Some stitching and gardening

Happy Father's Day for all those wonderful fathers in our lives!

 I have finally planted some flower pots for my front porch and back deck. It is about time I think. When I went to the local nursery they had a somewhat sparse selection of flowers. I always put geraniums on my front porch steps.

 They do well there. 

I filled one hanging pot myself this year. I had saved the pretty pot from last year just so I could fill it this year. It is a smaller pot than what I have been able to find lately, which I like. There are a couple of other pots on display. They will fill in as the summer goes on.

I have a tiger lily that is in bloom.

My Kousa dogwood really put on a show this year.

So did the astilbe.

There are now 9 blocks quilted on Having a Ball. I have started marking the tenth block. There were a few days where I just wasn't interested in working on it lately.

Charming Santa's face and beard have all the beading done now.

 I have almost completed the minimal cross stitching on his hat. 

Most of this is beads.

I will be joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching, Frederique at the Quilting Patch and Alycia at Quilty Girl. Make yourself some tea or coffee and pop on over to their sites to see what other bloggers are stitching. 

Thanks for stopping by! 

A birthday trip and some crafting

 If I didn’t comment on your blog last weekend, it’s because I was in California and was a little busy enjoying my two grandchildren. We traveled so Hubby could meet our new granddaughter and we could celebrate our grandson’s 2nd birthday. Here are a few pics. The birthday boy had some fun with his dad in the local park.

Grammy and Grandpa got some cuddles with our new granddaughter who will be 3 months old soon.

 We had a wonderful time. 

It is finally getting warm here. Our pool was opened on Friday. Here’s the view from our living room of the pool and our new outdoor dining set.

I have done a little bit of crafting over the last two weeks. Charming Santa’s face has almost all of his beading done.

 

I have crocheted 16 of 221 granny squares. This is my TV watching craft.

 There is no timetable for its completion. 

Two more blocks have been quilted on Having a Ball. 8 out of 36 have now been quilted. 

The teal green block is the next one to be quilted.

Hubby and I went for a walk after dinner and found this little fledgling robin sitting on Hubby's car as we went out. 

By the time we returned it was no longer there, but the parents were flying around so it must have been in the flower bed. Later on I saw it on the fence on the side of our house with one of the parents. It could fly a little bit. The parents were watching so we just left it alone.

I will be joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching, Frederique at the Quilting Patch and Alycia at Quilty Girl. Make yourself some tea or coffee and pop on over to their sites to see what other bloggers are stitching. 

Thanks for stopping by! 

Small Happy Dance

It’s time for the Stitch Along update. Three weeks have passed and I’ve been busy. This is where Three Boats on a Tropical Beach was for the last update. I had just started stitching part of the third boat.

I’m so happy to say that I have finished page #14. It is the 7th page completed out of 24. This pattern is 6 pages across and 4 down. I am working top to bottom in columns. There is one more page left to do in this 2nd column. I hope that made sense to you. Here is how Three Boats looks now. 

The last page in the column is about 2/3 the size of the others. Here is a closeup of the bottom of that column.

Happy Dance!

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, Christina, Kathy, Margaret,

 Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Sharon, Daisy, 

Cathie, Linda, MaryMargaret, Cindy, Helen

Thanks for stopping by!

Two new starts

Yes there are two new starts. I will get to them, but first I want to show you my progress on my WIPs. First is Charming Santa. His face and beard have all the cross stitching completed. Now I am working on the beading.

Windows into my World....which I am thinking of calling Having a Ball, because I am when working on this, has 6 blocks quilted now. Number 7 is partially done.

Now for the two new projects Cinnamon House is mostly kitted up. Some of the floss colors need to be retrieved from Three Boats.

 Hubby and I will be traveling some over the next month or so and I wanted a small craft to bring with me. 

Close sewing at night has become difficult as I have gotten old, so I have also been looking for a nighttime, TV watching craft. I've been itching to feel some yarn in my hands too, but I don't want a big project. As I was sorting through some knit and crochet pamphlets to decide whether to keep or donate them, I came across this one. 

The granny square baby blanket is perfect for using scraps of yarn and I even have a large skein of white yarn to use. As you can see I have many little balls of orphan yarns to use up. This will eventually be gifted or donated. There is no intended recipient at this time. A few of those pamphets were put aside for donation too. When there aren't any patterns that you feel the urge to make someday, it is time to part with the excess. 

Hubby and I enjoyed a night out this week. We had an excellent dinner at the Harbor House American Kitchen in Northport. Afterwards we saw a production of South Pacific at a local theater. 

I remember my mother having the original Broadway cast album so I knew all of the songs. The production was good, but the show itself is somewhat dated now.

We had an unexpected big purchase this week. Since the warm weather seemed to finally be here on Monday (it has disappeared the last 3 days), we decided to uncover our outdoor furniture and Hubby washed it. As he is washing our bar cart, one of the wheels just disintegrated. At 25 years old, finding a part....or even being able to remove the rest of the wheel, was not happening so the cart was trashed. Then, Hubby was taking a break and we were enjoying a cup of coffee around the now clean table. As I went to get up from the chair, the mesh seat split. Now we started with 6 chairs several years ago and were down to two. We also knew that we needed a new umbrella for the table. It was time for a new purchase. Maybe on of the new polymer table and chair sets. On our trip to a local backyard store we made the discovery that those sets are quite heavy to move around, even just the individual chairs. Lo and behold, the store had a new version of our old metal and glass table with mesh chairs. That is what we bought. It was delivered on Thursday and it has been cold and rainy since. Sigh.... I still have to find a new bar cart as there wasn't a matching one. 

I will be joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching, Frederique at the Quilting Patch and Alycia at Quilty Girl. Make yourself some tea or coffee and pop on over to their sites to see what other bloggers are stitching. 

Thanks for stopping by! 

Family and stitching

 Last weekend our daughter and granddaughter visited. We went to teaching garden at a local college that must have been beautiful at one time, but has now been neglected. 

There were a few pretty flowers.

Online photos showed wedding photography and beautiful flower beds that are no longer there. It was fine for entertaining a two year old. 

Most of the other entertainment came at home and at a local neighborhood park that we can walk to a few blocks from our home. Our granddaughter enjoys working on puzzles. She is doing a 100 piece puzzle with her mom. Yes, she can put the pieces together by herself.

The park has been newly updated and is a lot of fun. Grandpa encouraged her and she mastered the rope bridge to the big twirly slide.

They spun this fun wheel together also.

Sadly all the photos that include me also have my granddaughter's full face on display which I don't publish.

Before our visitors arrived, I was able to finish appliqueing and pin basting Windows into my World.

 I decided to use some variegated tatting thread that I inherited years ago to quilt the colors fabric. I’m using white thread to quilt four petals in the center of each block. 

I think I will quilt a cross hatch on the background. So far, I’ve quilted the four center blocks.

 Excuse the hoop marks. 

I haven’t gotten as far as I would like with the Mill Hill Charming Santa. My crafting mojo seems to be having a lull right now. 

For Mother’s Day, Hubby bought me two pretty hanging baskets. 

Sadly, they are too heavy for my dual plant hook. They have made it fall over twice. 

My rhododendron is in full bloom. I love its color.

 Rain has made all the flowers fall off of this azalea since I took this photo. 

It was pretty while it lasted. 

These dianthus are from a gift planter last year. 

I’m so pleased that they are thriving in the garden. There are 5 plants.  I may move two of them to another location. 

I will be joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching, Frederique at the Quilting Patch and Alycia at Quilty Girl. Make yourself some tea or coffee and pop on over to their sites to see what other bloggers are stitching. 

Thanks for stopping by! 

Mother’s Day Stitch Along Update

 It’s Mother’s Day here in the US and my daughter and granddaughter have been visiting since Friday. Today’s update will be quick. This is where Three Boats was three weeks ago. 

I’ve had more time to work on it since finishing the birth announcement so you can now see the start of the third boat. 

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, Christina, Kathy, Margaret,

 Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Sharon, Daisy, 

Cathie, Linda, MaryMargaret, Cindy, Helen

Thanks for stopping by!

A ball and a lamb

So I sat down and really looked at how to make the Windows’ intersections come together better. I decided that I needed to make sure that all four wonky corners met in the center first. What I did was basically sew the four corners together at the points clockwise. I checked the intersection and then moved on to sewing one inch on either side of it. This worked perfectly for most of the intersections where the second and third rows met. The ball for Windows into my World is complete. Now I must appliqué it to the background fabric.

 I must say that I am pretty proud of myself with this quilt. 

The lamb is done. It is so much cuter than the kitty. 

I went to my local Joann fabrics on Tuesday. I was hoping to find a fabric to use a backing for the Royal Squares quilt. I came away with this fabric at 50% off. 

 I bought a few other neutrals to use in the future. I also picked up a twin size batting. All were 50% off. 

There wasn’t any thread left to speak of and no other fabrics that caught my eye. I won’t be going back.

Charming Santa has a few more stitches. 

I will be joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching, Frederique at the Quilting Patch and Alycia at Quilty Girl. Make yourself some tea or coffee and pop on over to their sites to see what other bloggers are stitching. 

Thanks for stopping by! 

This and that

It is raining today, so I will spend the rest of the day crafting after I write this post. I finished assembling the crocheted kitty. I do not like it at all.

The head is waaaay to big for the body and the head looks like it belongs on a mouse.

 I will not be giving this to my new granddaughter.

 Instead, I have started making a lamb. 

There are 3 more legs to finish and the tail before assembly. You may recall that I made this same lamb for a friend's grandchild. I am much happier with this animal. 

I have also started work on the Charming Santa ornament for my new granddaughter. Her brother got one for his first Christmas so I decided that she should have one also. 

 I like working on these Mill Hill perforated paper kits. Her brother and my other granddaughter will be getting felt ornaments again this Christmas. I haven't started on them yet. 

 Sewing the first two rows together for Windows Into My World was quite the ordeal. A good deal of time was spent taking them apart and resewing. 

Getting the intersections to line up correctly is challenging with all the little fabric "ears". You can see how it looks on the back.

 I have removed some of the papers.

I am going to 3 or 4 fitness classes each week at 9 am at a local gym. I thought I would be more sore from the classes, but it appears that I am in okay shape for these workouts. There are some moves that I find difficult and some that are near impossible for me, but I am mostly keeping up. I have never been able to accomplish a sit up and that is still true. I am working on strengthening those muscles though.

 I will be joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching and Frederique at the Quilting Patch. Make yourself some tea or coffee and pop on over to their sites to see what other bloggers are stitching. 

Thanks for stopping by!