What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than stiching with friends.........

Joan came as a guest teacher to show us how to do embroidery thread painting.  You use one strand of floss and many colors to create beautiful designs.  We are all working on the above Violet.  We didn't get very far but she left us with homework.  Several of our ladies were missing from the group today so they will have something to look forward to next time. 

Look at everyone busily stitching away.  Some of us were having a hard time seeing the one strand of floss.  Me included!!  I think this calls for Ott lights and magnifying glasses!!

So today I dragged out the house blocks again.  I have two completed and two more that I'm laying out.  That would mean five to go.  Love all the colors in this quilt, red, blue, creams, blacks, my favorite colors to decorate with. 

The two completed blocks.  This quilt is way bigger than I remembered but I'm sure I won't have a problem finding some place to use it!!

Hope you're enjoying your day and finding some stitching time along the way...................

Winter Days....

We had Busy Bee Finishing School on Thursday and Kim brought her "Little House" piece all completed.  Rather than framing she bordered it with fabric, hand quilted and is going to use it as a wall hanging.  She did a beautiful job!

We had a wee bit of an ice/snow storm yesterday (Friday) so we were told to stay indoors and off the roads.  Lou and I got together and started working on some unfinished projects.  While she was here, Lou got her flower garden piece all put together.  It looks so pretty and the border colors really brought out the colors of the flowers.  One project down Lou!!

I did put together this little table top piece from leftover four patches that I used on the snowman quilt.  Now all I have to do is hand it off to Laura to do her magic quilting and I will have another small piece for Christmas decorating!

Today, Saturday, we are stuck inside again.  So I decided to get busy trying to finish a couple more things.  I'm afraid I haven't finished anything but have fluttered from one project to another, accomplishing nothing!!  This is a kit for a table runner.  I started cutting out the squares but then decided I wasn't in the mood and moved on to....................

Some leftover pieces from the spider web quilt I did last year.  Decided to cut the strips into smaller strips, piece them together and create another mat for Thanksgiving.  Well, here's how far I got before I moved on to another project................................

The house blocks that I started last year I believe.  I have three blocks done and need to do six more before putting the quilt top together with lots of other strips.  So now I am cutting out the house pieces so I can begin the process of building my houses.  This is where I am now!!!  Hopefully I will stay with this project and get the blocks done.

In between all of this, my husband has climbed a ladder and is chipping away at all the ice that has built up in our back gutter.  Seems it is getting in our heater unit and making it want to freeze up.  So of course I can't be sewing or doing anything productive because I'm worried about him being on the ladder.  So either I'm standing at the window watching him or even going out to see if I could be of assistance!  In my PJ's nonetheless!!  And slippers!!  Wonder I didn't slipper down the stairs...............  He is now in the house which means I can get back to building houses!!

Hope you're all tucked inside warm and cozy and enjoying some stitching time!

I finished the quilt top for the sweet snowman BOM that I'm offering.  This is a Buttermilk Basin pattern that I've had for at least a couple of  years and never got around to.  Stacy simply sashed each of her snowman blocks but I decided I wanted a more quilty look so I added several four patches as alternating blocks.  Love the look.  I bought the fabric from Whistle Stop Quilt Shop before she closed and love how it turned out in the blocks.  Not Christmas fabric but just the right colors.  I already miss Connie!

 We had stitchery club recently and several ladies had show and tell.  Joan brought two quilt tops she had completed.  Aren't the doggies adorable.  I love this piece.  I would just need to add a Dalmation!  There's Joan's head below peeking over her second quilt top.  The picture doesn't do this piece justice.  Look at all the embroidery she did to complete this top!  Great job Joan!

And Joyce also brought two pieces she completed.  One was a Mr. Snowflake pillow which was one of my older patterns and the other piece, a table runner that Joyce designed herself.  Again, the photo doesn't do it justice.  And it's huge!  Another great job!

The grandkids spent the weekend with us this past weekend.  On Monday Ms. Evette came over and gave Reagan a counted cross-stitch lesson.  She's sharing what she has done so far which will eventually be a peace sign surrounded by flowers.  I think I used to have something like that on a pair of jeans a very long time ago!!  I think Reagan loved learning a new craft.  Thanks Ms. Evette!!

And my most exciting news is I now have a dye kitchen in the garage.  We finally got the water and electricity installed and I'm ready to start dying.  Now I just need to find the time to get out there.  I've wanted something like this for a very long time so that I didn't have to drag all that stuff into the kitchen.  Now I have it and I'm super excited.  Thank you Mom and Dad for the generous Christmas gift and thank you Mark for all your help!!  Now to the dye pots!!!  You may see steam rising from my garage any day now!!

Hope you're all doing well and staying away from that terrible flu bug.  I'm hoping since we've already been bit we won't get it again!!  Still some coughing and congestion for both of us but just about back to normal.  Stay healthy and keep stitching!

Another local shop.............

is closing their doors.  It is so sad that our shops cannot survive in these economic times.  Things are tough and if we don't go out and support those small businesses, they can't keep their doors open.  And I'm afraid we haven't supported Whistle Stop Quilt Shop enough since she is being forced to close the shop.  Connie's last day is January 19 so if you need to stock up on some fabrics and threads, now is the time.  Not many days left to go say thank you for twelve years of quilting service!!

Whistle Stop Quilt Shop
3434 Kildaire Farm Road
Cary, NC

919-387-7400

The shop hours are now 10am-3pm.  Everything in the shop is now 50% off!!

The BIG 80!!

My husband and I took a quick trip to Florida this week to help my father-in-law celebrate his 80th birthday!!  What a momentous birthday.  He started off the day, as usual, meeting a group of friends to play tennis.  They play just about every day for a couple of hours.  Helps keep them young and active!

 We surprised Dad with a birthday cake after they were finished playing.  Lots of his tennis friends came over and sang Happy Birthday and enjoyed cake.  A wee bit early in the morning for cake, but it was a special day after all!

 My husband reminding Dad that he is indeed 80!  See any family resemblance?!

 We stopped by an orange grove to get some fresh oranges and while leaving the grove, my husband spotted an alligator in the water.  I hopped out, grabbed the camera and shot a few pictures but you barely see the old guy.  He's very close to the edge of the grassy area in this photo.  In all the years we've been going to Florida that's the first "in the wild" alligator that we've seen. 

 We then stopped by a local park and found this guy meandering around.  He was so huge and he didn't like me taking his picture!

 And then we ran into a couple of these cool looking "birds"  Loved the shade of red on his head!

 We took Dad out to dinner for his birthday and came home afterward to have his favorite cake that Mom makes for him only on his birthday.  She has a special brown frosting recipe that is so delicious.  And only one candle to blow out, thank goodness!

 Mom and Dad still happily married (almost sixty years).  Think of all the birthday celebrations they have shared!

Dad is a big Detroit Red Wings hockey fan.  My brother made this shirt just for his 80th birthday.....the big 80 on the back and a Red Wings logo on the front.  Dad loved the shirt and couldn't wait to wear it.  My brother did such an awesome job on the design.

 I created a special scrapbook for Dad's birthday.  Here he's reading one of the stories that my son wrote about from a few years back.  It still made him laugh!  He told me he wasn't going to read any of the other stories until later on.  I told him it would make him cry!

 Look at that handsome man in his new Red Wing shirt.  Looks like he could still go out and play hockey!

Happy birthday Dad!!  Hope you enjoyed your big "80" celebrations.  We sure did love being with you on your special day.

Rough start.....

As some of you already know, 2013 has not been kind to me.  I have caught some sort of CRUD (as I am calling it) and have been sick since before New Year's.  My husband was sick right after Christmas and I guess it was only a matter of time before I got sick too.  I am now on some nice antibiotics and after just one day of medicine, am starting to feel human again.  But that's not what this post is about.....it's about how sweet my husband is.

I was just looking out one of our upstairs windows and thought how pretty our garden was looking in the backyard.  We cut a huge river birch tree down a couple of years ago and we've been slowly enlarging the garden and adding to the landscape.  I had several plants/trees that were given to me when my Mom passed away and we added all of those things to this garden.  It makes me think of Mom whenever I look out at the garden.  She loved her flowers and trees and bushes!!!

At Christmas, hubby gave me a beautiful Holly tree, which I've wanted for years.  And right after Christmas, we figured out where to plant the tree which involved enlarging the garden space to accommodate the tree (his idea, not mine!).  So even though hubby was sick with the CRUD, he still went out and enlarged a huge section of the garden, raked and put down fresh mulch. 

And then, on top of that, he relocated our bird feeder pole and made a new area for that.  I love that man!!!

Just wanted to share something sweet as I sit here coughing my head off (literally it just rolled off!!).

I wrote this post several days ago but have just figured out how to get the pictures to post.  Something happened to my blogger and after several hours of off and on dinking with the computer and almost paying someone to tell me what I was doing wrong, I just figured it out!!  I still love my husband for what he did for me and we are still both battling the CRUD!!!  Some other people are not using as nice a word as CRUD!!!

Hoping your New Year is a healthy one..................and definitely find some stitching time, I hear it cures all!