Crocheting again!

Well, not really. I have been cleared to crochet again, but I haven't really gone back to it yet. 

I have to finish the binding on my quilt first.

I just entered it into the Eastern Long Island Quilters Guild show in June. So.... I have to finish the binding, label it and attach a sleeve all before June 3rd. The binding is already attached I just have to hand stitch it to the back. You can see more pictures of this quilt here. I think I have finally decided on a name for this quilt: Fly Away Blues. It is an indigo blue and white quilt with a ton of Flying Geese blocks. I think the name is appropriate.

Do you remember these? 

I think it is time for me to return to finishing these crocheted roses. They have been languishing in this basket for quite a long time waiting to be finished into an afghan. The pattern is by Lizzie at Apple Blossom Dreams. I think I may put my scarf aside for this worsted weight crochet so that my hand does not get so cramped with the fine weight yarn. My hand is feeling fine now and I want to keep it that way. 

Joining Ginny's Yarn Along again this week. What are you knitting/crocheting? What are you reading? Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are up to.

I am still reading Knit the Season by Kate Jacobs. I am so enjoying revisiting Dakota, Catherine, Anita, Peri and all. I love book series where you get to see what a beloved character is up to several years on. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Stitching Along

I have been happily cross-stitching this past week. My tutoring schedule was light as my students are just returning from their Easter vacation. The weather has not been spring cleaning weather yet. Too cold to wash windows much to my chagrin. As I have said in previous posts, I find window washing very satisfying.

So back to my stitching progress. This is how my stamped cross-stitch looked on the last update.

Here it is today. I finally got finished with all of the brown and black and moved on to the colors. It was getting quite boring so I just plowed through it. I now feel like I am making progress. The brown near the top is stamped on the fabric and not stitched.

I have been working on "Through the Woods" by Little House Needleworks while watching TV. It is on a beautiful even-weave fabric that I can even work on at night.

Lastly, I started one of the large cross-stitch patterns that I recently purchased. I used an unlabeled green floss that I had to set out a grid. This technique was recommended by Sunrise Stitching Time and I figured I might avoid some frogging if I prepared my fabric. This is the grid for one page only. I have 10 pages to complete!

I will be giving updates on this piece, but since it is a future gift I will only be able to take partial pictures. Not much to see right now, but at least I dove in and started it. 

I thought I would share with you the gorgeous plants I received for Easter. 

I also received a beautiful Easter lily that has yet to open.

Each year I plant these floral gifts in my flower beds in the hope that they will bloom the following year. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. This winter's snow seems to have been good for my bulbs because there has been quite a show.

I absolutely adore tulips and daffodils. Purple is my favorite color. Then again, I love red flowers also.

Here are my later blooming daffodils. I love the white with the deep yellow centers. There are a couple of white hyacinths hiding in the background also.

I hope you enjoyed the picture journey today.

Thanks for stopping by!

Equal Time Yarn Along

I hope every one had a Happy Easter. I thought I would share with you one of the desserts I made this year. I got the idea from an old Taste of Home magazine. It looks just like a sunflower.

Very simply, I made a boxed yellow cake mix and used canned chocolate fudge icing. In between the two layers I spread Lemon Curd (also from an old Taste of Home magazine). On top you use both mini and regular chocolate chips and then yellow peeps on the outer edge.

Last week I shared an afghan that I made for my daughter several years ago. This week my son is getting equal time as I share the afghan I made for him just prior to my daughter's. 

He wanted brown with a little bit of navy and red and that is what I made. The navy and red are chains that are woven into the open-work crochet.

I am still unable to knit or crochet so I am taking the opportunity to share items I made prior to starting this blog.

I just bought all of this floss and the accompanying Aida cloth.

I am about to start a major cross-stitch project. The chart is 10 pages long. 10 pages!!!

I have never attempted a chart this large, but it is just plain cross-stitch, no fancy stitches. I think what will bother me the most is the constant color changes. I can't reveal the picture as it will be a gift someone who occasionally reads this blog.

I am still reading Knit the Season. Both of my children were home for the Easter weekend so I have done very little stitching or reading since last week. I had to spend as much time as possible with them. 

I am joining Ginny's Yarn Along this week. What are you knitting/crocheting? What are you reading? Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are doing.

Thanks for stopping by!



April WIPocalypse 2014

I am busy cross-stitching right now. I have finished the Little House Needleworks small.

I think I want to make it into a small pillow similar to what is shown on the pattern sample. I will share again when it is completed.

I am also working on this Dimensions stamped cross-stitch kit. I mentioned before that this is one my mother started and did not enjoy working on. She gave it to me to work on eventually. I frogged what she did and have now started it again. This is how far I have gotten so far.

I am joining Measi and other bloggers for WIPocalypse today. The question of the month is: How do you keep your stash organized? Pop on over to her site find out others organize.

Now I don't have a large cross-stitch stash. I have about 5 packaged patterns that are in my craft cabinet in my basement craft room (actually a tiny room I share with the freezer). I have many craft magazines and pattern books ( I rarely discard any), that are stored on the built-in shelves in my craft room.
I began designing my own cross-stitch patterns a few years ago. I use the books for inspiration. 

My floss is stored in plastic boxes in yet another small cabinet in this room.

The boxes below are full of floss that I inherited from an aunt. Many of the colors are discontinued. They came to me in these boxes. I also inherited the tatting thread you can see in the upper right-hand box above from this same aunt.

This box contains all of my DMC floss organized by number. I am going to have to get another box soon as I can't fit any more floss in this one. I need to buy a bunch more for two of the pattern kits I have.

The card you see at top has all of the DMC colors listed. I have a dot next to each one that I have so I know what I have to buy without going through the whole floss box. 
I have very little cross-stitch cloth at the moment. It is stored rolled up on a shelf in my larger craft cabinet. 

 I need to get back to stitching now.

Thanks for stopping by!



Pastel Yarn Along

I thought I would share with you an afghan I made for my daughter several years ago. The pastel colors were perfect for her in her pre-teen and teen years and still complement her bedroom here at home. It is note-worthy that it did not make the move to her first apartment. She needs a more grown up afghan for there. Hmm, maybe that is a future project.

The pattern came from The Needlecraft Shop's 1992 Afghan Calendar.

I used the scraps from this afghan to make these crochet hook holders.

The pattern for these came from Hooked on Crochet Number 53. Yes, there are two of them. They are identical. The top one has what I call my everyday hooks. The bottom one holds all of the crochet hooks that I use for thread. Really skinny hooks. Awful for the hands.

I finally finished reading The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton. In general, I really liked this book. Unfortunately, I didn't like the character Dolly, which made some of the reading tedious for me. I thoroughly enjoyed those chapters that focused on other characters. I rarely have such a strong negative reaction toward a fictional character that it makes reading parts of the book difficult. I liked this book overall and was quite surprised by the ending. I do like when an author can do that. I will definitely read other books by Kate Morton.

I am now moving on to another Kate Jacobs book, Knit the Season: A Friday Night Knitting Club Novel, that is on my Kindle.

Joining Ginny's Yarn Along again this week. What are you knitting/crocheting?
What are you reading? Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are up to.

Thanks for stopping by!



Spring has finally sprung!

The weather is just now warming up in my area. This little daffodil decided to say hello. I never planted this here but it comes up every year.

These daffodils have also made their appearance. They are going to be beautiful for Easter barring any major rain storms.

This grouping is always the last to fully bloom but they are on their way. They surround a Kousa Dogwood tree that shelters our bird bath and bird feeder.

My crafting has been quite stagnant lately. I am still trying to give my "trigger finger" a good long rest, so no crocheting or knitting. I have some swelling every morning and at times throughout each day, but no pain anymore. I still can't get my wedding ring back on which really frustrates me.

As a result, my cross-stitch has been progressing fairly well. I stop and start with this also to ensure I don't hurt my left hand and I can use my right hand exclusively if necessary. I am almost done with this Little House Needleworks project.

I ordered these cross-stitch patterns recently and finally received them. I have been wanting to tackle a Prairie Schooler Santa for quite some time. Now I have two of them. The other two large patterns will be future gifts so I can't show you them completely. 

I have never completed patterns with more than two pages and these have many more. Does anyone have tips on the best way to approach these stitch-heavy patterns?

Thanks for stopping by!



Spring Yarn Along

As you can see from my header picture, I am starting to decorate my house for Easter. I made this little hand towel several years ago from a pattern found in a magazine.

I also set out these Easter eggs. 

There are actually six of them but I couldn't get a good pic of all six. 

They came as white plaster eggs that you painted. They were by Wee Crafts. I don't think they are available anymore. I painted them many years ago when my children were little.

It didn't look much like Spring around here on Monday. I woke up in the morning to rain, followed by sleet and then snow.

The picture was taken through the screen on my back door. I couldn't believe how quickly our deck was coated. No, my pool has not yet been opened. The weather this winter shredded our pool cover. 

My crocheting is somewhat slow. I am still working on my infinity scarf. 

 I have only managed to finish another 15 rows in the past week. Very frustrating because crochet has always been a quick craft for me. 

I have also been working on this Little House Needleworks cross-stitch.

I hope to finish this in the next week.

My reading is still The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton. This too is going slow because there are times when I really don't like Dolly, one of the main characters. I then put the book down and am reluctant to pick it up again. I want to finish this book, but I think it is going to take some time.

Joining Ginny's Yarn Along again this week. What are you knitting/crocheting? What are you reading? Pop on over to her site to see what others are up to.

Thanks for stopping by!