Two finishes

First, I finally made the braiding to surround this Prairie Schooler Santa. Using up some random yarn in my stash.

As you can see the date of stitching was 2024. 

What!? It sat around for more than a year waiting to be finished? Ugh. Well, it is ready for display for this Christmas. 

I finished my mom’s Churn Dash quilt. Isn’t it pretty? 

Here is the back so you can see the quilting.

I’m not sure what I will do with it now. It is sort of a baby size quilt and we won’t be having more of those here. It may become a wall quilt. Since it was hand-pieced by my late mom, it is not something I am willing to part with.

The second sleeve of the toddler sweater is still in progress. Decreasing for the raglan now. 

Stitches have been added to the Merry Christmas snow globe. You can see the beginning of the mailbox.

I baked again. Double Chocolate Espresso Cookies from a long ago Taste of Home magazine (August/September 2007). 

I can't find the recipe on their website. It uses unsweetened chocolate and semisweet chocolate chips. These are very tasty. 

I am now reading The Housemaid by Freida McFadden. 

It is easy to read with short chapters. I have yet to decide if I am really enjoying it. I finished Homecoming by Kate Morton last weekend. I really enjoyed it though I guessed correctly at one part of it early on. The ending did surprise me though and overall, I quite enjoyed the book though it was very long.

Hubby got his Covid and Flu shots on Wednesday and I got mine today. We are dealing with a Nor’easter this weekend so staying in and resting will be no problem at all. I usually have a strong reaction to the Covid shot.

 Here are some photos of the night sky just taken just before I finished this post. View to the West.

Rainbow view to the East.

My view to the west as I finished this post.

The wind is whipping outside, but there is no rain yet.

I will be joining Frederique at the Quilting Patch on Saturday and Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Take some time to relax with a cup of tea or coffee and pop on over to their sites to see what other bloggers are stitching.

 Thanks for stopping by!  

Steady progress

I’ve been making steady progress on all of my crafts. I have to admit that I want to finish at least one of them soon as I am itching to start something new. That being said, here’s where they stand now.

My mom’s Churn Dash quilt will probably be the first item that is completed. I only have the top border to quilt and then the binding.

Hopefully the second completion will be the sweater for my younger granddaughter. One sleeve is finished. The second is coming along nicely. 

The Merry Christmas snow globe has some more snow on the bottom. 

I work on this mostly in the early morning before Hubby wakes up. 

I have added another log to half of the 64 log cabin blocks. I will finished the rest today in between the laundry. Both are in the basement so it makes it convenient to work on the blocks at the same time.

I was in the mood to bake again this week. The Whole Wheat Apricot muffins from last week were disappointing. Edible, but nothing special. I had overripe bananas this week that were attracting gnats so I made Graham Cracker Banana muffins.

 It is the recipe that is on the back of the Nabisco Graham Cracker box. I’ve made them before and they are tasty. A good way to use crackers that were about to expire also. 

A friend sent me the link to this Rustic Italian Crusty Bread recipe quite some time ago and I finally made it. It is so very easy to make and tastes delicious.

What is it about cooler temperatures that makes you want to bake a lot?

I’m still reading Homecoming by Kate Morton. It’s interesting, but quite long. I’m about 85% done. 

I will be joining Frederique at the Quilting Patch on Saturday and Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Take some time to relax with a cup of tea or coffee and pop on over to their sites to see what other bloggers are stitching.

 Thanks for stopping by!  

September thoughts

 Last weekend Hubby and I traveled to Boston to celebrate our granddaughter's 4th birthday. How time flies. Along with her birthday presents, we brought some of her mother's LEGO sets that were still at our house. There are more somewhere, but we have yet to find where we stored them 13 years ago when we did a whole house renovation. 

Our granddaughter loved putting together the 4 sets that we brought. Our granddaughter is working on parts of a soccer stadium. I have to find the rest of it. (All the directions were stored together in our daughter's old bedroom and she took them home with her on her last visit. She showed them to me so now I know which ones I am looking for.) 

I was recently going through the clothes that I had made for my daughter when she was little and came upon these. I think our granddaughter may be able to wear some of them now. This was a sweatshirt embellishment that was in Crafting Traditions magazine.

I still have the patterns for the items below. I can make some for both granddaughters if I can find a fashion fabric store.

My daughter loved skorts like the red one.

We returned home last Sunday to a somewhat upsetting family issue that caused us to cancel the trip we had planned to California to see our son and his family. I was very sad about this as it has been 3 months since we visited. It is somewhat ironic that our son has subsequently come down with Covid so our cancellation for another reason turns out to be fortunate. 

I have been crafting some. I couldn't concentrate for a couple of days so I just mindlessly cross-stitched. Counting was not a problem. As a result, the Merry Christmas snow globe grew. 

It is about 1/3 completed now as there is a lot of fill-in stitching on the base of the snow globe.

I marked and quilted one border of the Churn Dash quilt. I am using a blue and yellow variegated tatting thread to quilt this as it is crossing two different colored fabrics.

I had to stop knitting my younger granddaughter's sweater for a few days as were were visiting and I was up to a part of one of the front sides that needed my concentration. The back and both fronts are completed and I am now working on the first sleeve.

I haven't baked in a while, but I was craving something with apricot. I made Whole Wheat Cinnamon Apricot muffins. The recipe is from an old magazine clipping that I had never tried.  

I hope they taste as good as they look.

I finished reading The Chelsea Girls by Fiona Davis. It was good, but not as enjoyable as some of her other books. It got better near the end. I am currently reading Homecoming by Kate Morton. I am about halfway through. I am enjoying this book, but not loving it so far. It is over 500 pages, so I have a way to go with it.

I will be joining Frederique at the Quilting Patch on Saturday and Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Take some time to relax with a glass of something cold or a cup of tea or coffee and pop on over to their sites to see what other bloggers are stitching.

 Thanks for stopping by!  

Half Way Happy Dance

Finally, Three Boats is halfway stitched. This is how it looked three weeks ago.

This is how Three Boats looked two weeks ago when I finally finished the page I was working on. Four pages make up one column.

Twelve of the 24 pages are now complete. I am halfway there! Happy, happy dance!!! I was asked how I was going to celebrate. I took a day off from stitching on it. Only one day though, then I started tackling the next page. This page and the next should finally finish all the stitching of the palm trees. This is were I am now.

A lot of that blue was all one color floss that I worked on over 3 days. It made getting to 100 stitches a day quite easy. Much better than when there is a lot of confetti and therefore a lot of color changes and needle threading. The far right stitches are where this page ends widthwise. 

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, Kathy, Margaret,

 Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Daisy, 

Cathie, Linda, MaryMargaret, Cindy, Helen

 

End of August

How did we get to the end of August so quickly? It feels like Summer just started and now we are heading into Autumn. The days are getting slightly cooler. The pool water is downright cold! Soon it will be shut for the season. I like all of the seasons, so I don't mind that we are heading into cooler weather. 

With that in mind, I have made a lot of progress on my granddaughter's sweater. The back is done and I am about halfway done with the left front. The pocket was tricky, but I figured it out. The cable is looking pretty good.

The nine blocks of my mother's Churn Dash quilt have all been quilted. 

These are the stencils I have chosen to use on the borders. 

I added another log to all 64 blocks of the Log Cabin quilt. I like how they are coming along.

The snow of the Merry Christmas Snow Globe is now falling over the cabin. Yes, it is a pale yellow. Next up is carefully counting and stitching the border that makes up the globe itself.

I am still reading The Chelsea Girls by Fiona Davis. There are parts of this book that move along nicely and others that seem to lag. Overall, I am enjoying it, but it is not as good as some of her other books.

I will be joining Frederique at the Quilting Patch on Saturday and Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Take some time to relax with a glass of something cold or a cup of tea or coffee and pop on over to their sites to see what other bloggers are stitching.

 Thanks for stopping by!  

Still August, but quilt and sweater time here

 It is still August and it is still hot and humid here on Long Island, NY. It has also been cloudy and rainy so we haven't been enjoying the pool much lately. You can start to feel the change in the weather towards Autumn. With that in mind, I have been working on my younger granddaughter's sweater. The yarn is bamboo and I am having difficulty keeping a consistent tautness at times. There are a few parts of rows that are definitely looser. The back of the sweater looks pretty good though.

I added another log to each of the 64 blocks. 16 of the blocks are waiting on the right to have the next log added.

The quilting on my mom's Churn Dash has slowed as I want to see if I can finish the sweater quickly. There also have been no stitches added to the Merry Christmas Snow Globe cross stitch. No photo updates on these.

I will be joining Frederique at the Quilting Patch on Saturday and Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Take some time to relax with a glass of something cold or a cup of tea or coffee and pop on over to their sites to see what other bloggers are stitching.

See you in two weeks. Thanks for stopping by! 

August Stitch Along Update

 Well there was an almost 2 week break (you can read about it here) from my 100 stitches a day during these last three weeks so the progress has been slower. I tried to stitch more than 100 stitches each day in anticipation of the non-stitching day so I do have progress to show. Here is where I was 3 weeks ago.

I had finished a page and was starting the last page of this column.

This page is smaller than all the rest, but still has about 2000 stitches. This is where I am now.

You can see that I have made it to the bottom of the page, but there is still plenty to fill in. This will definitely be finished for the next update. That will be cause for celebration as I will be halfway done with this project. 

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 glass of something cold or 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, Kathy, Margaret,

 Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Daisy, 

Cathie, Linda, MaryMargaret, Cindy, Helen