Flowers , crochet and cross stitch

The weather is getting warmer. It feels like Spring has finally shrugged off the dregs of Winter and seems to be here to stay. I bought two hanging baskets to get the flower viewing started. 

They are so lush and pretty. 

These purple flowers that spray outward are perfect for this tilted pot. 

Impatiens bloom the best near the back of the house that faces north and only gets morning sunlight. 

These will soon fill in nicely. 

Planting two different cherry tomato plants may be wishful thinking, but I’m giving them a try again. They are the only veggie (um, fruit) that I ever successfully grow. I need to buy new tomato cages this coming week.

Our SIL gets an amazing raspberry harvest each year and shared a few plants with us in the fall. I put them in a container as I don’t want to have to constantly monitor their spread. They seem to be growing well.

 Perhaps this will be another successful edible. The thrift is in bloom. Such a pretty little flower. 

One of our azaleas is starting to bloom.

 We have contracted to have a landscaper remove overgrown, woody and infested bushes in our back yard and plant some new bushes and plants. We no longer want hedges. We will be getting some flowering bushes and many perennials. This azalea may or may not be transplanted. 

Wednesday was an interesting day where we had 3 hours of no power. The local electrical company was replacing the telephone pole and transformer that is in our neighbor's backyard just behind our dogwood tree.

Of course, once this was completed and the power was back on, not only was one of our smoke alarms chirping, but our cable modem was fried. Hubby had to scale the ladder to reset the smoke alarm that is on the cathedral ceiling of our bedroom. Then he went to the local cable store to trade our modem for a new one. Quite the day. Hubby was not amused.

I have almost finished crocheting all of the granny squares. I need 49 and I believe there are 45 at the moment.

I laid what I had out a few days ago to get an idea of what types I needed to fill in with and give myself a sample layout for when I assemble the blanket.

I have added a few motifs on Cinnamon House. 

I have concentrated on the crochet and on Three Boats. You can see the latest Three Boats post here. I will be working on it more extensively so that I can finish it, hopefully, by the end of 2027. 

Once the crocheted blanket is finished, I will start quilting the Churn Dash quilt. 

We are celebrating Mother's Day today in the US. I made a casserole of baked ziti yesterday to be heated today. My MIL will join us. 

I will be joining 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! 

Stitch along mini Happy Dance

Finally! I have worked hard this week to finish the ninth out of 24 pages of Three Boats on a Tropical Beach. 

Here is how Three Boats looked three weeks ago. 

There was so much confetti to stitch at the end of this page. These are less than half of the flosses I needed to use just this past Friday. Ugh!

So, Happy Dance! This is how that page turned out.

 I didn’t even do any stitches in the next page as I wanted the finish so badly. I started this page in October. There are 15 pages left. At this rate it will take me 7.5 more years to complete. I need to get a move on. 

I thought I would also share a full length photo so you can see where I am going next. 

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

Sadly, Sharon had a tragic loss in her family this week and will not be updating for a while. You can see her post about that here.

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, Sharon, Daisy, 

Cathie, Linda, MaryMargaret, Helen

Thanks for stopping by! 

Derby Weekend

Kentucky Derby weekend is a big deal in our house. Well, at least it is for Hubby who is a huge horse racing fan. My picks for the Kentucky Oaks (tonight) and the Derby tomorrow have been given to Hubby and he will place my bets. Less than $20. We do not bet large amounts of money. 

I was in the mood to bake and found a Kentucky Derby muffin recipe in my clippings. They have bourbon in them. 

Cinnamon house has a few more motifs completed. The birds and flowers alternate across the bottom and stitch up fairly quickly so that will be my focus this coming week.

I have been concentrating my cross stitching on Three Boats to try to finish the current page. There will be an update on it on Sunday. 

I was unable to finish the granny squares for the donation blanket in time for the last pickup day, but I will continue to work on it until it is done. I need 49 squares and I currently have 26.

 

It is using up a lot of little scraps of yarn. I’m sticking with blue, white and mint green. I have run out of the variegated and blue yarns so it will be mostly green and white with random squares of the blue when it is assembled. 

I’ve decided to hand quilt this Churn Dash quilt top that I found in my fabric closet. It was hand pieced by my mother. Isn’t is pretty.

 The backing fabric was already pieced and stored with the top. I have batting that is the perfect size and I’ve already pin basted it. 

I found this stencil and chose this inherited tatting thread that I plan to use. 

I’m sure the stencil was bought specifically for this quilt, but never used. I’m debating whether to use it on all the blocks or just the churn dash. Your thoughts are appreciated. 

I also found these three basket squares to be used for a table runner or wall hanging. 

These were also pieced by my mother and the fabric is there to finish it. I will make it into a runner soon as there is not much to be done and it will be another WIP finished. These two will be my quilt projects until I decide on another quilt to start. I have been going through my books, magazines and patterns. I have a couple of ideas on what to piece next. 

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! 

Two finishes and more AQS quilts

I’ve been productive and have two more finishes. My granddaughter’s I-Spy quilt is done!

 

I found some black fabric with multi-colored dots in my stash that was perfect for the binding. There was just enough.

I will put this aside now to bring to CA at a later date. She is still a little young to enjoy it. 

I’ve been looking through my fabrics and quilt patterns to try to decide on my next project. No clue as to what I want to work on as of yet. I do still need to layer, pin baste and quilt Royal Squares. I did manage to sort and put away all the leftover scrap fabric from Having a Ball and the I-Spy quilt. I feel like I have a better handle on what fabrics I actually have now. 

The second sock is off the needles and now I have a cozy pair of warm socks for next fall. They are made with DK weight yarn so they are a little thick for Spring weather. 

I have some bamboo yarn lined up to work on another pair, but I may wait until Fall is closer to start them. 

Now for more quilts from the AQS New England quilt show. Enjoy! My WIP updates will be at the end of this post.

I want to share with you the amazing quilts that really caught my eye. These two quilts are the same, but in differenty colorways. The first is called Kaffe's Coral Reef by Linda Sullivan Snellgrove of Huntsville, AL.

The second is My Life in Living Color by Nancy Ouimette of Plantsville, CT.

I love the movement of these quilts. It is amazing how different they look. I only realized they were the same pattern when I was looking at my photos. 

 Next are two quilts that trick the eye into believing they are 3D.This is Visual Voyage, by Inger C. Blood of Camino, CA.

Then there is MONA Perspective by Caryl Bryer Fallert-Gentry of Port Townsend, WA.

I was just blown away by those two quilts. 

The center of this quilt is gorgeous. This is An Ode to an American Soldier, by Sandra Smith-Moore of Pace, FL.

 Another beauty is Majestic Elegance, by Kathryn Zimmerman of Mars Hill, NC. I love the purple!

Finally, this extreme fussy cut quilt is called In William's Garden by Barbara Menasian of Manchester,CT.

 I can't imagine cutting all of those pieces and getting them almost exactly the same. What patience. 

There were many more quilts that I took photos of, but that is all that I will include in this post.

Now for my WIPs. Cinnamon House has gotten a few of its surrounding motifs. 

I was concentrating on doing the finishes, so this has been slightly neglected.

I needed another yarn project. There are donation boxes at a few local libraries where blankets are being collected to give to children suffering from cancer. They must be at least 36" x 36". Unfortunately, only one of the 3 blankets that I had previously made for donation fit the bill, so I started another to use up more of my partial skeins of yarn. I decided on this crochet pattern that I will adjust to make it the correct size. It is an easy pattern.

Sadly, I am finding that I can no longer crochet for long stretches of time as my hand starts to burn and ache. I don't think I will be able to finish the blanket before the final pickup date, but it will be added to my stash for future donation. 

We have been having very changeable weather here. Warm, sunny, short-sleeve weather one day and cool and rainy the next. One nice afternoon the sky was filling with clouds...

and then this double rainbow occurred after some showers. Look in the clouds on the left for the second rainbow.

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! 

AQS Quilt Week - New England

Last Friday Hubby and I traveled from our home on Long Island to Hartford, CT to check out the American Quilter's Society's quilt show. Oh my there were so many beautiful quilts to see. I will show you some in this post and some more next week. I took so many, many photos. Yes, this post is long and photo heavy.

This is the Best In Show quilt called The Sample Book Quilt by Pat Holly of Ann Arbor, MI.

Look at the tiny details of each block! Those green leaves can't be more than half an inch long.

This quilt won for Best Hand Workmanship. It is called Happy Days by Aki Sakai of Tokyo, Japan. Zoom in to see the amazing details. Wow!

Hubby got in the photo of Best Wall quilt. It is The Man Lost in His Memories by Marina Landi & Fabia Diniz of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

This quilt won Best Original Design. It is called Photographers by Hiroko Miyama & Masanobu Miyama of Nagano, Japan.

The details of the little dog and bird just blew me away.

What was quite interesting was the Lower Farmington River and Salmon Brook Quilt Project. 

This project consists of 52 individual quilted panels that form the river when placed side by side. It was crafted to ensure that the water flows seamlessly from one quilt panel to the next as you can see below.

Even though modern quilts are usually not to my taste, this one called Overprint appealed to my love of symmetry and geometry. 

It was made by Betsy Vinegrad of Short Hills, NJ.

You know that I love Log Cabin quilts, so Cabin in the Sun made me smile. This quilt was made by Danielle Boucher of Salem, MA. What a unique idea!

There was also an exhibit called Healing Hearts & Honoring History: The QOVF Semiquincentennial Tribute. Here are just a few of the 25 quilts on display.

You can see that many quilters used the same central panel yet the quilts are quite different.

There were some without that panel also. I just love this quilt below.

The eagle below was magnificent!

There are many, many more quilts to show you, but I will stop here for now. Hubby has always thought that the quilts that I make are show worthy and maybe they are for a local show, but now he understands that these quilts are masterpieces.

I am 3/4 of the way done with quilting my granddaughter's I-Spy quilt. 

There are no folds in the backing this time. I pinned it more densely and adjusted as I went along when the fabric wasn't taut enough. I expect to be searching for binding fabric next week. I am hoping I have something suitable in my stash. 

The buildings of Cinnamon House are almost done. I am working on the chimneys now. 

One short sock is completed and one more is on the needles. 

I feel like a sock expert now! I find this knitting to be very relaxing and satisfying.

Since we were already halfway there, we continued on from Hartford to Boston to visit our daughter and her family and help out some while her husband was away for work. We enjoyed some quality family time at a local Mini-golf course.

 

When we returned home there were some more daffodils and tulips in bloom around our house and yard.

If you are still here after this long post, I hope you enjoyed 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 cup of tea or coffee and pop on over to their sites to see what other bloggers are stitching.

Thanks for stopping by!