Really Slow Stitching

My stitching is moving along quite slowly due to the fact that I have just been plain old tired. I have to work on Baker Beach during the day so when I am working my stitching time is limited. 

This is where I left off last week:

 Finally, on Saturday, I managed a good hour of stitching.

I have filled in a little more of the beach. I took out the next page to give me inspiration to move forward. It will be the upper right corner. I may move back and forth between the page I am on now and the next page. This page has a whole lot of color changes in it now (didn't bother me on Saturday), the next page is big swaths of color (sometimes you just need to see a bunch of progress). I think I will keep working on the current page today as I am enjoying seeing the beach emerge.

I want to mention to all of you a fun contest on Untwist your Stitches. Rose is trying to boost her blog and would love for you to visit. She will be giving away a brand new cross-stitch pattern.

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. On Monday I will link to Super Mom - No Cape for the Stitchery Link Party. Pop on over to their sites to see what other bloggers are stitching.

Thanks for stopping by!

Royal Squares Quilt

I had some free time this week so I decided to start sewing my Royal Squares quilt. First I had to sort all of the jelly-roll strips. This is only half of them.

Then I had to decide which strips to sew together in twos.

Above are the second half of the strips that are sewn in twos. Next I had to cut the strips in the top photo in half and put those strips in groups of four to sew together in strips. 
I  sewed half of the groups of four today (no picture) and I hope to finish the rest over the weekend. 

Those of you who follow my blog, know that I am not a quick crafter and this will take some time, but I am enjoying sitting at my sewing machine for some mindless strip sewing. Of course, choosing which strips to group together was not all that relaxing as I am somewhat particular as to what looks good together.
I am not sure that scrappy is really for me. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Minimal progress

There has been minimal progress this week as I am up to my ears in Math. As I have said before, I am teaching two classes of Linear Mathematics and Matrices at a local university. My 70 students handed in their first homework assignment for grading last Wednesday. I found out that the assignment I gave was way too long for me to grade the entire thing.....but that is what I have spent all day Friday and Saturday doing. It is going to take me most of Sunday to finish. Future assignments will be shorter or I will pick and choose certain problems to grade. I was also called to sub on Thursday as well as tutor that afternoon. 

Not much stitching going on for me lately, but I made a little bit of progress on 2010 Santa. Here is where I was last week. 

Here is where I am as of Saturday night. 

Looking at my pictures, I can see that I did make some progress on Baker Beach this week, but I really don't remember working on it. This is last week's post:

and this is where it stands now:

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. I hope to work on one of these today. I will be joining Super Mom - No Cape for the Stitchery Link Party.
Pop on over to these sites to see what other bloggers are up to.

Thanks for stopping by!

Santa is done!

I finally finished the Prairie Schooler 2008 Santa!

 As you can see I changed the green and ecru colors to flosses that I had in my stash.  I haven't decided how I want to finish him yet as I plan to make several of these for each of my two children. I want them all finished alike.

Now I have started the 2010 Santa. He will be perfect for my son, who likes to ski. 

 I have been working on Baker Beach also. Last week there were still a whole lot of little white spaces that needed to be filled.

Now I have made it to the lower half of the fourth page. This is where I am as of this morning.

 I want to finish this as quickly as possible to move on the the next two pages to the right of what you can see as they are only a few columns wide and should work up quickly.

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching today. Monday I will link up to Super Mom - No Cape for the Stichery Link Party. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Never Forget

As a proud New Yorker, we must never forget.

Pray for all the innocent souls lost on September 11, 2001

The Ice Cream Saga

On Monday, Labor Day, Hubby and I were taking an after dinner walk around our neighborhood. It was just about getting dark. On our walk we hear the Mr. Softee jingle. Mr. Softee is one of the local ice cream trucks that tour the neighborhood.


Mr. Softee has been around since I was a kid. Typically you get a soft-serve cone: vanilla, chocolate or swirl from this truck, but you can get sandwiches and pops also. I haven't had a Mr. Softee cone for ages. We weren't real close to our house and he stopped on the other side of a local park so we just continued home. It would be some time before Mr. Softee got to our block, if he did at all that night.

Back home Hubby decided he wanted a dish of chocolate ice cream. Let's just say that I hadn't been food-shopping in a while. I was planning on going on Tuesday. We decided to go to our local ice-cream parlor, Krisch's.

This gem has also been around since I was a kid. They are not only an ice-cream parlor (all homemade), but they also serve breakfast, lunch and dinner. It has an old-fashioned counter and 50's theme decor. I remember fondly getting a hot roast beef sandwich for dinner a few times when I was young. Hubby just likes going for ice-cream, not meals. At Easter, they sell a huge assortment of homemade Easter candy.....bunnies, foil eggs, etc.

Now back to the ice-cream tale. Remember, this is Labor Day so we weren't even sure they were open. Well, they were mobbed. The line was out that door you see in the picture above and people were sitting at those outdoor tables waiting to get in. You couldn't even see a path to the counter. 
Okay, so now we decide to go to Carvel since there is one on the road leading home. Now Carvel is mostly soft-serve ice-cream. They are known for their flying saucers (ice-cream sandwiches) and their ice-cream cakes (Fudgie the Whale being one of the most famous).

The one we were headed for looks just like this one. We parked. When we got to the front door the line was also out the door and snaked three deep inside. Are you getting the picture? Everybody wanted ice-cream on Monday night. 

Okay, there is another Carvel store that is actually even closer to our house. We will try this one next.  We live on Long Island. I can easily tell you where there are 4 Carvel stores withing 3 to 10 minutes from my home. This Carvel is store in a small strip of stores. Jackpot! This store was virtually empty. Hubby got his soft-serve chocolate ice cream cup with hot fudge topping. I got a junior-sized vanilla cup with chocolate sprinkles. That is our ice-cream saga. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Back to Baker Beach

No I am not traveling, I am working on Baker Beach again. I took almost two weeks off from stitching on it because we had visitors and then I had to get ready for the start of the university semester. Here is how it looked in mid-August. 

This is where I am as of today.

I have been working on Santa, although you might not be able to see much of a change. This is how he looked the last time I posted. 

Now he at least has hands and his sled is mostly done. I really have to get to his  beard and face soon. 

I was hoping to finish this Santa and another one prior to the holidays so that I could give them as gifts. They are small enough, but I find the recommended fabric extremely frustrating. It has no substance to it and 18-count is a little too small for me to see easily. I will complete the next one on the same fabric as I purchased enough of it, but for future Santas I am finding an alternative.

I am joining Kathy for Slow Sunday Stitching today. On Monday I will join the Stitchery Link Party at Super Mom - No Cape. Pop on over to their sites to see what other bloggers are stitching.

Thanks for stopping by!

Finished!

A while ago I asked my readers to help me choose the fabric for this project. 

 

It turns out I just used the light green as the backing for the pillow that I made.

I was wandering through Michael's near the fall displays when I saw the green jute twine that surrounds the pillow and serves as the hanger. I am going to loop this over the handle of a cabinet....not sure which one yet. This is a TV cabinet from when TVs were quite large. Now it just holds my equally large 1980's speakers. I am so glad I can claim my second finish of the summer. I was definitely hoping for more. 

My university course begins tonight so for me summer is officially over. 

Thanks for stopping by!