August Review, September Goals

August Goals

Stitch the August Bent Creek Snapper *yes*

Stitch a Shepherd’s Bush ornament for the SAL *almost finished one*

Put stitches in the Mermaids *no*

Put stitches in the Four Seasons *yes*

Get backing/batting prepared for wave quilt, and cousin’s quilt, and mail to the quilter *yes* Work on Grandma’s log cabin *yes*

Complete teal/brown Carpenter’s Star *yes, 8-25-07*

Buy batting and thread to finish log cabin, and complete this quilt. *got backing and batting, didn't finish*

Pick out chart to stitch for NRR *yes & started it*

Make another Carpenter’s Star, and finish. *no*

Work on my Block of the month quilt. *yes*

Make 2 birthday blocks *yes, made 3*

I can't believe I thought I'd finish 3 quilts this month HAHAHAHA! I must have a very high opinion of myself to think that :D

September Goals

Work on the Four Seasons

Finish 2 Shepherd's Bush Ornaments *yes*

Work on Grandma's Log Cabin

Stitch 2 Shepherd's Bush Ornaments

Finish Debby's NRR and mail it to Von at the end of the month. *yes*

Stitch September on the Bent Creek Snappers

I would like to make more goals, but I am not feeling ambitious at the moment LOL! :D

I've been having a great time with my family here. We went to the beach on Saturday, it was a lot of fun.


This is Tillamook Head Lighthouse, it is no longer in use, it looks kind of creepy huh? Anyway, it's pretty far out in the ocean, I really had to zoom in on it.
This is my little sister Nikki and I :D

I've been working on my grandma's log cabin quilt, and helping Nikki make a table runner. We have been enjoying our time together. Tomorrow we are making a trip to Fabric Depot, everything is 50% off! I need to get some fabric to finish my grandma's quilt top :) yay!

My last stash... for a long time! :P

Thank you all for your nice comments on my Grandma’s quilt. I am really excited to mail it to her. I think I will next week. Why wait any longer? I was going to give to her for Christmas, but I want her to enjoy it as long as she can. Plus I couldn’t wait that long anyway LOL!

I got my last stash for quite awhile now. I bought some charts from a lady named Wendy that I found on the Shepherd’s Bush BB. She doesn’t have a blog, so I emailed her asking what she had that she’d like to sell. Imagine how happy I was when her list was full of all of my favorite designers! :D I bought quite a few charts from her. She wanted some of my charts too, so we did a trade. I have so many charts anyway, I have really liked the small designs lately, and all of these are small :) I did this before I even thought about my cut back on stash buying, so I am officially not getting any more stash for quite awhile, I swear LOL!

Hinzeit: Americana, HIH: Liberty House Sampler, HIH: Pumpkins, HIH: Star Spangled Summer, HIH: A Pocket Full of Posies

HIH: Red House Sampler, HIH: Tall Tree Sampler, Shepherd’s bush: Spring Fob, HIH: Liberty, Ewe and Eye and Friends: Pumpkin Companion.

Wendy was so sweet, and made me a beaded fob! We both found out we love Americana charts, and she was so thoughtful. Doesn’t it match my scissors perfectly? I love it. Thank you again Wendy!

I went over to Colleen’s house to return her quilting frame. She is in charge of the quilting group at church and wanted me to help her come up with ideas for the quilt group in making seasonal items. We need to keep it very simple, most of the people are still pretty new to quilting. It was funny because I brought one of my Thimbleberries books with me, and she had the same one out and we picked the same things! You know, I don’t think I was much help because we thought of the exact same stuff LOL! We had fun talking and looking at all of her pretty stash. Tonight I go to the church for quilt group and will work on my block of the month quilt some more. I need to add the extra borders to it now.

I am about half way done with my Autumn Quaker exchange. I also have started Debby’s NRR. I don’t take that to work with me though, so I have been working on it for a bit at home in the evenings. I have found a good assortment of charts and am pulling designs from 3 of them for the block. I’ll take a picture when I get further along.

I have more visitors coming, my Grandma is here tomorrow and my sister on Friday. My posting will be sparse I think for a few weeks. I am taking all of next week off to spend time with them and to take my kids to school. I can’t wait!

Grandma Wagner's quilt is done :)

I hope you all had a nice weekend. It sure went by fast for me though :) What else is new though right? Weekends are never long enough. My husband was out of town to Connecticut for 3 days this week, luckily I had mom here to keep me company. I got quite a few things done this weekend, which was really great. I was happy that I did. I have felt like I've fallen behind since I was sick for a week this month. I gotta keep up my momentum!

This is Grandma W. with Jessie taken in 2005.

My Grandma W.'s quilt is completed as of last night! I am so proud of this quilt, because of who I am making it for. My Grandma is an amazing woman. She has worked hard her whole life. She has always sewn, and I grew up with her jumpers on, and her pillows and blankets. I was thinking of making quilts for my family and immediatley my Grandma W. came into my mind. I picked up the phone and called her sister, my Great Aunt Phyllis (who's next in line for a quilt) and started talking about Grandma. She said that she adores the teal color. I had already kitted up a Carpenter's Star quilt in the new Teal/Brown fabric lines you see out now. And knew that was to be for Grandma. I am so excited to be able to make her a nice quilt that I know she will appreciate and enjoy.

I used a nice flannel backing, and thick batting so it will keep her nice and warm.

Since this is nice and puffy, I knew it couldn't be quilted. So I borrowed Colleen's quilting frame to tie it. I fussed with the frame for a good hour and couldn't get my quilt tight enough. My mom kept commenting that a dime should be bounced off of it, and I couldn't bounce a cat off of it, so whatever :P I called Colleen, and she took a break from cleaning her garage to come and help me set it up. Within 20 minutes it was "like a trampoline!" in Jessie's words.

I finished tying it on Saturday night, and it's ready to mail off to Grandma in good old Wyoming!

I got some secret stitching done, my USEBB Halloween Exchange is completed now :) It turned out very cute.

Also I finished my Bent Creek August Snapper today. I liked this one... well of course I did it's red/white/blue and has a lighthouse! So cute.

It's getting too long to photograph all at once :)

Next in the stitching front will be Debby's NRR I got her pattern picked out, and my Autumn USEBB Quaker Exchange. I have some good ideas for the latter, can't wait to do it.

Welcome Colleen!

I want to welcome one of my good friends Colleen to the blogging world! She is such a sweetheart. I hope that you can go over and meet her, you’ll love her! She is a fellow quilter, and has taught me a lot. She has been teaching all of us at church every month how to make our blocks, and special tips and tricks she’s learned. I owe a lot to her for helping me along.

I had one last stash binge late last week, I did some chart trading with someone I met online, and so, I am looking forward to a package in the mail from her early next week. I cannot wait to get them. A lot of patriotic charts that I’ve been eyeing for awhile are in there. It worked out she wanted some of the charts I had already, so I didn’t have to pay much for the large bunch of them she sent me. Also Cindy, I received your charts in the mail yesterday, thank you for trading with me, I am loving the charts you sent :) And thanks for the bonus freebies, awesome!

Thank you everyone for your encouragement on my declaration of cutting back and being more reasonable. There has to be some point to where you have to stop and come to grips that you can’t buy everything. :) I like the idea of maybe getting a reward when I have 5 or 10 done, then maybe it won’t feel like it is so long. What about spending the money to get some of my big ones framed nicely when I finish them? I might do that. It’d be worth it for sure. Especially the Four Seasons. I know I can do this, and you helping me along is so wonderful.

Can you all see my new counter on the right side of my blog? You should all be able to see it now. I think it is really cool. I had to pay for it of course, but I like it! I can change it to show cities, states, towns… it can get really detailed. I like the countries though. I might change it from time to time just for fun.

Also, I changed my settings so that anybody can leave a comment here, not just blogger users. So if you are visiting without a blogger account, feel free to drop a line! I’d love to meet you :)

I’ll leave you with a picture of Curren, who was posing like a model for me at the beach on Saturday!

And here is Jessie getting cheesy for us all too :)

A post of purpose!

I have been doing pretty good lately about not buying a lot of stash. I say pretty good, that means I have only bought a small amount of stuff in the past month or so. I have plans to do better about not buying so much. I have been cleaning house, and in doing that realized how much I really have. I know that I can go through my stash and be happy for a long long time with things to do, and never have to buy more :P I know a lot of you out there are the same as me too! I saw awhile back the challenges to use up stash before you could buy anything else. I have decided I am going to do this. I have also thought ahead and will say I’ll buy items I need to finish something, like if I need a thread color or button, I can get that. I have enough charts to do any kind of exchange under the sun, so I don’t even need to buy a chart for exchanges either LOL! :D So, I am going to do a big challenge for myself, one list will be for quilting, and the other for cross stitching.

Finish 20 cross stitch projects before I can buy any more stash! I can’t believe I just typed that. These are projects for me, not exchanges or round robins.

Projects I’d like to finish (and believe me, I have everything to finish all of these):

1. The Four Seasons (currently WIP)
2. Mermaids of the Deep Blue – Mirabilia *done 10-10-07*
3. Old McMary’s Farm: The Workbasket (currently WIP)
4. Forest Snowfall: Little House Needleworks
5. Plum Threadpack: LHN
6. Berries Threadpack: LHN *done 10-6-07*
7. Pineapple Threadpack: LHN
8. Acorns Threadpack: LHN
9. Christmas Mosaic Ornament: M Designs
10. Bent Creek Snappers (currently WIP)
11. Shepherds Bush: Sail
12. Shepherd’s Bush: Christmas Ornament *done 9-7-07*
13. Shepherd’s Bush: Christmas Ornament *done 9-23-07*
14. Shepherd’s Bush: Christmas Ornament
15. Birds of a Feather: Bloom Where You are Planted
16. Shepherd’s Bush: Americana Needleroll
17. Shepherd’s Bush: A Mother’s Heart
18. Hinzeit: Dash Away All
19. Hillside Samplings: Bittersweet Farm (currently WIP)
20. Valentine Stitchery: The Cape (currently WIP)

Who knows, some of these may change, but for now this list looks pretty accurate for what I want to do soon. All of the big ones are pretty close to being completed too, so that is great! The current WIP must be completed for sure, no exceptions. Yes, I am trying to be hard on myself.

Finish 6 quilting projects before I can buy more fabrics. I will say right now, I will have one exception, and that is for the upcoming seasonal projects I will participate in with my church group. I will allow for that! Since I have no clue what we are even up to. My stash will have to be looked through first though :)

1. Grandma S. Log Cabin quilt (current WIP)
2. Grandma W. Carpenter’s Star Quilt *finished!!! 8-25-07*
3. My blue/yellow log cabin quilt (current WIP)
4. Cowboy Carpenter’s Star quilt
5. Aunt Phyllis Carpenter’s Star quilt
6. Thimbleberries Pumpkin Quilt (currently WIP)

Two of these are almost done, just have to tie them and bind them up!

I am so bad about being an impulse buyer. The internet has made it 300 times worse for me too! You just click and buy, you don’t even have to leave the house. I know I am not that bad either, some of you are worse than me LOL! And I am not trying to make anyone feel bad because most of the time when I see others get their lovely charts and fabrics, I want to do that too! :D Anyway, is anybody else doing this at all? If so, I’d like some good advice on how you do it, and how you stay motivated to do it. Other than saving enough money for retirement!

Thanks for your comments on my sunflowers! And my mom coming, you are all too sweet :) I don’t know what I ever did to earn such nice friends through this blogging world. My mom made it safe and sound and is home with the kids being a grandma! I talked to her today (I am at work) and she said the neighbor kids have been over playing and she is having fun with them all.

I was asked what kind of camera I have, it is a Kodak Z740. I’ve had it for over 3 years now and am still in love with it. It has been the best camera, it can take really nice photos, and long video too. I have been trying harder lately to take nice photographs of my work, and of the flowers in my yard. I have fun experimenting with the close up feature. I don’t know much about lighting and all of that, but I just kind of wing it you know? Photoshop helps me lighten photos too :P So sometimes I cheat a bit.

Well if you actually read all of that, kudos to you! I was in a writing mood today! LOL! I just had it in my mind to start this task of getting things completed.

Mom is almost here, and Sunflowers :)

Hello everyone! I have been prepping my house for the arrival of my fabulous mother. I can’t wait for her to get here. We will be picking her up from the airport tonight. The past two nights have consisted of cleaning. A lot of my old fashioned elbow grease was used! My house looks like new. I love that feeling. So, I am giving it about 3 days to stay that way, then it’ll be back to normal, and my mom can see how we all really live. Isn’t that the truth of it huh?

I have been de-cluttering the house for the past few weeks too, so there is a big improvement. My increasing amount of cross stitch and quilting stash has left me in a pickle though! What to do with it all? I have been trying to fold all of the fabric nice, so it isn’t a huge mess, but I have quite a bit of it now, and not really any place to store it together. I have a few Rubbermaid Tubs, and drawers stuffed with it! So, what do I do? Suggestions please! I have a closet in the spare bedroom I could use, just need to come up with a good plan for it all. I have been good and put all of my upcoming projects in individual ziplock bags, so that is handy. I have organized my quilting/stitching bits and pieces in a plastic storage dresser. It’s the fabric….

I have been stitching on my USEBB Halloween exchange, it will be very cute. Otherwise, nothing new to report, just a clean house :)

I put a counter on my blog, just to see how many visitors I have, and it has been 10 days, well I’ve had over 500 visitors! That has shocked me! Wow! So hello there everyone, don’t be shy about leaving a comment, I love to meet new people.

Just because everyone needs an extra few inches around their waste, I wanted to share this recipe I found on a blog, called The Best Chocolate Sheet Cake Ever. And you know what? IT IS! Go and make it now, you won't regret it.

My sunflowers finally bloomed. I've never grown them before, and they are magnificent, and so tall, over 10'! Here are some pictures of them. The bees love them too! This is a big ol' bumble bee enjoying it along with me.

This girl is at least 15" in diameter, awesome! :D

And my Canna Lily is so pretty, it has these bright orange flowers and striped leaves. I love it.

Stars & Stripes

Thank you so much for your kind comments on my blocks! It helps to hear those :D I have been feeling much better this weekend, finally. I have just been a bit off all of last week, it was really weird. I was not in the mood to do anything, not even stitch! That is so not good for me. Now I feel like I have a lot of catching up to do :)

My mom comes to visit on Tuesday, she'll be here for 3 weeks. I have been doing a lot of de-cluttering around here, loads of stuff in the trash, and to the Goodwill :) It feels good! I borrowed our cousin's carpet cleaner, so hopefully we can do that soon too. Yay, a clean house!

I have been working on Little House Needleworks: Stars & Stripes since the beginning of the month at work. I finally just finished it yesterday when we were coming home from the beach. I think it'll be finished as a wall hanging or a cube-it. Not sure which one yet.

I got a beautiful gift in the mail from Dawn on Friday! I love it! It is so perfect. It matches my new blue living room perfectly. So it will be displayed for all to enjoy :) Also, she was so kind and sent me a pattern and some beads. Thank you again Dawn!

Now I will work on my two exchanges coming up. I signed up for a Halloween and an Autumn Quaker exchange. I kitted them both up so I can start working on them whenever I am in the mood :D I'll also start working on the Neighborhood RR, I have Debby's! I have the chart all picked out. It should look nice :) Have a nice Sunday and I'll talk to you all soon!

Quilt Blocks galore :)

I have been feeling sick this week, I had to stay home from work on Monday, and have had a stomach ache ever since. Curren was sick today, so I stayed home from work to take care of him. He seems to be okay now though, so that is good! I haven't been doing much this week, just haven't felt that good. But today I got 3 blocks done for the birthday block exchange I am in.

Weathervane Block:

Sunlight and Shadows block:

Wyoming Valley Block:

I tried to make a few that were a bit more difficult. I think I did okay! I usually can never get my seams to be perfect, so oh well :P It was fun making different blocks though! I really liked the Wyoming Valley block, I think that'd make a great quilt top, with several of them all laid out.

Last July I started a Block of the Month with a group at church. We got all of our blocks done. I am working on putting the top together. I am going to put two more borders on this quilt, then it'll be completed.

We have had a good crop of cucumbers this year, our tomatoes are still green, I wonder why they aren't red yet? We have dozens of them on the plants. I am sure they'll all turn red at the same time so we will get sick of them really fast LOL!

Everyone have a nice weekend!

More Four Seasons, and the Airshow!

If all of you are not too tired of seeing Four Season WIP pictures... I'll oblige you with another one :) I got all of the large winter motif completed tonight! I had quite a bit of time this weekend to work on it, so I took advantage of that. So, that leaves 4 more small motifs and this will be completed!!!

I made Curren that little bag on Thursday, and Jessie needed one too of course :) So, here it is! I had purchased a bag full of 6" polk-a-dot themed sqaures a few months back, so they worked out really well to make these bags.

The airshow was really fun. We saw the US Navy Blue Angels fly. My hubby took some fanastic pictures too :) I have seen them many times before, but never tire of watching them. I think they are amazing.

Curren has his ears plugged, they are so loud the ground shakes as they fly by :D If you have not seen them before, try to at some point in life, you won't regret it.

Jessie and I waved at them a lot, though I doubt they saw us as they were flying by at 700+ miles an hour! LOL!

I made a bag, finally! :D

So, last night I was going through my Reader and ran across the post by Karen, at My Favourite Things. She had bag eye candy to show off. And I just was so excited when I read her post! I have been buying fabric to make bags for the past few months and just have not done anything with it. There was a great tutorial for a cute bag too. So I copied the list off, and plan to go and get the materials I need to make one :) I made a small bag for my son last night, just kind of winged it. It isn’t perfect, but I think it turned out pretty cute. My husband says it is kinda girly with the polk-a-dots, but I disagree, for there isn’t any “girly” fabric on it! :D I am making my daughter one next with pink polk-a-dot fabrics. So there :P

I went out to dinner with my girlfriends after I had made this little bag, and when I got home I started stitching a bit. I made some good progress on The Four Seasons. I know I have other things I must be doing this month, but I just can’t! I want to work on The Four Seasons, so while I am in such a mood to work on it, I had better right? :) I got a lot more of the holly done on it. There are so many color changes in this chart, it’s crazy. That is why it’s so pretty though, so I carry on.

The Blue Angels are in town for an air show, and they’ve been flying over my work yesterday and today practicing. We plan on going to the air show tomorrow, I can’t wait! I love air shows :D The Blue Angels are just so loud, it’s amazing to me. The kids are just as excited to go too, so it should be a fun day. I hope you all have a really nice weekend, be sure and get lots of fun in of course before we all have to go back to work :D

Charts to trade!

Anybody want to trade? :)

I have several charts that I would like to trade! I am interested in the normal “Heather” stuff, like Shepherd’s Bush, Homespun Elegance, Lizzie Kate, Bent Creek, Little House Needleworks, Blackbird Designs. I have a wish list, if any of you have stitched the charts there and want to trade for the ones below, then perfect, or if you have others that is great too! :D :D Here is what I have to trade:

These are all chart only!

Waxing Moon: Harvest

JBW Designs: Country French Apple

Little House Needleworks: Berries (chart only)

Little House Needleworks: Pure in Heart (chart only)

Little House Needleworks: Plant Kindness

Little House Needleworks: Plums (chart only)

Lizzie Kate: September Block (chart only)



They are linked to the pictures of my finishes of them :)

I have stitched all of these, and don’t plan to again, it’s hard for me to stitch things more than once because there are too many out there to do! :D

None of my charts are marked up, I make copies of them and mark the copies when I use them. Just comment if you are interested.

Four Seasons WIP, and another “finish”

This week is shaping up to be quite alright, Monday wasn’t bad at all :) Some Mondays I just can’t handle. It must be because my hubby is back home! It seems normal again. Last night we watched the Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. I haven’t watched these movies for a couple of years! I have all of the extended editions of the movies, I just love them. I love the books even more :) So, since that movie is SO long, I got quite a bit of stitching done on The Four Seasons.

I am working on the holly and the basket now. After this motif is done, I only have 4 small ones to do! :O And then I’ll be all done with this big chart. The end is looming near, I can feel it.

Also, I had finished this Sweetheart Tree chart last year, and just “finished” it. I didn’t have time to do it with all of the others, so here it is:

Now I’ll have some fall/Halloween stuff, yay!

I am still working bit by bit on the LHN: Stars & Stripes chart here at work. It is coming along, I won’t post a picture until I have it done :) I want to start another BIG project, but won’t until I have Four Seasons done. I have the will power to wait… I really do :P

A Finishing Extravaganza :D

I got bit by the finishing bug *finally* and went crazy last night! I finished 5 of my small ones, 3 into wall hangings, one into an ornament/fob and one into a cube-it.

JBW: Pumpkin, made into a cube-it. I love this way of finishing!

Shepherd's Bush: Love heart, into a small wall hanging

Shepherd's Bush: Summer is Waving into a wall hanging

The Trilogy: Family into a wall hanging

And a small kit called Pumpkin Seeds into a fob/ornament!

It felt good to get all of these finished off, it has been on my mind for quite awhile! Some of these are going into the mail soon for PIF gifties, but I won't reveal who will get what *wink,wink*

My husband is finally home for a few weeks, I am so glad! We have missed him a lot. We went driving in our old 1929 Mercedes car today, it was lovely. We have to take advantage of the nice days here in Portland, because it rains most of the time :P

Have a nice weekend!!!!

Work in Process…

I have a progress picture to show of the Four Seasons now :) I stitched on it the past few nights. There are some little birds now. I love this piece, it’s just so big… I will persevere and get it done though!

Before

As of last night:

So, I have also started a biscornu. I got a freebie by Perephia designs called Alegria. I decided to use my new dinky dye silk called Daydream on it, and the linen is 25 count mint green. The silk is so nice to work with, it’s so smooth! I love it. Here is the top of it, I am not sure what to stitch on the bottom yet.

I hope to get some quilting done tonight, we’ll see. I have been too tired lately to quilt, I just have wanted to stitch, it’s easier :) The weather here is amazing and warm. I hope to spend the evening outside tonight! I have to take advantage of this weather before it starts raining again.