Vacation Day 1

I will count today as day 1 on my vacation since it is Monday.  I was both productive and at the same time totally lazy.

I got up around 6 a.m. which is 30 minutes later than normal.  Lazed around the bed until 8 a.m. then got up and started to work on some things while Perry Mason was on the TV.  By the time Perry mason, Diagnosis Murder were over with, I had two blocks all cut out and ready to be stitched.  That's why I like watching those shows.  I can look at them and have watched a lot of episodes (my mother and my favorites growing up) I can do other things too.

So what did I do?

Since yesterday was cross stitch, today was quilting blocks.  I fused my two blocks for the Adinkra blocks and have started to stitch them down.

Ignore that blank post that you might have gotten notice on.  I hit post by accident.  LOL.  So here are my blocks.  I will stitch them down before returning to cross stitching.  The background is more navy blue in color than what it looks like in the picture.

Interested in what they mean?  Go to Debby Kratovil Quilts and read about it.

http://www.debbykratovilquilts.blogspot.it/2016/01/adinkra-quilt-2016-block-of-month.html


I will be stitching these down by hand using the blanket/buttonhole stitch.  I have to admit that I am loving the colors in these two blocks.  I'm not sure what color of thread I'll do that first block in.  I'll figure it out eventually.  I'm still working on the orange for the second block.

That's about it.  Time to take some allergy pills which will knock me back out again.  If the snow holds off long enough (up to 6" predicted) I will go to the store and get some cold meds.  I'm coughing more and my eyes are watering.  Don't you just LOVE this time of the year?

I finished something!!!!!

LOL.  I know.  Shocked me too!  I finally finished my cross stitch project of the Alphabet "b" fairy.

Not sure yet what I will do with it.  It's not that large so perhaps I'll...No, nothing comes to mind yet.  I'll figure it out....some decade.  It did feel good to finish something.

After that i did 100 stitches on The Guardian (gold dragon).  I am on vacation this week and hope to do 100 stitches each day on The Guardian.

That's a total of 400 stitches I've done so far but have over 35,000 more to go.  LOL.

Also this week, I hope to get my fabric charted out for The Bookcase to Heaven.

That will be another long term project.

I haven't forgotten my quilting.  This week I also hope to get some of my blocks for a couple of BOMs done.  The Splendid Sampler is one of them as well as the Adinkra one.  We'll see how lucky I get.

Time to work on some stuff so I'll sign off early.

Everybody have a great night.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Birthday Everybody!  I hope you have had a great day.  It has started to snow and we are suppose to get 3" - 5".    We'll see.

This year, I was invited to my sister in law's place for a brunch.  It started at 9 a.m. and I thoroughly enjoyed myself and didn't leave until around 1:30 p.m.

The snow had started by then.

Bobbie always does a great tablescape and this year was no exception.  She had two casserole dishes and fresh fruit as well as ingredients to make Panini's.  Of course it all started off with some Mimosa's and Bloody Mary's if anybody wanted that and then the Orange Juice sort of got lost after a bit and then it went straight to the Champagne.

That wasn't the only thing that I did this weekend though.  I also managed to work a little bit on a cross stitch project.

The saying in case you forgot is "It's the most wonderful time of the year".  Who knows.  I might get this finished BY Christmas.  :)

I also managed to spend a little bit time in the kitchen and cooked up some meals.  I made:

Gumbo
Jambalaya
Sweet Baby Ray's Crockpot Chicken
Crockpot Chili

It was an interesting adventure.  I think I like them in the following order:

Crockpot Chili
Gumbo
Sweet Baby Ray's Crockpot Chicken
Jambalaya

Jambalaya is listed last because I made it too spicy.  Of curse that means it will last longer because I'll have to do something to extend it out and to spice it down.

Connie gave me a "thing" which holds my plastic freezer bags so it made it easier to fill them up.  It really worked well with all the meals.  You can see it here in the Chili picture.

I also had an easy clean up since I used my crockpot bags.  All I had to do was to lift them up and put them in a large bowl so I could ladle them into the baggies.  Isn't that a cute little baggie holder?  It works WONDERFULLY.

So with a plan in mind, I started my cooking.

Sweet Baby Ray's Chicken

Crockpot Gumbo

Jambalaya

After everything cooled down, I finished sealing them and put them in the freezer.  Now my freezer has some things in it.  YAY!

Yeah, I've got ice cream.  :) 

That's it for me this time.  Some of my BOM's are kicking in and I'll try to update you as I go along.

Stay safe and have fun.

If at first you don't succeed....

Try try again...

While my endeavor on doing 28 ct. evenweave wasn't THAT bad, I decided to change up and switch over to it's equivalent in Aida cloth which would be 14 ct.  For those who aren't cross stitchers, 28 ct. means 28 stitches or "x" per inch.  It is usually worked two threads of floss over two threads of fabric.  Aida cloth is usually worked 1 "x" over the fabric.  I don't pretend to be an authority on this but I do know where there is an online calculator which helps me figure up what size fabric I need for something.  THAT came in handy but also didn't help with me figuring out what to do on The Guardian.  That's the gold dragon cross stitch piece I'm working on.

I started it on 28 ct evenweave.  You saw some pictures of me doing that.  Having to count every other thread etc, to make a stitch.  I wanted to learn how to do it.  My poor brain DID learn how to do it but then said "Ok, I learned how to do it now go back to Aida  cloth otherwise this dragon will NEVER get done and then he'll be pissed."  I don't want a dragon pissed off at me so I went back to Aida cloth.  Hmmm.  BUT do I have fabric large enough?  I went to the website and let it calculate how much fabric I would need.  Then I started to pull out my Aida cloth.  I pressed a couple of pieces to see how many stitches they were per inch....18...I could work in that.  Then measure them.  Nope, not large enough.  Sigh.  Then I found a piece that was 14 ct.  That would work.  Then I measured it.  Not quite large enough.  Hmmm.  If I change the border that I need then it would barely fit.  Close for me!!!!!

I did want to learn something new (besides the fact that I have Aida cloth in all the sizes I don't need) so I decided to try graphing the Aida cloth.  I've seen it done with thread marking off grid patterns as well as using water soluble pens.  As a wanna be better quilter, I had the pens so I used them.

Doesn't that look good?  Each block is 10 by 10 stitches...or IS it?  I excitedly picked up my pattern, threaded my needle and went to make the first stitch.  WAIT!  It doesn't match up! But..but...but it has to!  I thought I had figured out my mistake.  I had started from the left side of the fabric and counted out every 10 stitched and marked it for my lines.  That didn't work, which I quickly figured out, since my pattern which shows the 10 x 10 grid didn't match the 10 x 10 grid that I had just done.  Sigh.

So I then got out my trusty water battle and spritzed the whole canvas and went to bed while it dried.  I had used the water soluble ink so spraying it with water made the lines disappear.  Pretty neat right?!  I love those pens.  So this morning I approached it by another method.  I found the center of my fabric again and found where it was on the pattern grid.  This time I counted my lines to coincide (I hope) with the lines on the pattern.  I think I have it right and started to take some stitches.  WAIT!  It didn't match up.  But ... but...what now!

The answer was kind of simple but annoying.  I was making my fabric every 10 stitches or so I thought.  After I looked at it carefully I was actually marking it every 9 inches.  So back to the drawing board.  The water dried quickly (thanks to a fan I had blowing on it), and back to marking it.  This time I figured it out.  Even though I was counting 10 lines or threads, I was marking the wrong corner.  See the example below.  So now that I had my fabric marked for 10 stitches (my ah ha! moment), I was ready to begin.

Once bitten twice shy but I was brave and took a couple of stitches.  I have five stitches done and then thought I'd try something ELSE new.  I am thinking on this complicated pattern, I'm going to stitch one 10 x 10 segment at a time.  It will be a lot of work since I have lots of color blends and changes but then I will know that block is done.  We'll see.  

A not as complicated cross stitch pattern that I'm working on is my Fairy Alphabet B.  Here is an updated photo of my progress.

I have mistakes on this one also but I know how to cover them up better.  LOL.  

I haven't given up on quilting.  In fact I counted how many 2016 BOMs that I'm interested in collecting and I believe the number was around 13.  That's why I said collecting.  I'm not sure how many of them I'll get to work on.  The first one I started was a bust (Westering Women).  I will try again but am almost questioning the block cutting directions.  That's for another day.

I did manage to catch the sale at thousandsofbolts.com   I order three 108" wide fabrics.

The middle one is a white on white which I can use for my applique blocks.  The gold on cream was too pretty to pass up as was the blue on the right.  I'm sure I'll find a use for them.

I also was brave and sewed up a simple (super simple) little bag that had a zipper.  Now realize that I am terribly afraid of sewing zippers.  I haven't even attempted one since the fiasco in Home Economics sewing class around 1972!  But I found a YouTube video that sort of made sense and right afterwards I stumbled upon a zipper that I didn't know I had.  So I thought it was a sign.  I finished it, it's large because it was the only zipper that I had to work with but not too bad.  It's large enough to hold my Fairy Alphabet B supplies.

The zipper still isn't right in it but for my first attempt after such a long time, I am still sort of pleased with it.  

That's my catch up report for now.  I thought that I would finish with a cute picture.  Enjoy and have a great day/night.

B is for BonBon

What?  That's not what the schools taught you?  I think they should have.  LOL.   I am making progress on my Fairy Alphabet letter B.  Here is what it looks like as of last night.

I am doing half cross stitches  at a time and then going back to finish them.  That way I don't have to look at my pattern as much for this part anyway.

I also found my pattern for the other sampler BOM that I was talking about in my last post.  It is The 1857 Sampler Quilt by Sentimental Stitches.

For me that is a very busy quilt.  A lot of it will be applique which is what I like to do but even if I don't do it all, it will let me pick and choose which blocks I want to use.  You can find out more about it at

http://sentimentalstitches.net/free-stuff/block-of-the-month-quilt-designs/the-1857-album-quilt/

To quote from the website:  "Almost all of 64 blocks are applique and I'll post 3 or 4 each month for the next 20 months beginning in January 2016. You can make the quilt in one of two ways - The digital block pattern sets will be free for one month (scroll down for free digital pattern link) and then retired to theOnline Store so you can purchase them if you miss any. You can also sign up to receive printed patterns and applique fabrics for the blocks. (scroll down to sign up)"

Check it out.  You might also like to check out the Westerning Women BOM.  That come out on the last Wednesday of the month and looks to be interesting.  Check out the Civil War Quilts:  Westerning Woman blog/website:

http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2016/01/westering-women-introduction.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CivilWarQuilts+%28Civil+War+Quilts%29

The Introduction is up and I love how they tell more details about the time period.

That's it for now.  Just wanted to fill in some gaps from my last post.  Everybody have a good night/day.

Keep on Stitching!!!!

Plugging away on projects

It always seem to take forever and therefore I won't bore you with another picture of my progress on the Guardian...yet.  In a day or two I'll take a picture of the Alphabet Fairy so you can see THAT progress.  So what else have I done?  Sometimes I wonder that myself.

I did finish the two butterfly blocks so that I can get them in the mail this week.

They will be mailed off this week.  :)

So then I did what I told myself I wouldn't do.  I'm contemplating of doing some BOMs in 2016.  Yeah, yeah.  I know.  I wasn't going to.  Oh well.  I didn't decide until almost the last week in January so that makes it ok right?

Let's see what my list looks like for projects in 2016.

1.  The Val-Laird You Are Blessed BOM
      http://val-laird.blogspot.com/p/free-patterns.html

2.  The Splendid Sampler BOM
      Here is my fabric so far that I have pulled for it.

3.  Some Esther Aliu projects (Lily Rose and Little Hazel)

4.  Their is also a historical based BOM that I will be doing but of course I can't find the information right now.  I'll add a picture of that later.

5.  A class on making a tote bag in March with my friend Connie.

6.  A Westerning Women BOM
     http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2016/01/westering-women-block-of-month-2016.html?m=1

7. Pay it forward which is five hand made things that I need to finish in 2016 and mail out.

8.  And a couple more that I can't remember right now.

Whew!  I'd better stop there since I am tired thinking about it all.  :)

Oh yes, one other thing.  I a was at Hobby Lobby the other day and picked up this panel of small labels for only 56 cents on sale!!

Have a great evening.

Long weekend Progress

Tomorrow is the first day of school for the Spring Semester 2016.  It should be busy so I thought I'd better post up some progress pix tonight.

First of all I did a couple of more stitches on The Guardian.  It's a good thing that I have my floss all marked because it is hard to tell the differences when I am only using one strand of one color and one strand of another color which I swear is only half a step away from each other.

Then I switched up to start my second block on something that I need to get shipped out this week.

 When I finish this block it will finish up my two purple butterfly blocks that need to be mailed and I have three of the other butterfly blocks that I am doing for my own wall hanging.  Things are progressing well.

I took a day off of stitching to make some tacos to eat.  I found on Pinterest how to make taco shells that stand up.  These were made by using store bought tortillas and putting them on the metal rack that is in my toaster oven.  I put them so they hang down, skipping a row or two.  I toasted them for around 5 minutes and when they came out they had a flat bottom to them.

This is a much cheaper way to make the stand up taco shells!  So of course now that I made them, I had to fill them.  So I filled them with ground pork, salsa, lettuce, and cheese.

That is about it this time.  Next time I'll catch you up on the progress (of healing) from that steam burn I told you about a couple of posts ago.  In the meantime, grab some ice cream and enjoy it!

Progress is made

Not much progress but at least I'm splitting my time up and still being somewhat productive.  I did just commit to doing two butterfly blocks for a project with others and, of course, they aren't the blocks I already have done.  That's the way it seems to go sometimes isn't it?

So here is MY butterfly block tentative layout.

In between doing the cross stitch, I have been working on these.  I have a couple of them all stitched now.

I thought I had taken a picture of the first block I finished.  I'll take one and update it the next time.  This morning, while waiting for a ride to work since my vehicle still isn't starting, I started on a third block.

I'm doing all the stitching in a dark brown and black for the center.  

I did have to stop stitching one day this week since I burned a couple of fingers on my hand with steam from my water kettle.  I hadn't realized that I had passed my hand through the steam until I noticed the red marks on my fingers.  It only slowed me down one day.

Breaks over which means it's time to get the mail and see what else I need to do at work today.

Everybody have a great day.

Cross stitch update

After finishing Lyndon's quilt, I decided to work on a couple of cross stitch projects.  One is something that I bought LONG AGO and this year put it on my list of 2016 things to start.  Thanks to my friend Connie, who I had given permission to bug me to start it and she did, I have started it.  It was more of a scared reason why I didn't start it.  It is complicated but that is one reason why I love Theresa Wentzler's designs.  That plus it is medieval.  Anyway, the main reason why I hadn't started it all those years ago was that it was a kit and it came with 28 count evenweave fabric.  28 COUNT EVENWEAVE?  I have to stitch over two threads?  Yikes!!!!!!!

Still I started it.  I didn't get very far but it is started.  I unstitched a number of stitches to correct some things but I consider it a good thing that i figured it out this early and not find it out when I'm 3/4 the way done.  Of course if I found a MAJOR error 3/4 of the way into it, I'd probably ignore it .  :)

I know, not much of a start but at least I started it!  :)

I also am doing a small alphabet fairy for my initial B.  It's coming along and fun to stitch because I don't know what it looks like in color.  I only have a black and white chart to go from.  It it being done on 18 count Aida.  I have never done 18 count before but am liking it so far.  I might have to do more on 18 count.

No quilting yet.  I need to find a nice purple that will stand up to a Stonehenge green. It will be for a toddler named Raven.  I plan on putting her name at the top and make pinwheel pattern.  Once I find the right fabric, I'll start and you'll see pictures.

That's it for now.  Everybody have a great evening/day.

African Blues is DONE!

I'll take better pictures tomorrow once I get back to work and can hang up African Blues to get a GOOD picture but I just couldn't wait that long.  LOL.

Finished it at 9 a.m. January 3, 2016.

The Back of the quilt.

 I liked how the back turned out.  I will have to remember how I did it for the next time that I do the Zipper Quilt.

The colors are so much brighter in person.

A close up of the binding

I pulled out some of my strips that I had left over and used it for the binding.  I like how it looked against the dark blue.

Well that is it for now.  I need to get the house cleaned up a little bit because now it's time to do some cutting for the Stitch a Long.

Five Butterflies have fabric picked out!

Whew!  I've been busy but am pretty much pleased with what I have accomplished.  Finished stitching the sandwich for African Blues.  Now I am at the clip the threads, defuzz it, and press it before working on the binding.  With that accomplished, I turned to the January Stitch a Long from my Facebook Group.  I am going to do 10 butterfly blocks.  I'm not sure if I'll use all butterfly blocks in the wall hanging but what I don't use I'll make a table runner with.

I have picked out the fabric for my first five butterflies.  These are all one design but the other five butterflies are another design.  When I pick out the material for those you'll see them here also.  So here are the first five.

Whatcha think?