Lots of Crafting Progress

 It is amazing how a week off from work can help your crafting progress. I have been busily working in my basement crafting room sewing together quilt blocks. I am well on my way to finishing another 10 blocks and I hope to get the next 10 started.

I have actually completely finished several of this batch of 10. The y-seams at the end take patience.

I have been waking up super early each morning considering I am off this week. So from 5-6 a.m. I am adding stitches to the Santa stocking. His 2nd mitten is done and I have now start working on the cuff. 

I rolled the frame a little which really felt like I accomplished something.

When visiting my mom and at night while watching TV I have been working on the Baby Elephant blanket. I have added the first blue border - 2 different rows - and I am now working on the first pink border.

I am actually a little farther on this than this photo shows. I am loving this blanket more and more.

I haven't given any updates recently on my mom, but she is eating less and less and sleeping more and more. There are days when she is barely awake when I visit, sometimes falling asleep while I am talking to her. It is sad and heartbreaking. 

Also heartbreaking is the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I never thought I would see an unprovoked invasion such as this in Europe. I am heartsick for all those innocent people who are now fleeing for their lives or fighting for their country. We all must keep them in our prayers and hope that the leaders of the world can somehow resolve this awful situation. 

On a lighter note, Hubby and I took advantage of some warm weather midweek and went on a walk on a local bike path. There is a lake that had several ducks in it that day.

Most of them were paired up.

I took some time to bake this week also. My mother and mother-in-law were the recipients of some Blueberry muffins. I kept a few for me also.

All in all it has been a very productive crafting week. I am sad that it is over. I could really get used to crafting my weeks away. 

Hubby and I are visiting our daughter and son-in-law this weekend. They got 10 inches of snow on Friday so we thought our plans would be cancelled, but we decided to travel on Saturday morning. 

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!

February Stitch Along Update

Santa is filling in nicely. Here is how he looked three weeks ago.

You can see that I have now finished the package along with all that nasty gold metallic stitching in those crosses.

I recently started working on his second mitten. I have the coming week off from work, so I should be able to finish that mitten and start filling in the white in Santa's beard.

 If you recall, I recently realized that the kit did not come with the needed silver beads. I contacted the company via their website and they promptly sent me a small packet of the beads in the mail. I was thrilled by their prompt customer service.

A big thank you to Avis at Sewing Beside the Sea for hosting this Stitch Along every three weeks and sending us the needed posting reminders.

Grab yourself a cup of coffee or tea and take some time to visit the other talented 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, Constanze, Christina, Kathy, 

Margaret, Cindy, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Megan,

 Deborah, Renee, Carmela, Sharon, Daisy,

 AJ, Cathie, Linda, Helen  

Thanks for stopping by!

Birthday, Olympics and Super Bowl!

Today is Hubby's birthday. This is my favorite photo of him from our daughter's wedding two years ago.

I will be making a beef roast and we will have a cake to celebrate just the two of us. We've been together since high school.

We have been totally enjoying watching all the different winter sports of the Olympics. I have been getting a whole lot of crafting completed while watching. I love all of the events. 

I have finished the main picture part of the Baby Elephant Blanket. Now I can start working on the borders.

Isn't that elephant adorable?

I have started to fill in the gold stitching on the gift on the Santa stocking. You can just barely see the difference of the crosses on the left and those on the right.  

 Gosh, I hate stitching with gold metallic floss. I had one strand just fray something awful as I was stitching. I am using short strands to try to prevent the fraying. There are red beads that will go in the center of each cross. I think last time I said they were sequins, but I was not correct. In fact, I was just checking the kit and realized that the silver beads needed for the white fur on the cuffs and hat are missing. I wrote to the company and we shall see what they do.

I finished the 10 log cabin blocks I was working on last week. Now I have 21 out of 196 blocks completed. 

Each block finishes to 6 5/8 inches. I just had to lay them out to see what they look like so far.

As for the Super Bowl, well I really don't care about it. I know blasphemy, right? Well there is no New York team in the Super Bowl this year and I am not entered in any betting pool as I have sometimes been in the past. I might watch some of it....I usually like the half-time show, but I don't even know who is supposed to be performing this year. I may try to find some Olympic events on another station. 

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. I think I will try to tackle the rest of the metallic stitching. Ugh.

Thanks for stopping by!

A reveal

I can finally show you the secret stitching that I spent much of the past year working on. I made this piece to commemorate my son and future daughter-in-law's upcoming wedding. 

I have to say that this took quite a lot of time to stitch, but it was surely a labor of love. Thankfully the framing was completed before Christmas so I could give it to my son to take with him to California. Both he and his fiancee loved it which makes me very happy.

Another labor of love is the Santa stocking for my son-in-law. I am almost finished with the green on the gift.

The unstitched crosses will have gold metallic cross-stitches as well as sequins. I plan on stitching the gold cross-stitches once I finish the green.

I am happily adding rows to the Baby Elephant blanket while watching the Olympics. Don't you just love watching all of the different sports? 

I now have 87 of 106 rows completed on the main section. You can really see the elephant's cute expression now.

I have also spent some time on the Log Cabin Star quilt. I am working on the second set of 20 blocks. It is slow going with all the diamonds whose seams need to match as well as a y-seam on each block. I have added the final bottom log to three of these blocks since this photo was taken. 

I was hoping to finish these yesterday, but precision is a must for these blocks. Maybe I will finish the rest today. The bottom logs are all assembled, they just have to be attached to the blocks. Note that each of the logs finish at 7/8". Each block finishes at 6 5/8" square. These are not large blocks.

I made this Herb and Olive Ciabatta bread yesterday.

 It is a recipe from and older Weight Watchers cookbook. The recipe makes two loaves. I made it to accompany Beef Barley soup for dinner last night. That too is a Weight Watchers recipe, but I leave out the lima beans and use low sodium beef broth instead of just water. Together with the bread we had a delicious and hearty meal.

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. I think I will try to finish the green of Santa's gift today. 

Thanks for stopping by!