Seeing progress with all of my crafts.

 I found this meme the other day and it certainly explains what May had been like so far here on Long Island.

I am so tired of rainy, cold and windy days. We finally had a 70 degree day yesterday, but it was cloudy most of the day. I did manage to clean the bay window in my dining room. I really haven't been in a window cleaning mood at all this Spring. Longtime readers of this blog will know that this is unusual for me as I used to find cleaning windows so satisfying. Lately they are just a chore that I don't want to do. I would much rather be crafting. 

Speaking of crafting, I am really making progress on the Log Cabin Star blocks. I have added the 11th log to each of the 24 blocks I am currently working on and have chosen the pieces for the final log of each block.

These last two logs are pieced and take a little extra time to sew together and then match the seams. You can see the pieces of the final log above.

I have finished quilting the second Overall Sam block and have moved the hoop to start working on the next one. 

I am steadily adding motifs to the Pumpkin House. 

There are a lot of floss color changes. I am trying to complete as many motifs of one color that I can as I move outward from the house. 

I want to share with you the dessert I made last week for Mother's Day. It is The Pioneer Woman's Strawberry Icebox Cake. Oh my, it was delicious. I only remembered to take a photo as we were about to leave for my MIL's house which is why it is covered in plastic wrap.

I will be making this again for sure.

My bluebells have been in bloom along the side of my house. 

Our indoor prayer plant surprised me this week with two white blooms on it. I don't think it has bloomed since we got it 6 years ago.

My rhododendron are just starting to bloom. I will show them to you next week.

On another decent weather day this week hubby and I took a walk through the local preserve. We were trying to identify the strong floral scent as we walked. Looking up we saw these pretty lavendar flowers.

 I thought they might be a wild lilac, but my research says they are an invasive plant called Chinese wisteria. There were a lot of trees covered in this plant. It was pretty though. 

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!

Happy Mother's Day!

It is Mother's Day today in the US. Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful mothers out there. Yesterday Hubby and I went to a local nursery and he bought me three pretty hanging baskets for my gift. Some petunias,

and verbenia.

The baskets are hanging under my Kousa dogwood tree that will bloom in June. There are two pretty azaleas under the tree also that are all in bloom now.

Since that I had the encroaching evergreens removed from around those two azaleas they bloom much more profusely. I love the two different color flowers of the one on the right.

There is another azalea behind our pool that is blooming nicely also.

This little plant...I forget the name... is also in bloom. It will get bigger and bloom again this summer.

Today will be a quiet day that I will fill with stitching. Later, Hubby and I will bring takeout from a local Italian restaurant to his mom's house for dinner. 

I have been getting a lot of stitching completed this past week. The house of Pumpkin House is done. I am now working on the surrounding motifs.

Friday was a rainy day so I spent all day at my sewing machine. I have 10 logs completed on the next 24 Log Cabin Blocks.

 I should be able to add the last two pieced logs and sew the y-seam on each block this coming week and then I just have 21 more of these blocks to complete.

I have started the quilting on the Overall Sam quilt. I work on it at night while watching PBS or Smithsonian channel shows. 

 I really like how it is looking. I am just using 2 strands of floss 1/4 inch away from each Sam and from the outer edge of each block. There are nine blocks and the first one is almost done.

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!

Some crafting

Last weekend Hubby and I were away for 4 days babysitting our adorable granddaughter in Boston. I brought my Pumpkin House cross stitch with me, but only picked it up a couple of times. When it was nap time I sat outside and read "The Thread Collectors". 

This is a historical novel set during the Civil War. It follows the lives of a Jewish New York war bride and her Union Army husband as well as a New Orleans female slave and her beau who is an escaped slave who joins the same Union Army regiment. It is comprised of many short chapters that are such an easy read. The characters are mostly amiable and as you read you hope for the best for all of them. I was somewhat disappointed that the ending seemed to resolve fairly quickly with not as much hardship as I anticipated. Nevertheless, I highly recommend this book.

Before we left for Boston, I had almost finished the y-seams of the latest 10 Log Cabin Star blocks. There were a couple of wonky blocks that I had to rectify first. I did that on Friday and now all ten are completed. 151 of 196 are done now. 

Since there are only 45 blocks left to complete, I have decided to do so in only two batches. The thought of having 4 more sets to complete was daunting. I know it is the same number of blocks, but it seems less daunting this way. I will start on the next 23 blocks today. I have already chosen the first two pieces for the next 11. 

I have been working on Pumpkin House on and off over the last two weeks. I have finished the peach colored background of the house and have added the golden color in the windows. 

There are a few more stitches to fill in on the house and then I will move on to the other motifs that surround it. 

I have some flowers in bloom along my front walk. 

The azaleas should be ready to show you next 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! 

April Stitch Along Update 2

I was hoping to show you the finish of the 4th page on this update and I finally finished it on Wednesday. Yay! This is where Three Boats was at the beginning of April.

Here is where I am now. The first column of 6 and the 4th page out of 24 are finally done!

 

There was a bunch of confetti stitching with several different colors of peach, orange, yellow and lavendar in this sand at the bottom. 

 This Stitch along is hosted every three weeks by Avis at Sewing Beside the Sea who kindly sends 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,

 Jackie, Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Sharon, Daisy, 

Cathie, Linda, MaryMargaret, Cindy

Thanks for stopping by! 

Progress and another UFO

I have been steadily working on the Log Cabin Star quilt (Judy Martin's Timberline). I finished another 10 blocks to make the finished total 141.

 Only 55 more of these blocks to complete. I already have the next 10 started.

They are actually further along than the photo above shows. 

I am also busy filling in the Pumpkin House. The sides are done and I have made progress on the center section.

I decided that I needed a project that I could easily work on while watching nighttime TV. I find it too difficult to cross-stitch once it is dark outside so I was looking something easier on the eyes. I decided to try to finish another UFO. This is one of my mom's projects. She had made and hung a Sunbonnet Sue quilt years ago. My daughter has it now. She had also started an Overall Sam quilt, but she never finished the blocks. A few years ago, I took it out and worked with her to choose the final fabrics and I stitched the last few Sam blocks and assembled the top. 

The dark blue backing fabric that mom had chosen for it ran badly when I washed it so I bought a white and navy pindot fabric that will work better.

It is now all pin-basted and ready to be large-stitch quilted with DMC floss. I went to Michaels and got 6 skeins of a dark blue floss that should work just fine. This hand quilting will be my night-time TV craft.

I finished reading "It Ends with Us" by Colleen Hoover.

 I did not enjoy this book. I found some of the subject matter disturbing and I was not really interested in any of the characters. My daughter gave me this book for Christmas so I was determined to finish it, but I really only liked the last 1/4 of the book. 

I also finished reading "The Paris Library" by Janet Skelsien Charles.

This book I loved. It is set in the American Library in Paris during WWII. The characters are extremely interesting and the story moves at a nice pace. 

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!

Frogging, Spring Flowers and a Quilt Show

In one of my recent posts I showed you the Pumpkin House that I am cross-stitching and stated that I had to audition several floss colors that were not the recommended DMC conversion color as the orange pumpkins at the bottom didn't contrast well with it. Well, I had decided on DMC 3779, but as I continued to stitch I realized that it was much too bright peach....almost pink. Back to the drawing board. I needed something a little duller. I finally settled on stitching with one strand of 3779 and one of 3771. The latter is a much duller peach, but when used alone the pumpkins once again did not contrast. With one strand of each floss, you can now see the pumpkins and the color is a much better match to the cover photo.

Spring flowers are in bloom here. My big bed of daffodils is in full bloom.

I have some pretty tulips around also.

I love my purple tulips.

Hubby and I drove to a quilt show about 45 minutes from home yesterday. It was a small show that was not a judged show. I thought you might like to see some of the quilts that I thought were interesting. This is called Passages. I love the graphic look.

This one is Star Shadows.

This guild, the Smithtown Stitchers, had a Row by Row Challenge with several of those quilts on display. This one was "Cakes and Candy and Pie, Oh My!"

This was "Creamsicle, A Study of Orange".

This "Butterfly" was a collage pattern.

So was "Sandy's EBBA".

There was also a House Challenge. I liked "Home Tweet Home".....

and "Pumpkin Cottages".

Finally there was an Ombre Challenge. These were the rules. 

The variety of quilts made was impressive. My favorite quilt was in this challenge, "X Ombre". 

"Light in the Darkness" was also a great quilt from this challenge.

There was one Log Cabin Quilt called "Opposing Logs". 

You know how much I love Log Cabin quilts. Speaking of which, I have committed spending 30 minutes or more most days on the Log Cabin Star quilt and I almost have the next 10 blocks completed. I am about to add the last log to each and then sew the y-seam.

I feel like I am coming down with another cold. It may just be allergies, but I don't think so. Hopefully, it won't knock me down like the last one did. 

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!

First April Stitch Along Update

These last 3 weeks went by way too fast and also awfully slowly. Since our last update, Hubby and I visited our son and his family in California for 4 days and came home sick on Palm Sunday. I finally started feeling somewhat better on Easter (no celebration though) and I finished my antibiotics yesterday. Hubby is still feeling very rundown, but no longer coughing. Never the less, there was little to no crafting happening for almost 2 weeks. That being said, this is where I was on Three Boats for the last update. 

This is where I am now. 

I thought I would have this page completed by the end of March, but I am almost there. Here is a closeup of the last page that starts just under the boat.

 Those stitches you see at the bottom are the bottom of the page. There has been an awful lot of confetti in this stitching and well....I was sick. Hopefully this page will be finished by the next update, but no guarantees.

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,

 Jackie, Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Sharon, Daisy, 

Cathie, Linda, MaryMargaret, Cindy

Helen is taking a break for now. We will miss her posts.

Thanks for stopping by!