Backstitching

 The cross-stitching is done on the birth announcement and now I am working on the multitude of backstitching. I have finished going around all of the individual items. You can see how the bird, clouds and flowers were enhanced by the backstitching.

Currently I am working on the curlicues on the left side. I already finished them on the right. Then I have to add the Hawaiian proverb, the alphabet and some other words.

I have finished both of the baby blankets. I will be sharing them in a future post as they are currently being blocked. Next I will start working on the embroidered bibs and the Christmas stocking for my granddaughter. Of course, I also have to finish the stocking for my DIL

I will be joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Slow Sunday Stitching

I am so close to finishing both of the baby blankets. I have about 4 inches more to knit in pattern until the garter stitch border for the green blanket.

The secret baby blanket has only 6 more white rows to crochet. Then all I have to do is weave in the ends and add the label. Here is the last peak. The next time you see this blanket it will have been gifted and I can reveal the whole thing.

I am well into backstitching on the birth announcement. The bear, jars and butterfly are completed. Now I am working on the flowers on the right.

I am trying to get back to walking about a mile around my neighborhood each day. This was the beautiful sky one day this week.

Monday saw my first batch of Irish Soda bread this week. The recipe is from an old church recipe book. You can find the recipe under the Baking tab. 

I made two. I gave one to my MIL. I cut the other into quarters. One quarter went to my mom, 2 went in the freezer. I ate the other over several days. I will probably make a couple more this week. 

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!

The First March Stitch Along Update

I have been very busy with knitting and crocheting, but that doesn't mean that I have neglected the birth announcement. That baby will be here in a few months and the cross-stitch needs to be as close to finished as possible so that all I have to add is the name, birthdate and birth statistics. This is where I was at the last update 3 weeks ago.

Oh my, I have completed a whole lot more in three weeks than I realized. This is where I am now. The border is completed, the leaves are added to the flowers, there is a bird and a butterfly and the rainbow is done. 

I am currently working on the clouds. Once the clouds are stitched, all that is left is back stitch outlining, the alphabet and some words. I have no worries that this will be completed before the baby is due in June.

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 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, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, 

Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Sharon, 

Daisy, AJ, Cathie, Linda, Helen, Connie, MaryMargaret, Cindy

Thanks for stopping by! 

 

Snow, Yarn, Books

 Last weekend we visited my daughter and her family. The trip to Boston took 5 hours due to an early morning accident on Interstate 95 that the navigation apps both said would only be an 11 minute delay. Well it was over an hour delay as 3 lanes of the 4 lane road were closed. On the subsequent highway we were traveling in snow! It didn't look like much on the side of the road.

Visibility was limited though so driving was much slower on these roads than usual. 

We did eventually make it to Boston and I got to celebrate my birthday with family. I even got some Grammy snuggles.

The long car ride was beneficial to getting a good amount of knitting completed. This baby blanket is well on its way to being completed over the next week. 

The secret baby blanket has 140 of 198 rows completed. I can't wait until I can share it with you. It is quite adorable if I do say so myself. I need to keep it under wraps just a little while longer.

I've been doing a bunch of reading lately. It gives my hands a rest. I recently finished "A Single Thread" by Marie Bostwick.

 This is first book of the Cobbled Court Quilt series, but unfortunately I can't borrow any of the subsequent books from my library system. I would like to read more of this series. 

I also finished "The Splendour Falls" by Susanna Kearsley. 

I really like this author's books. I have read several of them. I highly recommend this book. 

I am currently reading "The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle" by Jennifer Ryan. 

This is historical fiction that is very well written. I am enjoying it immensely. 

With the arrival of Lent, I have been looking for new fish recipes. I made Spicy Island Shrimp last night. I halved the recipe and also only cooked the shrimp initially for one minute and then took them out of the pan and set them aside. I added them back in during the last 5 minutes. I am not a savvy cook, but cooking the shrimp in the sauce for 15-20 minutes would have been way too long.  I served it over rice with a side salad.

It was very tasty. This from someone who only likes most seafood breaded and fried. I will be making this again.

I will be joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are up to. I will be spending a bunch of time with yarn in my hands. 

Yarn, floss, fabric and baking.

 I am making a whole lot of progress on the four items that I am consistently working on. The secret baby blanket now has 112 of 198 rows completed. Thats 56%!

I am just knitting along on the second baby blanket. 

I am really pleased with how quickly this knitting is going. I bring it with me when I visit my mother and also work on it when watching TV at night.

I have been making great progress on the birth announcement also.

The border is done as are the flowers, red bird and butterfly. The only cross-stitching left is the rest of the rainbow (I need to finish the yellow and add orange and red) and some clouds. After that is just back stitching outlines and lettering.

I have been spending a few mornings each week working on the Log Cabin Star quilt. I finally have 71 of 196 star blocks completed and I have good start on the next 10.

I had a few bananas going bad, but I didn't want to make the usual quick bread or muffins. I was thumbing through a cookbook and found Sweet Banana Bread which is a yeast bread. It made two loaves. My recipe is from an old Better Homes and Gardens Bread book, but you can find the same recipe here.

 I should have trusted my nose and taken them out of the oven before the 30 minutes the recipe called for. They are much darker than they should be and the bottoms are slightly burnt. The bread is extremely light and very tasty though. You really wouldn't know there was banana in it. 

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. I will be working on all of the above and celebrating my birthday.

Thanks for stopping by!

Slow Sunday Yarn Stitching

For those of you looking for a HQAL update, I have none as I have been way to busy with the projects below as well as a few others. I hope to rejoin the update once a couple of these are completed. In the meantime, feel free to look at all the projects that I have been working on. 

I spent 5 days at my daughter's just over a week ago to help with childcare as both my daughter and son-in-law had to work. My son-in-law is now a stay at home dad for the foreseeable future. I totally enjoyed the opportunity to take care of my sweet granddaughter. 

I just brought my knitting as I didn't want to have sewing needles around an infant and a pup. I was making great strides with the knitted baby blanket. I had the pattern down pat.  I got this great row counter from Twice Sheared Sheep which was helping me keep track.

 You can see how much I have completed. 

Unfortunately I realized that I just didn't like the blanket. It was too heavy. It turns out that Bernat baby yarn is not weight 2, but weight 3. The pattern called for baby yarn (it is an old pattern) with two strands held together. Although I love this pattern it also may be two sweet for a boy and the gender has not been revealed as yet. I decided to stop my knitting and find something else. I had one skein of yarn that I had yet to start working with. I cast on the Garter Rib Baby Blanket. I have already made great strides in knitting this and I like it so much better. 

 It only uses one strand of yarn and the pattern knits much more quickly. The blanket itself is a much lighter weight. This will be better for a summer baby. 

I have also made great strides crocheting the secret baby blanket. I have 99 of 198 rows completed. I am halfway done! This is a peek of the back.

I added yet another log to the next 10 blocks for my daughter's quilt. One more log to go and then the y-seam. 

We had a brief spate of warm weather this past week and my crocuses bloomed.

It was 20 degrees F last night, but they are still in bloom today. 

Hubby and I took advantage of the nice weather and walked along the path at the local preserve. We stopped at one of the lakes and saw some ducks.

Last Monday we had a small celebration for Hubby's birthday. His mother came for dinner and we had his favorite Entenmann's chocolate cake for dessert.

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

It's that time once again to share one stitching project that I am working on steadily. The last time I posted an update for this stitch along I had frogged a bunch of green stitches and then restitched them in the appropriate colors.

I have since finished stitching the cute little bear at the bottom as well as the flowers up the sides. I decided that I wanted to finished the border on top before adding the leaves to the flowers. This is where I currently am with my stitching.

 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 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, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, 

Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Sharon, 

Daisy, AJ, Cathie, Linda, Helen, Connie, MaryMargaret, Cindy

Thanks for stopping by! 

Slow Sunday Stitching

I seem to be spending my days slow stitching. That is a good thing. I have made a whole lot of progress on the birth announcement. The flowers have all been started. I am filling in the centers at this point. 

I also added a few stitches to the Woodland Animals stocking. I added some green at the top of the tree.

Much of my time has been busy with yarn. I have 71 out of 198 rows completed on the secret crocheted baby blanket. 

This is my project bag for this blanket. 

Yes, it requires a whole lot of moving different skeins around to keep everything in order. 

I am also busy adding rows to the knitted baby blanket. 

I am so content to be working on so many different projects. 

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Grab a cup of tea or coffee and pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are up to. I will probably spend some time on each of the above WIPs.

Thanks for stopping by! 

 

February Snow Day?

It took until February 1st for my area of New York to have its first measurable snow. A record was set in New York City for the latest measurable snowfall (.4 inches) since records were kept from 1869. Wow! It has been that kind of Winter here. Grey, dreary, cloudy, but too warm for snow. We had what I would call a dusting of snow. 

It was gone by the afternoon. I decided it was enough snow for me to declare a snow day, hibernate inside and sew. I really do want to make some progress on the quilt I am making for my daughter and son-in-law. I have to make 196 log cabin blocks. As of yesterday I have 61 made. 

I started on the next 10. The block on the left is the sample that I follow along with the book.

I also spent some time unknitting. I found a mistake in the edging of the baby blanket 4 rows back and I just couldn't leave it.

I am now back to where I was when I started unknitting plus one more row. 

I am waiting on more comic book boards so I can finish storing my fabrics. I never thought that I had a lot of fabric and I don't compared to serious quilters, but I have way more than I imagined. I have already covered 100 comic book boards with fabric and I easily have 25 or more fabrics still to store this way. I also have a fairly sizeable collection of fat quarters. Now that I have been doing some organizing, I realize I have plenty to choose from for some smaller projects, maybe ever for some larger projects also. 

We enjoyed a visit to our daughter and her family last weekend. It had been 5 weeks since we had seen our granddaughter and she was fearful of us at first. She warmed up pretty quickly and surprised all of us, by rolling over from her back to her tummy for the first time. The next day she rolled from tummy to back for the first time. She is hitting all the important milestones. She does not like to sit still and almost always has her legs moving and kicking. She brings us a lot of joy.

Thanks for stopping by!

HQAL update

My hand-quilting on this table topper is moving along quite slowly. I only work on it when visiting my mother. Sometimes I sit with her and just hold her hand, so no quilting. Here is where I was three weeks ago. I had just started quilting the borders.

I am still working on those borders. 

I have to move the hoop a lot to work on the two inner borders. I will have to work on the outer row without the hoop. 

I realize now that the borders are actually pieced as if they were the courthouse steps pattern except that the center is a large block.

This HQAL is an opportunity for hand quilters to share and motivate each other. The talented quilters below post every three weeks to show our progress and encourage one another. Stop by their sites to see what they are working on. If you have a hand project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below.

Kathy, Margaret, Deb, Nanette, Sharon, Karrin, Daisy, Connie and Cathie 

Thanks for stopping by!