October Stitch Along Update

I'm doing a mini happy dance here....okay, maybe just a single skip. I have finished page #8 of Three Boats on a Tropical Beach.  It is the 6th page that I have completed out of 24. I am working in columns. Column 1 was pages 1,7,13 and 19. Column 2 (that I am currently working on) is pages 2,8,14 and 20. I am about to start page 14. This is how Three Boats looked three weeks ago.

This is how it looks now. 

I finished the page yesterday morning. There were so many confetti stitches to complete at the bottom of this page. Do you see this rock formation?

 Yesterday, I was adding tons individual stitches. There was 1 stitch in that rock formation that had the floss symbol "5". Just one stitch! Three stitches had the floss symbol "V". You get the picture. I am more than happy to be moving on the the next page which doesn't seem to have quite so many scattered stitches. 

This Stitch Along is hosted every three weeks by Avis at Sewing Beside the Sea who kindly sends us the needed posting reminders. 

Grab yourself a cup of coffee or tea and take some time to visit the other bloggers below who are part of this stitch-along. There is a wide variety of stitching projects. These talented stitchers are from all over the world, so please allow for the time differences and check back for each post. 

Avis, Claire, Gun, Christina, Kathy, Margaret,

 Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Sharon, Daisy, 

Cathie, Linda, MaryMargaret, Cindy, Helen

Thanks for stopping by! 

Slow Sunday Stitching

I am making progress with the I-Spy quilt. All 120 blocks are stitched, trimmed and ironed. Here is the layout that I decided on. It is laid out on the bed in my son's old room.

 

I have to cut the black sashing strips next and then sew them to the blocks in 12 rows of 10 blocks. 

I have been hand quilting the whole cloth pillow a little bit every once in a while. I finished the first motif and am on the second. 

I have also added stitches to the Prairie Schooler Santa's coat.

 It doesn't feel like I have made much progress on any of these crafts, but this week I also washed some windows and spent time reading Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn. This is yet another historical WWII novel. It is about a female Russian sniper.

I also took out most of my Autumn/Halloween decorations.

The two new pillows are sitting on a bowl that my mom had.

I like this little arrangement on our bar.

I had some bananas that were overripe so I made these Banana Crumb Muffins.

 I cut this recipe out of a Taste of Home magazine years ago. This is my favorite banana muffin recipe. The only change I will mention from the recipe that I linked is that my original recipe calls for 1/3 cup of melted butter rather than 1/2 cup. The extra butter is not needed. Trust me that 1/3 cup is plenty. These are rich, delicious muffins. 

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Sit back with a cup of tea or coffee and see what other bloggers are stitching. I think I will make some English breakfast tea to have with one of those muffins. 

Thanks for stopping by!

A Variety of Stitching

I have been spending a lot of time clipping threads from the back of my daughter's quilt. I will then give it a good ironing, especially all of the seams on the back to make sure they are going in the correct directions and laying flat. Sadly, the long arm quilter that I used to use has closed her business. I have info on two other local long arm quilters though, so I will be looking into contacting them this coming week. One is a few minutes from me and the other is over an hour away. 

I have been sewing the snowball blocks for the first of two I-Spy quilts. I actually finished sewing all 120 blocks this past week. Now I have to trim the seams and press open the corners. 

I am glad that this quilt is coming together so quickly. 

I finished Pumpkin House into a small pillow. I was trying to determine what I could use as trim when I found this rope floss in my stash. I know these are part of the items that I inherited from my aunt when she passed. I figured I could braid a few colors of this floss.

I had the fabric that I used for the back of the pillow in my stash.

Now this pillow is ready for display.

I am working on finishing A Crow's Pick also. The backing fabric was one I recently received from a friend's mom who is reducing her stash. It was a brand new fat quarter that matched the colors of this piece perfectly.

I have some odd "yarn" in a variety of colors that I am also going to braid to put around the edge of this pillow.

I will work to finish this pillow on Sunday.

I have started quilting the whole cloth piece that I have. It is 16.5" square. I think it will make a nice pillow for our bed. I am using tatting thread that I inherited from that same aunt to quilt this with. I have almost completed quilting the first motif.

I have kitted up the 1990 Prairie Schooler Santa to start working on also.

I like all the animals in this one. 

Hubby and I enjoyed a great dinner out at a new restaurant for us called Grasso's on Wednesday evening. We've been looking for a restaurant that has piano music and this one was recommended on a Facebook forum that I follow. The food was delicious and the music was enjoyable.

Friday morning I got my Covid/flu vaccines. I drank a lot of water and took it easy Friday. I always have a reaction to the Covid vaccine. This time was somewhat less of a reaction than I have had in the past. Just some chills at bedtime with some body aches. By midmorning on Saturday I was feeling much better.

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. 

Thanks for stopping by!

September Stitch Along Update 2

Three weeks have passed since the first stitch along update of this month. This is how Three Boats looked at the beginning of the month. 

This is where I have gotten to now. The sky is finished and I am stitching the ocean.

 Perhaps I will be able to finish this page by the next update. It ends just below the next set of green gridding.

This Stitch Along is hosted every three weeks by Avis at Sewing Beside the Sea who kindly sends us the needed posting reminders. 

Grab yourself a cup of coffee or tea and take some time to visit the other bloggers below who are part of this stitch-along. There is a wide variety of stitching projects. These talented stitchers are from all over the world, so please allow for the time differences and check back for each post. 

Avis, Claire, Gun, Christina, Kathy, Margaret,

 Jackie, Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Sharon, Daisy, 

Cathie, Linda, MaryMargaret, Cindy, Helen

Thanks for stopping by! 

 

And Sew It Ends

There is a major happy dance going on at my house. I have finished the flimsy of the Log Cabin Star quilt (Judy Martin's Timberline pattern)!

 Most of the seams lined up perfectly. I fixed those that bothered me and left a few as is. They are only noticeably off if you look real hard. I must say that I am so proud of this quilt. It is by far the most difficult quilt that I have ever assembled. It is only my 4th queen-sized quilt. 

I am waiting for the backing fabric that I ordered to be delivered and then I will contact the long-arm quilter that I have used in the past. I hope she is still in business. It has been quite a while since I had a quilt that needed machine quilting. I am thinking of having it quilted with an overall pantogram as the log cabin pattern is the star of the show. 

I have made progress on A Crow's Pick. It is almost finished. 

I don't have the buttons that are supposed to be added and quite frankly I don't see the point of them as they are just triangles. I think I may stitch a bat or a smaller crow in the upper right corner. I am thinking on that. I may just leave it and add a bow there when I make this into a small pillow.

Now I will get to work on stitching the 120 snowball blocks for the first of 2 I-Spy quilts. I still have to fussy cut some more 3.5" squares. 

I was in a baking mood this week and made a Cottage Loaf. This bread was delicious and so easy to make.

The recipe was clipped from a Family Circle magazine in 1989, but I only just made it this week. I have many, many clipped recipes. I think I qualify as a clipped recipe hoarder. I have more recipes clipped than I could ever hope to make in my lifetime even if I tried a new one each day. Never mind the many cookbooks and Taste of Home magazines that I have also. Sigh.....

I will be joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching.

Thanks for stopping by! 

And Sew it Continues

 I am still working on stitching together the 14 rows of the Log Cabin Star quilt (Judy Martin's Timberline pattern). I have stitched rows 1-5 together and took the advice of Gail at The Cozy Quilter and decided to stitch the rest of the rows in groups. This group of 4 rows below and another of 5 rows still to be stitched. This past week I stitched together rows 6-9....the center of the quilt.

Oh my, was it a PITA to stitch row 7 to 8. There were so, so many seams to match. There was also a lot of seam ripping and muttering. It took me two days of 2 hour sewing and pinning sessions to get just those two rows together. Not all of the seams are perfect, but most are and the rest are less than 1/16" off, if that much.  Adding row 9 was a breeze yesterday that was accomplished in just one 90 minute session that included pinning, sewing and trimming. Whew!

I have already started the working on the next 5 rows. They should be done this week and then I will stitch the three blocks of rows together. Then it is on to stitching the borders together and add them to the log cabin blocks. I hope to finish this by the end of this month.

I have also been adding stitching to "A Crow's Pick". The pumpkin is done and so is the crow except for his beak and legs. 

I am using DMC floss instead of the charted Weeks Dye Works so the colors are not showing as much contrast in the photo. Next I will stitch the diamonds for the border. This is mostly my nighttime TV watching project. 

I have yet to add another craft project though I really want something else to work on. Preferably something with yarn. Of course I do have the large cross-stitch Three Boats on a Tropical Beach that I continue to add stitches to each day. 

The weather is back to feeling somewhat summer-like this week. Our pool has been closed, but my butterfly bush decided that it wanted to bloom again.

It is so pretty, but it is hidden behind our above ground pool. 

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Make yourself a cup of coffee or tean and pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching.

Thanks for stopping by!

And Sew it Begins

I have finished assembling each of the 14 rows of the Log Cabin Star quilt (Judy Martin's Timberline pattern). Now begins the arduous task of matching 13 seams for each row added. I have connected 3 rows so far....maybe one or two more by the time this post is published. 

Thankfully the seams are nesting together nicely.

I have added more stitches to Crow's Pick and started a new color.

I worked on this in the car last weekend as we traveled to my daughter's home in Boston. My granddaughter turned 2 this week and her party was last weekend. 

My how the time has flown. 

The following day my mother-in-law celebrated her 91st birthday. We brought dinner and a cake to her house to celebrate.

I am trying to decide on another craft to start or a WIP to pick up. I would like to get my hands working with some yarn again, but I don't know what I want to make. I am just not interested in finishing the sweater that I started many moons ago for myself. I think I want to try a different pattern and yarn. My local yarn shop is closed for a couple of weeks so I will just have to wait a bit. 

I have been reading a bunch. I recently finished "The Sugar Queen" by Sarah Addison Allen, "One True Loves" by Taylor Jenkins Reid and "Summer at Tiffany" by Marjorie Hart. I liked all of these very much. I am currently reading "A Single Thread" by Tracy Chevalier. 

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching.

Thanks for stopping by!