Back from Camping... and Shopping LOL!

Could you believe it, I get to the campsite and realize I had forgotten my camera!?! The shock and horror of it! I was kicking myself the whole time I was there. I am such a picture nut. Anyway, my husband did have his camera phone which isn’t too bad, so we got a few shots! :D Camping and being in the great outdoors really revived me. We stayed at Nehalem Bay State Park and our campsite was a sand hill away from the ocean. It was beautiful! We went beach walking, surfing, boating, caught crabs, chased birds, ate s’mores and just had a good old time :D
My friend and I are quilt nuts and it’s all her fault I like quilting so much anyway, she’s the one who taught me the basics, gave me her old machine and sent me on my way :) We were able to go to the quilt shop in Cannon Beach. Not only was everything 25% off, but they had an amazing selection. It was so much fun! I bought a few things of course. I was able to find the rest of my batik fabric for my wave quilt. I had been searching for fabric I thought would be good for the sky, and for a strip of sand at the bottom. Here is what I got! The sky is the one on the right and the sand on the left.

Hopefully I can get working on this quilt some more in the not to distant future.

Then I found this pack of fat quarters, aren’t they gorgeous? I am not sure what I’ll use them for yet. But I just loved them.

They had little bags full of “dot” fabrics. There are 50 kinds of dot fabric per pack, each square is 6” x 6”. I had to get one, how fun is that? I was thinking of making little bags out of some of them for my kids.

Then there was this great book by Atkinson’s Designs called Happy Hour. It had a few quilt patterns, bag patterns and table runners. I thought they were all awesome. I love the quilt on the front…

And look at those bags! How cute are those?

And then this quilt is great for batiks, and I was thinking of using my Hawaiian fabrics with this pattern, it seems like it’d work well :)

Also I did get some stitching in, I finished my May block of the Bent Creek Snappers. I was so tired when we were driving home, I was finishing some of the border and I fell asleep doing it LOL! That was a first for me. It was like I was in slow motion. I did get it done for the month so that is good.

I am now going to finish my RR this week and get ready to receive one! :D

Have a good weekend!

I hope you all have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend! We are leaving for the coast to camp for three days. I am really looking forward to this, I need a vacation right now, so it couldn’t have come at a more perfect time for me :) I plan to bring some stitching and a book along. We’ll see how much relaxing I get in.

Thank you for all of your wonderful comments, you are all such great friends. I really appreciate you all!

More Neighborhood RR & the Yard & Remodeling

So, here I am again at home with another sick child! Curren came down with the same thing Jessie had last week! Poor kids. So, he is hopefully on the mend after last night. I can only hope. I feel so bad for him. We spent some time outside in the backyard today to get some fresh air. I hope it helped him he seemed to enjoy the sunshine a lot! He put on his swim trunks and had his feet in the water for awhile. All of my flower bushes are in bloom and it smells so good outside :) You can see my two rose bushes and then my big Gardenia bush on the far right in full bloom, it's so tall, I just love that bush!

Here's a closeup of the Gardenia bush.

Then I am plugging away on the NRR, I like is so far. My little tree on the middle left is kind of ugly... I wanted to have a sort of weeping willow. But I don't think it turned out that way :P So I think I'll fill it in a bit more. I made a cow down on the fence too, I hope she turned out alright :D It's hard not having a chart to go off of. You know me, I like to make things hard when they don't have to be :D

Mark has been working on updating the house a little. First we bought some paint to do the living room, then he decided he wanted to tear out the current fireplace and put in a real mantle. So he had to do that... then we will have to tear out all of the old trim and baseboard so it'll match the new fireplace... LOL! Can you see the domino effect here :D So here is what it formerly looked like:

And now:

I love it now! I'll get some more pictures of it when we get the new trim up. You can see we painted the top part of the wall a khaki color, and bottom part blue. We'll put a chair rail to seperate the two colors and redo the trim around the windows white. It should look pretty nice when it's all done. :) We got that huge mirror to put above the fireplace, it's like 5' x 4'! It was a monster to hang up too, but we got it. I keep waiting for the whole wall to fall down from the weight of it :D

I heard that Barbara received my package I sent for her upcoming birthday! I’ll go ahead and post pictures now… just kidding! :D Her birthday is June 1st, so the package got there early. Great, now we all have to be waiting in suspense. That is IF she has enough will power to not open it until her big day! I am glad to hear it arrived safely, I always get a bit nervous mailing overseas… that big WHAT IF factor. And where would it be factor :D

I also have a finish to share! I got this Little House Needleworks chart from Cathy with her PIF gift. I loved stitching it up, thank you so much again Cathy. You are so nice! :)

Little House Needleworks
Cherries
Stitched on 32 count Antique White Linen
5/15 to 5/22

I apologize, several of you keep asking how I’ll finish these and I keep forgetting to tell you! I am thinking I’ll make them into a sort of bellpull or wall hanging. But I want to stitch all of them first, then decide :) They’d be really cute little cubes too though huh? We’ll see…

I really need to work on my Mermaids, or my 4 Seasons WIP now. So, I’ll be pulling one of those out next and try to rotate them a bit at home. Now that I discovered the clear thread makes the beading easier to do, I might do those Mermaids and actually finish them! My 4 Seasons doesn’t have too much left to do on it. Well not much considering how huge it is. I want to finish it this year, it’s been 6 years in the making! I want to start some new big WIP, but won’t until these are both done.

Here is a picture of my 4 Seasons in case some of you haven’t seen it yet. It’s by Marjolein Bastin. I have loved working on it. I started this when I was first learning how to stitch, and so I didn’t buy fabric big enough. As you can see my stitching goes to the very edge of the Aida cloth. I am hoping I can stitch some nice coordinating fabric to it when I am done so it can be stretched and put in a frame. Has anybody else ever done this, and do you recommend that? Let me know please!!! There is no way I am re-stitching it :D

What one do you think I should work on to finish, the 4 Seasons, or Mermaids of the Deep Blue??? Hmmm??? :)

Neighborhood RR WIP

So, I've been busily stitching away at this. I kind of pulled from several charts and other NRR's I've seen. I like how it's turning out so far. I think I'll put a wagon with hay in it up by the barn, and a pond and weeping willow to the left of the house. I want to put a horse in it, but am not sure how to do it, since the area is so small... I'm trying to figure it out, any ideas?

I'm working on my trip around the world quilt still. I've ironed all of the fabric onto the fusible gridding, so now I am just sewing away.

I've received most of the birthday blocks from the exchange I am in. I wanted maroon/green/cream star blocks. I love what I have gotten so far. I should still receive 4 or 5 more, then I'll make as many as I need to make a good size quilt. I wanted Christmas-y colors, so I could have a nice one laying out for Christmas time :D

I've finished a big cross stitch project last night, WOO! It's a gift, so I cannot show it until the receipient recieves it. :) It looks so nice, and I am so glad to have it finished :D You know how frustrated I've been with beading the Mermaids. Well, I have been using a matching DMC color to the bead to do it. I bought some clear quilting thread and beaded with that on my newly finished project and it went SO much faster. I am thinking with my Mermaids I'll use this clear thread now, maybe I'll actually get it finished in the next three years LOL! Does anyone else use this clear thread? It was just nice to be able to do whatever color of bead at anytime.

Thank you everyone for visiting and leaving such nice comments. Jessie is feeling much better now. She had been throwing up and had a slight fever. So, she couldn't keep her medicine down to relieve the fever. Poor baby! She broke her fever that night and is now on the mend. I am so glad. Having a sick kid is never easy.

Tis' the season for BABIES!!!!

I love it when my friend's have babies, because I get to make them a quilt, and they are always so fun to make, with the cute fabric! My little daughter Jessie is sick today :( She has been throwing up quite a bit. I hope she'll feel better soon. So, I am home taking care of her. While she has been napping (a lot), I got two of my baby quilts completed.

This is for my friend Kristie, who is having a boy... and she loves frogs! I happened to have all of this fabric in my stash, so I had to oblige this frog loving :D I have yet to tie it, but that won't take long at all.

This is for my sweet cousin Kassidi's baby. When I went to Utah in November I got to spend time with her. We ended up in a bedding store that sold quilts, and she kept commenting on the cream/green combinations. I usually don't do subtle colors like this for a baby quilt. But you know, I really love it! I found some pretty coordinating paisley fabric and did an Irish Chain pattern. I've always wanted to do an Irish chain, so I am glad I got the opportunity to make this traditional quilt. I am mailing it to her tomorrow, her baby is a few months old now, so I am sure she'll get some use out of it. I put a soft flannel on the back.

This picture doesn't make it look too good :( I quilted it in the ditch down the squares so it should hold up nice with a lot of washing. I used high loft batting so it'll be nice and cozy :)

For Mother's Day I had the kids do some hand painting on fabric, they made flowers and butterflies out of their handprints. I then put them into a wall hanging. I made one for each of their grandma's! Isn't it fun?

I am making good progress on my neighborhood RR now. It is fun! How is everyone else coming along????

LHN Pumpkins Finish :)

What a crazy week, I have been more in a cleaning mood than a stitching mood! So, I haven't got much done in the past week. I need to get cracking on the Neighborhood RR or else I'll be in big trouble! I did manage to finish the Little House Needleworks Pumpkin today. I've been working on it for about a week now. Isn't it cute?

I started Cherries after I finished this, so hopefully I can show it to you by next week :) These are so nice because all of the thread is in it, and you can just grab it and go. Very cool.

I hope all of you have had a nice week so far!

Birthday Gift from Carol & Silver Falls Hike Pics

Here is another gift I received from my birthday that Carol made for me :) She knows I love Shepherd's Bush, and thoughtfully made me this cute little biscornu! Isn't it so sweet?

Last night my husband finally came home after about two weeks of straight traveling for work. So he told me today he wanted to take us all up to Silver Falls State Park. I was so excited! I've been bugging him to take me there for the "waterfall hike" for at least a year now. So, after an hour drive we got there, and did the 5 mile - 3 1/2 hour hike. It's an easy hike, with graveled paths the whole way, and you see 8 huge waterfalls, most over 100 feet high. If you took the longer hike which is about 8 miles you see two more waterfalls. We opted for the 5 mile hike. Maybe the longer one we can attempt next time! So you start at South Falls which is 177 feet high and you can actually walk behind. I just have to say it is just beautiful. Everything is blooming and a vibrant green. It was so refreshing! Here is our little hike we took today.

It ends with us driving out of Silverton, and me finding the excellent street sign! It just makes me laugh! I want to live on this street!

What a great way to spend Mother's Day :D I hope all of you Mothers out there have a wonderful Mother's Day too!

Neighborhood RR Beginning

Well, I went ahead and started my Neighborhood RR. It took me forever to make the border, it was just so long! I did it in short chunks and eventually got it done last night. I still have to make another border around that border LOL! Anyway.... I gridded the fabric to have the blocks 70x70, and started stitching the barn. I want mine to be farms. Whether it has a barn, or pasture, or tractor along with the house is up to who is stitching. As long as it's farm related :) I bought Belfast Linen 32 count light sand. I like this linen, it's nice.

I started planting my garden today. I got a row of sunflowers, tomatoes, bell peppers, carrots and cucumbers. I'm going to do pumpkins too, I am just thinking tomorrow because I am tired! Digging dirt is hard work!

And here is a picture of the kids in my peonies. I wish they bloomed longer than they do, but only for a few months. I wish it was all summer long! They are so beautiful.

And here is a picture of me just for fun :D

Can you tell she's my daughter? LOL! (yes I am a little silly... just a little though) :D They like taking their pictures with our webcam, they are littl showoffs. :D

Wave Quilt WIP, and my 100th post :)

So, all of you aren't sick of me yet? 100 posts later... and it hasn't even been one year yet. You could say I like this blogging business. :) Thank you for all of your kind comments, your motivation and your advice, it means so much to me!!! Hugs to you all!

Well, I present my wave quilt. I drew up plans back in January for this quilt : here is my old post. I wanted to do the ocean, since we love it so much, and the colors of the ocean are so beautiful. I found some Bali fabric last weekend for it, and it has begun. I am going to do 3 rows of waves, the bottom row being the darker wave, the middle a little lighter, and the top row the lightest. On the top of the waves I will do a sun. I still haven't quite figured out how big to make the sun, and what color to make the sky. Any ideas on the color of the sky?

So, here is the dark wave and the "middle" wave.

I have finished all of the bottom dark waves. My blocks are 20" x 20". I'll put a 2" strip of the background blue between the rows to seperate them a bit.

Here is the yellow/orange fabrics I bought for the sun. :) Don't you just love Bali fabric?

So... what do you think? Do you like it?

Leena's Birthday gift to me

Well, my husband had been out of town all of last week, and he took our camera with him. I have got it back now, and am having a hard time deciding what to show you first! I have been working on way too many things since last week, and received some wonderful things too. I am going to show you one thing a day… you know, prolong it a bit! :D

So, I’ve decided to show you the beautiful tin and biscornu fob that Leena made me for my birthday! I joined the Birthday/Christmas exchange blog, and I was thrilled when I saw that Leena had sent me a gift for this exchange.

Here is the little tin:

And matching fob! I love it, it’s so cute!

Then she sent me some beautiful little scissors, floss and a pretty card.

Thank you Leena for this wonderful exchange :) It sure made my birthday perfect! I am going to use the little tin to store pins in for my sewing.

By the way, my mom received her blue/white quilt last week. She LOVED it. I am so glad! She really deserved a beautiful quilt because I have the best mom in the world.