redwork and this time I am thinking that my back looks as good as the front.

Here is the front:

And here is the back:

I'm trying hard to keep the back clean since I'm not stitching with interfacing.  I will, however, probably put some interfacing on AFTER all the redwork is done.  I am thinking this will be a wall hanging for the office and hopefully it will be done by next year.  :)

Now, here are the HAED patterns that I got.  I think I will do the snowman/penguin one first but I can't start until I finish NOEL and possible the Gnome and the Critter Christmas one.

These choices shouldn't surprise anybody who knows me since I love wolves, dragons, and Christmas.  They will take a bit to do but I think I'm going to like working on them.

Time to take some allergy meds and then get to bed.  Everybody have a great day.