Still Stitching Away

I'm writing this in Blogger, and I'm not sure if I remember how!  I keep thinking that maybe I should just stop blogging since I've become so lax about it, but I just can't quite seem to pull the plug.  Although I'm now retired and have all the time in the world, it seems that I have less time than ever before.  I belong to two Guilds, two small sewing groups, and I sew at a friend's house on Mondays. Three other sewing dates are set up for this month also.  Life is GOOD!

RSC15 has come to a close, and I decided (with the help of many sewing buddies) that I needed another bright color for my final Dresden.  

I had to raid the scrap stash of two friends to make this, because as much as I like pink, my scraps tends to be lighter.  Thanks girls!  I've finished all my centers, and will start assembling the quilt very soon.  Then it's on to RSC16.  If you haven't played along before, Angela announces a new color each month, and we get creative with our scraps of that color.  She'll even provide inspiration for your blocks, or you can choose your own projects.  Each Saturday she had a linky so you can get even more inspiration seeing what others are doing.  Anyone can play along!

Christmas gifts have been sent and received.  Di was quite clever when she designed her gifts this year.  I can hang the little "P", or make it into a pin cushion, or use it as a needle book.  She also sent a lovely stitched Christmas ornament.  And Maria sent the cutest bunting!  I forgot to take a photo while it was hanging, so use your imagination.  Now I'll always have a little Aussie flair to my holidays.  

And...I received my first ever hand knitted socks!  It's finally turned cold here, so I just may be wearing them tomorrow.  

Other December projects included two identical wall hangings, a cross stitched pillow, and three small quilts from the To-be-quilted pile.

The snowman doesn't show up very well, but he's melting in the Florida sunshine!  

Two of the three small quilts were made from scraps, in an effort to reduce the stash!  They will be donated for our Guild's service project.

The third small is one that I made with a small fat quarter bundle that had been collecting dust.  It's meant to be a table topper, and have a button sewed on each prairie point.  I might use it for a baby gift, though, so haven't added the buttons.

We made a quick trip to the shore for a couple of days before Christmas when the weather was unseasonably warm and just too perfect to ignore.  

We spent Christmas with family, and I got to finally meet my new great niece. She's a cutie!  We had a pretty laid back couple of days, but good times with family that we don't see often enough.  There was plenty of food, and all our stockings were filled by Santa.  My loot included thread, rotary blades, and a JoAnn's coupon.  Santa knows me well.  

January got off to a good start, with my first finish completed on January first. The fabric was a gift for Christmas 2010, the top was pieced at least 2-3 years ago, and now it's all put together.  As I was pinning it in preparation for quilting, it occurred to me that it was my last gift from my father, and I'll treasure it forever.

No New Year's resolutions for me this year.  Instead, I'm going to try some weekly goals.  I've made a list of possibilities, and I'm happy to say that Week One was a success, as will Week Two be.  One of the goals is to blog every day for the week.  Think I'll be successful at that one?  LOL!

Happy Stitching!             Sunny

Miscellaneous

It’s hard to do a post when most of the stitching I’ve done lately is secret.  I’ve done some baking, but nothing photo worthy.  I belong to two Guilds and have attended parties at each of them in the past week.  Tons of good food, little gifts, and lots of fun and laughter.  Tomorrow our small sewing group is having our last meeting of the year, and we’re incorporating a cookie exchange.

I forgot to mention that at our Retreat last month, one of the quilters surprised us and brought pin cushions for all the attendees! 

I named mine “Little Bee Peep”.  At one of the Guilds last week, our favors were slightly larger chicken pin cushions.  And at the other Guild last night, we had a pin cushion exchange!  A girl can never have too many pin cushions! 

Although RSC15 is finished, I still need more Dresden plates, so I made an aqua one earlier this week.  Now I need to lay them all out to decide on one last color, as I need 12 for the layout I chose.

Many of the ladies are starting to put together their rainbow scrappy quilts, so pop over to Angela’s blog to see what everyone has been up to all year.  She’s also making plans for RSC16 if you’re interested in joining the fun in the new year.

When I woke up Sunday morning it was very foggy and frosty, and I wanted to grab my camera and go looking for some frosty pictures, but I was meeting a friend for church, so I wasn’t able to go.  Imagine my excitement when I woke up to fog again on Monday morning!!

Tomorrow might be foggy again!! 

I received my Christmas postcard a couple of days ago from Debbie in Canada.  This is for a swap that Sheila organizes several times a year.  If you haven’t joined before it, you should try it!!

I’ve never received a postcard with binding before.  It’s awesome!! Thank you so much Debbie.  And thanks to Sheila as well for organizing the swaps.

I must go prepare for tomorrow’s sewing group.  I’m sure loving the retired life!

Keep on stitching…….Sunny

I’ve lost another month

We all do it.  We’re all amazed when another month ends.  How is it possible that November has come and gone?  Autumn, with it’s pretty leaves and cool temperatures is gone.  Now the only pretty trees are the ones that are beginning to be decorated and lit up for Christmas.  And yes, it’s Christmas at our house.  Not “the holidays”.  It’s cold out now.  No snow around here any time soon, but definitely cold brisk temperatures.

My laptop died, but I knew it was coming, so I was able to retrieve the files that I wanted to save.  A bit of a learning curve with the new/old computer, but it’s not too bad.  DH had a spare laptop that I’ve adopted so  I wasn’t out of business very long.
I’ve done some sewing but most of it is secret, so I don’t have a lot to share.  for OPAM, which I’m too late in posting for it to count, I finished a little quilt that I started at our Spring retreat.  This is a Christmas gift for one of the newest members of our family.


RSC15 finished up with light/lime green in November.  The only thing I got made was my monthly Dresden plate.  I still need to make two more for the layout I’m envisioning, so I’ll add a teal, and one other.

My project for Gifted Gorgeousness was finished in early November.  I am totally addicted to cross stitch again, which partially explains my absence from my blog.  I start stitching and I can’t stop.  Here’s my November portion:

And December:

And this is what they look like as an entire village!

Since this picture was taken, I’ve added a cute button to each house, and it’s currently at the framer. Thanks to Jo for organizing  GG, and keeping me motivated to finish this gorgeous project.
A beautiful postcard arrived in my mail yesterday from Eglea in Brazil.  She says it was her first attempt at using the leaf-pounding technique. 

Here’s the card I sent to her.  I forgot to take a picture, so I grabbed this shot from her blog.  Thanks Eglea!!

Early in November I attended by Guild’s retreat.  I worked on three quilts, but didn’t finish any of them.  Now that Christmas sewing is almost finished, I hope to get back to them.  One day a group of us took a field trip to an Amish fabric store.  As we were leaving, a young Amish man and an older gentleman pulled into the parking lot in a horse drawn buckboard.  One of the quilters commented that she would love a ride in it, and the men heard her and invited us to take a short ride.  What a blast.  Four old “English” women riding down the road in the back of an Amish buckboard. 

I made my list, checked it twice, and went out and did most of my Christmas shopping today.  Decorating, baking, and wrapping soon to follow.  But chances are, if you need me, I’ll be in my chair cross stitching.

Tis the season……Sunny

Shirt Challenge

I almost forgot!  Last year I saw a challenge on Tracee’s blog for a shirt challenge.  The challenge was to make a quilt using only the fabric from 6 shirts and one additional fabric.  We could also use other fabric for the binding and backing.

I already had a stack of shirts that DH was getting rid of, so this was perfect for me.  Terry from Terry’s Treasures was also doing a SAL of Charming Stars, a free Moda pattern.  When I saw that my friend Sheila was going to combine the two projects, I blatantly copied her.  Thanks Sheila!

Sadly, my poor quilt is not yet quilted, but I’ll do my best to get it finished in November.  And would you believe I have enough fabric squares left over that I could make another entire quilt?  It’s amazing how much fabric can be salvaged from 6 shirts.

Hop on over to Tracee’s blog to see how creative all the other ladies were!

Keep on stitching……Sunny

buttons salvaged from 6 shirts

October OPAM

They say time goes much faster as you get older, so I must be getting really OLD!  Can you believe October is gone?  October is one of my two favorite months.  It’s such a pretty month.  DH was gone for nearly a week, but I wasn’t going to waste an October weekend, so I went hiking at a lake that I hadn’t been to in years. 

When I left home, I was wearing a hoodie and the sun was shining brightly.  By the time I reached my destination, I had driven through two rain showers, and a SLEET storm!  Sleet!!  I added another fleece jacket, a waterproof wind jacket, and gloves before setting out on my hike.  It was actually a gorgeous day, but quite cloudy so most of my pictures are too dark. 

The following weekend DH and I drove down to Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park.  We usually avoid that in the fall as it is a very popular destination for leaf peepers and is quite crowded.  Going during the week was awesome!!  The colors were at their best.

We took two short hikes, and I started feeling sick during the first one.  After we had our picnic lunch I was feeling better so we tried a second hike.  Not a good idea.  I went to bed as soon as we got home, at around 8:00, and spent the next three days in bed.  Now DH has it. 

Following my recuperation, I spent much of my time cross stitching, and put the final stitch in Santa’s Village last night.  Once it is washed, ironed, and has the buttons attached, I will be proudly showing it to the world!!

My two finishes for the month include a wall hanging that used some brown scraps for RSC.  I have another  brown project started, but it is not going to be a quick finish.

I chose not to make a brown doll quilt, so used some scraps from another quilt that I recently made.

Unfortunately, the organization that I was making the doll quilts for no longer needs them, so I have a collection of 10 quilts if anyone knows of another organization that might be able to use them.  They’re all approximately 14x18”.

I also made two new name badges for two guilds, and my sewing machine has a name badge too.  At my last retreat, someone slapped a post-it with my name on the back of the machine, and my name was spelled wrong!  So now there’s a cute little tag with the correct spelling. 

Next weekend is Retreat again, so I’ve spent the last couple of days cutting, cutting, and cutting.  Two quilts are prepped and ready to go, and I hope to cut out another today.  I can’t wait!

Keep on stitching…….Sunny

 

FNSI, GG, and RSC

Tonight is FNSI, and DH is away, so I’ll be stitching like crazy.  I plan to work on my GG cross stitch project, in an attempt to get a month ahead.

I missed posting the September installment because I was on vacation, so here’s September and October.  I’m finishing one each month, but not necessarily in the order they were released.  My hope is to finish the final two by November 15th GG posting, so I can take the month of December off for Christmas projects.  GG is Gifted Gorgeousness, where we work on projects that were gifted to us.  This was my Christmas gift in 2012, for the 2013 BOM.  Jo has a linky each month, and I’m hoping she will continue this in 2016, because I’m thrilled to be getting this finished, and I have already chosen a project for next year. 

I got off to a slow start with my brown scraps for RSC, but here is my monthly Dresden Plate.

I’m working on cutting out two more small projects, so stay tuned.  I’m also starting to prep some projects for Retreat in a couple of weeks.  And I just found out that our LQS is having a sit-n-sew tomorrow night!  I might just have to check it out.

Keep on stitching……Sunny

A Beautiful Finish

I just love this little quilt!  This is Val Laird’s BOM for this year.   You can go to her blog and scroll down the the individual posts.

I had most of it assembled after the 8th block, and even had the binding waiting.  As soon as I returned from vacation, stitching the final block was my top priority.  On a few of the blocks, I appliqued one of the larger designs rather than embroidering it.  Can’t wait to get this one hung.

A couple of years ago, I was gifted an orphan block – a basket.  It got buried in some fabric, and I unearthed it in January when I was sorting my scraps.  It’s now a spring wall hanging. 

oops – I still need to give the bunny an eye!  I worked on this last week while sewing with a friend. 

Today was a beautiful day, so DH and I had a play date.  We went for a short hike on the Appalachian Trail.  That wasn’t our plan when we left the house so I didn’t have my hiking boots, and my feet paid the price.  It felt so good to be outdoors though!  I don’t like to hike when it’s hot out, so we’ll start doing more as it cools down.

Back to stitching now . . . . Sunny

Sept OPAM

Because of vacation, September was not a terribly productive month in the sewing room. Fiona Pfaff went to the spa while I was away, so she’s ready to do some serious sewing in October. 

  I’ve already shown the orange doll quilt for RSC.

I also finished Jenny’s Vintage Kitchen BOM.  I’m going to look for a long wooden spoon to use as a hanger!

This was a fun little project, and I’m really pleased with the result.

That’s about it for September.  But I do have a stack of basted quilts ready to be quilted.  There’s rain in the forecast for the next few days, so I’ll be spending my days in quilting mode.

Keep on stitching…Sunny