Time to move on!

Why is it time to move on?  Cause I finished Catherine Maudsley!  Yay!

Catherine Maudsley by the Drawn Thread

40ct. Meadow Rue with NPI threads

I'm very pleased with how she came out.

 

In other news, the boy child has spring break this week.  I feel like I've already done this since the girl child had her spring break the week before last.  Oh well.  I'm sure there will be lots of running around to do!

This is a short post this time.  Time to move on!  :D   Thanks for stopping by and saying hi.  Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

WIP, framing, an award, and etc

I seem to be posting more often than usual recently.  No worries, I'll slow down now.  lol!  But I thought you might like to see my Catherine Maudsley.  Got that border done.  The next tedious part is the verse over one.  But that's coming along.  Sort of.

I just love that border!  And it was much easier than I thought it would be.  After doing it so many times, I had it memorized.  lol!

Next up, Kathy, Nancy (no blogs) and I went to our LNS today to drop off some framing and pick some up.   Don always does such an amazing job.  He has a wonderful eye -- I usually end up going with whatever he suggests.  And recently, it's always been "how about this?"  and the first time it's perfect!  Anyway, here is my Paradise Lost by Plum Street Samplers.

And here is a closeup of the frame.  I wish I could get the colors to be more accurate.  The fillet (or whatever it's called) on the inside matches the colors in the piece perfectly!

And here is my Sarah Esh by Carriage House Samplings.

Here's the frame closeup -- it's perfect for the piece!

I now have 4 pieces on my Adam and Eve wall.  Two more are with Don waiting for framing.  I'm so psyched!

I got an award from Sherry!   Thank you so much, Sherry!  It means so much to me that you have become my blogging friend.

I had such a hard time last time choosing just 7 blogs to pass an award on to.  I'm going to pass this one on to all my blogging friends.  There are so many of you whose friendship I enjoy and whose blogs I love!  So consider yourself awarded!

Finally, Deb over at the Thread Gatherer blog has a great giveaway!

I hope I win!!!  I've wanted a beautiful flower frog forever!  Deb, if I don't win, can I commission you to buy me one?  lol!  Anyway, go check out her giveaway, and her blog.

In other news, the girl child is back at college after a week of Spring/midterm break.  It was nice having her home, but it's also nice having her back at college.  lol!  The boy child had a wonderful birthday on Saturday from the sound of it.  He spent most of his day with his friends as opposed to the old people at home.  I guess that's what happens when they start growing up!

The boy child will have his Spring break next week.  The one thing I'm really hoping is that by the time his Spring break is over, we won't be waking up in the dark anymore.  Have I told you how much I hate the time change being this early?  Well, I really really really hate it!!!!!!!!! 

I got the fabrics for my next Tessellations BOM quilt block in the mail today.  So pretty!  I'm going to have to work on that soon.

Thanks for stopping by and saying hi, everyone!  I hope you all have a great week!

A boy and his bass

The boy child has had a long history with his pal, the double bass.

His teacher would be proud of that picture -- hey, the bow is in the right position for a change!

Note how he has grown, and so has the bass.

We've gone through various suits as well.

We've gone through lots of different concerts.

Even a few at famous places.

But throughout it all, the boy child has known what he likes best.

Now how do I get him to like classical music?   :D

Happy 16th birthday to my spring baby.  Don't start demanding the car too soon.

A very newsy post

Lots of stuff for today!  Let's start with the stitchy news, shall we?  First off, my new project, Catherine Maudsley by the Drawn Thread.  Here is how far I am with her.

 Catherine Maudsley by the Drawn Thread

40ct Meadow Rue

NPI threads

I'm really loving her, especially that border and the reds.  Yummy!

Next up, Nicole asked in my last post how big my Margaret Harris Sampler from Blackbird Designs ended up being since it was stitched over one on 30ct.   I took this picture to show the answer visually.

The lovely ruler is from Tanya at The Scarlett House. 

In the "in other news" department, about a week and a half ago, my poor father type was in his car on the way to work, tried to step on the brakes, and it being a snowy, wet day, the car promptly kept going until it slid into the car in front of him.  The air bags deployed and my poor father type was quite shaken up.  They ended up taking him to the hospital, but thankfully the tests showed he was fine -- just a few scrapes and a very shaken father type.  I got him home just fine and he was back to normal in no time.

We waited for a whole week, surviving on one car between the two of us.  Then finally exactly a week later, we got the verdict: the car, a 1996 Honda Accord wagon with over 160,000 miles on it, was totalled.  If it hadn't been so old or the air bags hadn't deployed, it might have been a different matter -- they might have fixed it.  But as it was, totalled.  So we had to limp along without a second car for the rest of the week.

Thanks to modern technology and the web, yesterday, after having done our research and knowing ahead of time that we wanted a Honda, the father type went online and expressed interest in a new Honda Civic (don't ask me where he did this, but it was some website online).  The result was that all the local dealers in the area started emailing him with their offers on a new model.  The father type was able to do some dealing right online before we even stepped into a car dealership!  It was great!  And again, thanks to modern technology and everyone wanting everything yesterday, we ended up with a new Honda Civic sedan by the end of the day.  The father type is very happy with his new car.

The whole process still has me reeling.  We usually spend a long time deciding on a car much less buying one.  Plus which, this is our first new car in over ten  -- count 'em ten -- years!  So this is going to take some getting used to!  lol!

For those of you who are clever enough to wonder about the double bass carrying capacity of this car, the answer is, we don't know.  I really doubt that the double bass will fit in the car as well as two people.  I actually doubt the double bass would fit period.  But we still have my minivan and hopefully having just one double bass carrying car will be enough.  Who would have thought that one day this would even be a consideration in our car buying?

Finally, I've won an award!  Thanks to Belinda of Blue Ribbon Designs, Melissa of Words and Blooms, and Cari-in-VA of Serene Stitches, I won the Beautiful Blogger Award!  Thank you ladies! 

Here are the rules that come with the award:

1. Thank the person who gave you the award.

2. Paste the award on your blog.

3. Link to the person who nominated you.

4. Tell 7 interesting things about yourself.

5. Nominate 7 blogs and post links.

So the first three are done.  Here's the hard part.  7 interesting things about myself.  Well, in another post, I'd already done this sort of thing.   So you can read those interesting things (and so can I so I don't repeat myself!  lol!)  Here's the new list.

1. I've lived in 5 different areas of the country: Oklahoma, Kansas, Southern California, New Jersey, and New York.  I've lived in New York all my married life, so the rest was when I was a child and for college.  :D

2. I have a sister who's two years older than I am, and 3 step brothers, the youngest of whom is 2 years older than the girl child.  My father remarried a few years after my mother died and had a second family, thus the young step brothers.

3. I'm not a gardener.  I wish I were, but I'm not.  You can tell by our yard.  :D  (Unfortunately, the father type isn't a gardener either.)  I have eternal guilt about this since we bought our house from old friends of ours and they WERE gardeners.  We've sort of ruined the yard for them.  Sigh. 

4. My kids missed out on two chances to be rich.  The father type's great great grandfather  was the founder of Cadillac.  Unfortunately he was a poor businessman.  I won't go into the gory details.  My grandfather was the co-owner of the Fette - Lee rug company in China that made beautiful Oriental rugs.  The business went under due to WWII and the Communist takeover of China.  Thus, we aren't rich.  (I have googled the rug company online and fume  -- due to the usual sort of prejudice of the time, it seems sometimes the rug company is referred to only by the non-Asian owner's name, Fette.  Figures.  The co-owner of the rug company, who was always known in my family as Mrs. Fette, had a daughter who was my godmother.  The Fette family helped my family escape the Communists and come to this country.  I guess this should have been a separate little known fact.)

5. I've only had one guy in my life, the father type.  Nothing before him that I would call a real relationship.  We met in college and that was it.  We've been together for  29 years, and this year will be our 27th wedding anniversary.  We're old.  :D

6. I love Mission furniture.  We have a few pieces of Stickley furniture and I'd love to have more.  None of it is antique, which would be even cooler.

7. In another life I would have loved to be an interior designer.  But I don't have the color sense for it so it's good I'm not.

Now to nominate 7 other bloggers.  Lots of bloggers who I would have nominated have already been nominated, so that makes it tough.  But here are my nominations in no particular order. 

1.  Cathy
2.  Cari
3.  Sylvia
4.  Robert
5.  Corinna
6.  Glenna
7.  Melody

And now I'm thinking there are a lot more of you I could have nominated.

We are waiting for the girl child to come home from college.  She was supposedly coming home Friday night.  But Friday night she texted saying she had research to do so she was coming home Saturday after dinner.   Saturday rolled around, and she said never mind, she would come home Sunday morning (this morning).  This morning, she said nope, she'd come home this afternoon.   Now she's waiting for the train, but everything is delayed because of the lovely Nor'easter that went through yesterday (yes, we were car shopping in torrential rain and horrific winds).  Hopefully she won't get too delayed and will be home before evening.  I think the father type is looking forward to picking her up in his new, snazzy, red car.  :D

Thanks for stopping by and saying hi, everyone.  It's a joy to be part of this blogging world!  Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

I love Blackbird Designs!

I've always loved the Blackbird Designs ladies.  I discovered them first when I was a quilter, back when.  Then when I moved into cross stitching, I happily discovered that they do cross stitch designs as well.  And now Alma has started a Blackbird Designs blog -- heaven!

Well needless to say, when Blackbird Designs came out with their Honeysuckle Manor book at Nashville this year, I went gaga.  In fact, I drove my LNS owner a bit crazy when my friend and I went for our Nashville stash.  "Where's the new Blackbird Designs book?"  I kept saying over and over.  I think she was ready to stuff something down my throat.  lol!  (Not really.  Tawny is very sweet and would never do such a thing.)   Anyway, I came home with the book in my eager hands, checked my floss and fabric stash and happily started stitching Margaret Harris asap.  And here's the finished result. 

Margaret Harris

from the HoneySuckle Manor book by Blackbird Designs

30ct WDW Straw linen using cross over one

called for Belle Soie silks

In case you're wondering, no, I wouldn't have chosen to use the Belle Soie silks on my own.  But I do tend to use whatever fibers are called for, thus my choice to use them.  No bleeding problems this time around, thankfully!  And the linen is actually a pretty beige brown color -- it looks washed out in the picture.

Since I did the piece over one, I had to change the name/date/place parts of the design.  Which was fine -- I loved Alma's idea of using a grandmother's name and date.  My maternal grandmother was the ideal grandmother to us grandkids so of course I thought of her.  Thus I put her name where the "Walnut, Iowa" was.  And in place of Margaret Harris' name, I put my grandmother's birth year.  I love being able to have her name on this piece.

In other news, the tree service finally came on Saturday bright and early.  Hallelujah!  They took the widowmaker branch down, and also trimmed the tree some more.  And they took away all the branches that were strewn all over the yard as well, and cut any log sized wood into usable sized pieces for the wood stove.  Yay!  So now the yard looks normal again.  Whew!  It's been nice and warm so huge amounts of snow are now gone.  Of course, there are still huge plots of snowiness everywhere too, but hopefully not for long!  I'm hoping there will be no more snow!

Thanks for stopping by and saying hi.  I love reading your comments!  Have a great week! 

Now for a change of pace......

So when I last left you, I was wondering what to tackle next, feeling my usual overwhelmed, panicky feeling of too much stash, too little time. 

Well, here's the first thing I turned to -- the Margaret Harris Sampler from the new Blackbird Designs Honeysuckle Manor book.

Now my version will have to be a bit different.  I had a piece of 30ct WDW Straw, not the 35ct Straw called for.  So I decided to do it over one on the 30ct.  Which means I won't be able to do the name or date over one since I'm already stitching the whole thing over one.  :D   But that's ok.  I'm planning on putting my maternal grandmother's name in where "Walnut Iowa" is, and perhaps my initials and date where Margaret's name is.  Or my grandmother's birthdate.  If I can remember what that is.  Here's as far as I've gotten (I'm using the Belle Soie called for):

Pretty boring, I know.  Well, so anyway, I was stitching away on this, and thinking about the fact that I have this other project that I need to get to.  So I ended up putting Margaret Harris down long enough to do this.  Tah dah!

My first quilt project in years!!  It's the first block of a BOM from Material Obsession called Tessellation by Brigitte Giblin.  Isn't it cool?!  I've never done fussy cutting before!

I have to say that Material Obsession had me obsessing about amazing fabric combinations in wild fabrics that I normally wouldn't think of using.  (I'm usually a repro fabric kind of girl.)  And when this BOM came up, I had to go for it -- it's English paper pieced, my favorite thing in the whole world!  The finished piece does have to be appliqued down on that background fabric, but that's ok -- hand applique is my other favorite thing!  :D   I have to say it felt good to be quilting again.  I also have to say that if I actually finish this quilt (I hope I do!), I may have it machine quilted -- a shocking statement coming from me, the hand quilting snob.

Laurie, thanks for urging me to start a quilt -- I'm glad I did!  And Loretta, if you're reading this, this BOM is your fault -- I discovered Material Obsession because of you! 

So now you know why I've posted again so soon -- 2 posts in one week just doesn't usually happen.  But I'm just so psyched about my new quilt project!  Now to get around to using the millions of fabrics and kits I've managed to collect from Kim!  lol!

In other news, the tree service still hasn't come to take that widowmaker branch down.  Sigh.  Which means we've had to adjust to not using the garage, not using the back door (which is the door we ALWAYS use), and not using most of the driveway.  Such a pain!  But I do understand -- after all we had so many branches down, I can just imagine all the jobs that must have come in to them after the storm.  The nice thing is that it's so warm that the snow is melting nicely.  The ground is still totally covered, but at least there's a lot less snow!

In the unfinished business category, lots of you were wondering why I need to use a toothbrush on Sarah Woodham.  Well, I actually ended up using a lint roller -- the fancy equivalent of wrapping a piece of tape around one's fingers and using it to get the lint.  I think it helped.  I'm assuming the fiber just left tiny bits of lint on the fabric, although I guess it may also have very slightly bled onto the fabric as well.

Someone else asked about the new Quaker designs in the new Goode Huswife Book of Designs IV.  I think the best I can do is to post a link to Ann's webpage with a picture of all the designs in the book.  Go here.

Quick Edit:  Forgot to say I won this perfect bottle cap pin cushion from Lynn.  I was so thrilled!  I've been using it constantly -- it's the perfect size!  Thank you so much, Lynn!  I love it!

Thanks for stopping by and saying hi!  I really appreciate all your comments!

Happy Dance Time! And snow......

I just put the final stitches in Sarah Woodham.  Yay!  I think I'm extra happy because this means I'm finally -- FINALLY! -- through with that over one verse in the middle!  lol!  Here she is!

Sarah Woodham by Shakespeare's Peddler

40ct Vintage Maple Sugar linen

Fibers called for (Gloriana, Belle Soie and Thread Gatherer)

 

If you look closely at the verse in the middle, you may notice a pinkish cast to the linen background.  Isn't that lovely?  That's from the Belle Soie Rose of Sharon used for the verse.  I'm planning to try taking a soft toothbrush to it, thanks to the advice of my friend Joy.  

 

Whew!  That's a relief!  I just had to share!  Now I'm feeling that overwhelmed feeling again.  What to start next?  New start or WIP?  Or should I try to tackle one of the quilt projects I keep dreaming about?  The market stuff doesn't help.  I've added even more projects to the "I have to stitch this now" category.  Not good!  

In other news, yes, indeedie, we got walloped (finally) with a real winter storm Thursday into late Friday night.  Two, count 'em two, snow days from school.  Although the district did mess up sending the kids in at first.  Whoopsie!  We lost the TV/internet service for Friday, which was a hardship.  :D   But we were extremely lucky.  All around us, including just next door and up the street, people were without power for days.  Next door, they're still hoping to get restored today.  I think that's the worst, losing power.  We had that happen back with that April Fool's storm.  Remember that one?  Ugh!!!  No power for days!  So we were lucky this time!

The reason for all the power outages?  The snow was very very heavy, and stuck on all the trees and wires.  There were sounds of falling branches all night Thursday into Friday.  We got over a foot of snow too.  Here are some picture of the debris from the storm -- these are just the branches that fell on our driveway.  There are plenty more throughout the yard.  Oh, and keep in mind that a lot of the snow has already melted.

 

 

(Thank goodness for the neighbor with the chainsaw.)   

And here's a good one.  A branch still stuck up in the tree.  

 

Can you guess where this lovely "widowmaker" -- as my next door neighbor calls it -- is?   Well, look at the next picture.  See the branch?  And now you understand. 

Hmmmmm.  Of course, the father type, being the father type, insists it won't fall.  Me?  I called the tree service.  They're coming, hopefully tomorrow, to pull the lovely thing down.  I haven't told the father type yet.  :D 

So that's it from here.  Hopefully I'll be making a decision sometime soon on what to tackle next.  Decisions, decisions!

Thanks for stopping by and saying hi!  I love our blogging community!