A new Tablerunner :)

Yesterday was such a perfect day. I woke up early and started a new table runner from that cute blue/white ocean fabric I got. I actually was able to finish it yesterday too! Here it is:

It'll be for my entertainment center in my living room, it matches our new remodeling perfect!

We then decided to go to the beach. The weather was amazing! I got a nice sunburn, the kids when boogie boarding, with my help. I got soaked, but it was so much fun. You have to drive through a forest to get to the beach we always go to, and we found her eating her lunch :)

We went to see Cannon Beach. We go here almost every time. We are in love with Cannon Beach!

On my way to the beach I finished up the Shepherd's Bush: Brave One into a little fob. I gave it to my neighbor. She is one of my very close friends, and they are moving away this coming week. I am heart broken. I will miss her badly. She loved it though, and I am glad! She likes quilting/cross stitching a lot too :) They are only moving a few hours away, so I hope we are still able to see each other often. I am just as attached to her as her 4 kids, why is getting a bit older harder? When you make friends, you make friends with them and their family. So if you leave, or they leave you will lose so many at one time. Okay enough of that now :)

Hope everyone is having a lovely day!

Wave Quilt, so close to being done!

Hey everyone! I hope the weekend is looking bright for you and you have lots of fun things planned. I think we'll be heading to the beach if the weather holds out for us. :) Today I got quite a bit accomplished with my wave quilt. I have the whole top sewn together except a strip at the bottom. Here it is!

I laid it out on the floor here, it's kind of big...

And then here it is on my bed.

I just love it. It's so bright and cheery :D I put it on my bed and thought "good morning sunshine!" LOL! I love the colors in it. It is just how I pictured it in my head. I love working with batiks, the colors are fabulous. The strip I need to add is a tan/brown batik, I'll add a 10" strip of it at the bottom, it kind of finishes it off, like a sandy beach.

Today was a great mail day. I had ordered these kits back in April, it took awhile to get them, but boy was it worth the wait! I got 5 Shepherd's Bush kits, I think I died and went to heaven :D

Here is what they are: Americana Roll, Long May She Wave Roll, Bee Scissor Fob (with scissors), Americana Scissor Fob (with scissors), Summer is Waving. What to stitch up first?! :D

Here is my progress on Harbor Lights from this week. So far so good. I love the linen I got, it's so soft.

Woah, that was a long post, sorry about that :D I need to post daily I think! Thank you for all of the comments you have been leaving, I sure appreciate the encouragement and kind words, you are too kind! :) Have a great weekend!!!

Tina's RR all done!

I have finished up my second to last RR for the Jayne's Attic board. I really loved this one. The chart is by Linda Myers, called Quilt Sampler IX. I definetly have it in mind to stitch someday for myself, it is adorable! She stitched the big border, and told us to stitch however many motifs we wanted too. Everyone stitched one band, so I decided I had better do that too! I did the bottom row. I'll mail this off to Edda next week. I really liked this one a lot :D

I have made a little progress on Harbor Lights, but haven't taken a picture yet. Maybe this weekend! I like it so far. Have a good day everyone!

Wave Quilt WIP & Brave One

I finished all of my wave blocks last night yay!!! So, now I will put a 1” border around them all to separate them a bit. I think it’s coming together pretty nice for just making it up out of my head :) Sometimes that could be dangerous I suspect. The top row of waves is really light, almost too light, the wave fabric blends in with the background fabric. The sun was so bright taking this photo, it was hard to capture the right colors with the camera. It looks better in person (I promise!)

I also made the sun last night. Mark called it the pyramid from hell, because it looks like it’s on fire! LOL! Thanks a lot dear, for your encouraging comments. I did want it to be bright, and I think I accomplished that. So, there is the sun. This will go on top of the waves, kinda like a sunset. I’ll put a strip of brown Bali fabric at the bottom to look like the sandy beach.

So my wave quilt is slowly coming together. I hope to get this all finished in the next week or two. I want it for my bed quilt!

Yesterday at work I stitched this up, it took all of an hour tops. It was a quick one to stitch up. It is a Shepherd’s Bush kit called Brave One. The fabric on the left is what I’ll use for the back. I think I’ll make it into a little fob since it’s so tiny.

Since I’ve taken a short break from exchanges for now, I brought a new chart to work on with me at work today :) I get about an hour to stitch at work, between breaks and work, so I always bring something with me here to pass the time if I have time :) I started Harbor Lights!

Carolyn received my 4th of July Exchange!

You guys are SO awesome, thank you so much for your kind comments on the quilt! I could just hug you all. It’s so nice to be able to hear feedback from you, because I know you truly appreciate these hobbies :D Thanks for taking the time to leave me such nice messages, I love you for that :)

Well, I heard from Carolyn that she received my 4th of July Exchange from the USEBB! She says she really loved it, I am so glad :D I had a great time making this for her. It was hard for me to pick what design to do, because there are so many cute ones out there!

I decided to make a flatfold. I have been wanting to do one for a long time, and finally had the perfect design for it! I stitched Bent Creek: Land of Liberty for her on 32 count Babbling Brook fabric.

In the package I put a tin with some fat quarters and threads, and such for her, all red, white and blue of course!

So, since I am pretty much done with this big quilt for my cousin, I started working on my wave quilt again. I am almost done with all of the wave blocks, and will start on the sun block hopefully this week. I have enjoyed getting on the machine again, it seems like a long time since I’ve been on it. Probably only 3 weeks or something, but still, I am glad to be back on the horse! :D I’ll take pics of the waves after I get them done for sure.

Trip Around The World top is complete (phew!)

Well, I bit the bullet today and decided to finish the top of this Trip Around the World quilt. A year ago my cousin asked me to make her a quilt, and she said she'd pay for everything, and pay me a bit as well :) So, I told her of course! She told me the colors and I helped pick the pattern of it. So, this is what I came up with! I used fusible gridding to make this. In my opinion, it makes it go quicker and the seams are much straighter. I enjoyed making this one! I think I'll put a small border on this, though I am not sure what color. I am going to send my cousin the photos and ask her what she prefers. Then I'll send it off to be quilted :D I am so glad I got this done finally. I felt bad I took so long to get it done. I am tired, must go sleep...

My baby trip around the world is now hanging above my bed. I love it there. I plan on making more wall hanging quilts, they are too cute :D

4th of July Exchange from Marie :D

Yesterday was the best mail day ever! I received the 4th of July Exchange from my partner on the USEBB :D Marie had my name, and she really out did herself (as she always does) She is amazing at finishing, and stitching. I hope to be as good as her someday! :D

She made me a tin, and on it she stitched BOF Liberty, 32 Count, over 1. It is so tiny, and yet her stitches are just perfect. My husband even checked it out and was really impressed. It is just beautiful! She lined the tin with nice fabric too :)

She also made a little pin, the designer is The Goode Huswife: America, 40 count over 2. So cute!

And lots of goodies. I’ll use those fat quarters right up :D My living room is decked out in Americana, so this will all fit in really nice.

Marie, thank you so much, you are the best!! She wrote in her card that she had to really make me something nice since she liked the exchange I sent her for Valentine’s day so much. And I felt I had to make her that because she made such a beautiful ornament for me for a Christmas exchange! :D LOL! I am enjoying this :D

Thank you so much for your comments on The Four Seasons, they really are keeping me motivated! I plan to keep on working on it for sure now. That border was a big hurdle to get over, now it’s just small motifs and I’ll be done, I can do it!

The Border is done!!! :D

Thank you for your words of encouragement on this big WIP. It is so close to the finish line, I can taste it! :D LOL! I finished that huge border on it!!! This is my favorite part of the whole thing. I think the border really makes this piece. Now to start in on the big winter section. It's a basket with 3 birds on it....

4 Seasons WIP

Hi there! I hope everyone had a nice weekend, and got a lot accomplished :) I have been doing good. The weekend was a lot of fun. We are still remodeling the living room, though it is coming together so nicely now. We got new blinds & new doorknobs for all of the doors downstairs. They really needed replaced. So that was nice! We went and saw the movie Surfs Up with the penguins, I was surprised with how much I enjoyed it. It was SO hilarious! :D So, I recommend it. I think Mark and I liked it even more than our kids :D

I have been stash shopping on the internet. I placed an order with Jenna at One Star’s Light. I ordered a pattern, and she has been so great to find the threads needed for it, so I can have it all ready to go when she ships it. I think it’s great! I also ordered some dinky dyes silks from her. I have never stitched with silk before, everyone is raving about it, so I have to try too!

This weekend was the stitch-a-thon weekend on the Friends Gather BB. So, seeing as I have a lot of work to do on The Four Seasons I decided to join in. I am so close to having that huge border completed now! Here are some WIP pictures I took.

(if you look at my previous post you can see where I started from)
This was taken on Saturday after several hours of stitching…

And this was taken Sunday after a lot of work too…

So, I am very close to completing that border, woo!

I finished my USEBB 4th of July Exchange as well, so I am mailing that out this week. It turned out cute :)

Fours Seasons WIP

Since we have started remodeling the house, it’s kind of been a mess. Nothing is in its place… and it is starting to affect my everyday routine. I am going mad! :) Anyway, I haven’t hardly been able to concentrate on anything. So, I am in a bit of a slump. I’ve been stitching regularly, but not quilting at all, and I miss it. So hopefully I can get back into the swing of it again soon. Have any of you noticed if your house is a mess that you can’t focus? I wonder if that is a common problem :)

I have pictures! I have been working on the 4 Seasons! The first time in almost a year. So I started working on the border on the bottom left hand side. The Winter side. Fitting for summer right? :) I forgot how many color changes are in this piece, but that is what makes it so pretty. AND this chart has no backstitching, bonus! Anyway I am making my way along on it.

Also I forgot to post a picture last month of the Jayne’s Attic RR I did. The chart was from Bent Creek, but my job was to stitch the blue church birdhouse and tree. Isn’t this an adorable chart? This was Elaine’s RR.

Jayne's Attic RR Update

I logged onto the Jayne’s Attic site for the first time in several months. I am currently doing a New Year’s Round Robin with 5 other ladies from that site. I am really enjoying it so far! This round robin I chose to send out was 2 charts from the Prairie Schooler, Autumn Winds & Winter Wind. I divided them each into 3 parts. I started on the Autumn Wind at the bottom… and there are two more parts left on the Winter Wind, and it’ll be complete! Here is an image of it so far:

I am so excited, this is going to be very cute. I’ll make these into little flat folds when they return to me so I can display them.

I’ve really enjoyed stitching on the other ladies RR as well. I hope they all enjoy doing it as much as I have.

Some of you must think I am crazy to be involved in 2 Round Robins. You can join myself because I think I am crazy too. But this RR will be completed next month, so I am not going to worry about it. I have loved the experience, and can’t wait to keep going with the Neighborhood RR.

And man oh man, I found a great new designer for the cutest hand stitched items, Bareroots. They aren’t cross stitching, just simple embroidery, but their designs are just adorable. I was at the quilt shop today and they had several of their patterns, so I picked one up. Go visit here and tell me what you think! Has anybody done these before?

More charts, yay!

I hope that everybody had a good weekend :) I thought mine was over way too fast. Mark was surfing with his friends, so that left me to go shopping! I went to the LNS and got some new charts…
The Trilogy: Summer Lineup, Heart in Hand: Spring Fobs, HomeSpun Elegance: Wee Fancies I. And two Needle Necessities floss. I love Needle Necessities. They come at 20 yards a skein and are just beautiful colors, and the cost is only a dollar more than WDW or CC. I am trying to stock up on the NN now, they are my favorite. I always grab a few when I go to the LNS.

I really like a lot of the Homespun Elegance charts, I have put a bunch on my wishlist. I’ll have to get some of them in the near future. They are really cute!

I have been working on my USEBB 4th of July exchange, I’m about ½ way done now. And my 4 Seasons I have put several hours into. It is weird working on a big project again! I guess it’s hard to see a whole lot of progress on it compared to the small ones I’ve been doing lately. So I’ll take a picture of it this week to show you.

Kendra, you are right! The Ever After cross stitch is where I figured out that I liked the clear thread for beading. It went relatively quick compared to the mermaids. I am going to do the clear thread on the mermaids whenever I pick them up again.

Happily Ever After

I can finally show one of my recent bigger finishes! I did this for a great friend who I met on LiveJournal in the cross stitch community. She is wonderful and is getting married next month! So of course I had to make her this :) I changed the chart to the colors of her wedding. I really enjoyed stitching it for her.

Sisters and Best Friends: Happily Ever After

28 count Fairy Dust Linen

February 2007 to May 2007

NRR off to Von, and June BC Snapper

My Neighborhood RR is finally ready to march out the door to Von today! I know she’s winging her way to Puerto Rico right now (I wish I was stuffed in her suitcase!), so it’ll be ready for her when she comes home.

I haven’t quite finished it, but I see that is the case with other RR’s as well, so I don’t feel too bad :D I wanted to stitch more grass and a few more little animals on it, but it’ll have to wait for a year and a half. Stitching that big huge border took a lot more time than I expected. I am really looking forward to what everybody stitches on this.

In other news, I finished my June Bent Creek Snapper! ½ way done! Woohoo! Even though I still will have to stitch the leaves around the border, but that won’t be too bad.
Guess what I picked up for the first time in 11 months? The Four Seasons! I had a lot of fun working on it, and so I’ll be focusing on that until I get sick of it again :D Pictures to come when I show a bit more progress.

More house Remodeling Pictures

Well, Mark has finished putting up the new trim and chair rail, he now needs to fill in all of the holes from nailing it to the wall. It is looking so good, my husband is the best :D It’s such a huge improvement from plain white walls. The blue was a little overwhelming at first, but after the chair rail was put in, I think it looks great! (Ignore the piles of messiness in the pictures ahem) :D

I found the chart I want to stitch for the USEBB 4th of July Exchange. I am excited! I have just started it, it will be really cute. The 4th of July is my favorite holiday, the weather is nice, fireworks, bbq’s, it’s the best! My living room is also decorated Americana, so I just have a soft spot for this holiday.

I am done for now with my Neighborhood RR, I'll take one last picture of it and send it off to Von tomorrow! Also, I finished my June Bent Creek snapper. More pictures in the next few days :) Thanks for stopping by!!!

Neighborhood RR Update and Free Fabric...

What a weekend! Thank you for all of your comments on Barbara’s wall hanging. I loved making that, Shepherd’s Bush has the cutest designs :) Let me know how you like that tutorial! I hope it is understandable.

I have not been able to mail off my Neighborhood Round Robin on the original date (last Friday), I didn’t think that it’d take me so long to do! I think it’s because of the big long borders on it that I got delayed. Von is who I mail it to, and she said to take until the 10th if I needed to! Wow, how nice! I should have it done well before then LOL! Here is my progress:

So, a question for you ladies. Since my theme is “farms & Americana” I wanted to put a quote or poem at the bottom of the border. Does anybody have a favorite quote that you think would sound good for this? I am going to be searching for one, thought I’d ask all of you ladies as well :) I have lots of space there, so it can be pretty long I think.

Another thing happened this weekend. I am on the Quilting Community on LiveJournal.com. And a girl there was giving away fabric to anyone who lived in Portland. Another acquaintance of mine on the site also from Portland commented and said that she’d take it and split it with me! Imagine my surprise! I was so overwhelmed with how kind she was to do that. Well, she came over Saturday with the fabric, and all that I can say is there was tons of it. Mostly Batiks (yay!!!!), and yards and yards of them all. I would say there was easily 40 yards altogether, maybe more. Here are the pictures of it all. There is enough of some of those colors to back quilts with. I am ecstatic!!! :D :D :D This is rare I am sure and I feel so lucky. We split everything, I can’t say enough about how kind people are.

Barbara received her Birthday package, Wall hanging tutorial

I heard that Barbara opened her gifties! I was so excited that I got her name for my exchange, I love Barbara, she's so happy and honest and sweet :D I could go on and on, I love reading her blog :) Anyway, being the Shepherd's Bush fan that I am I looked at the Be Attitude series and saw "Be Nice" and immediatly thought of Barbara :) So that is what I stitched for her. I made it into a little wall hanging. I am so glad you like it Barbara, you deserved a wonderful birthday :D

As I made this I did a tutorial on how to make a wall hanging. I loaded it on geocities.com, so it is a little finicky as far as how many can view it at one time. I hope that it will load for you who want to view it! I wanted to put it up on Focus on Finishing, but couldn't figure out how. Does anyone know who I need to talk to?

Click here to view Tutorial

May Review / June Goals

First off I want to say Happy Birthday to Barbara! I hope you have a fantastic day, you deserve it!!! :)

May Review:
Buy fabric for the Neigborhood RR! Ack, this has totally come up fast. I also need to get my part done, along with the borders on it, so it can be mailed out the first of June. *almost done!!!*
Stitch the May Bent Creek Snapper *yes*
Stitch the Shepherd’s Bush ornament for the SAL *no*
Put stitches in the Mermaids *no*
Put stitches in Old McMary’s Farm *no*
Finish the Jayne’s Attic RR and mail it off *done May 9th, 2007*
Finish my friend’s gift *done on May 19th, 2007*
Finish Kristie’s baby quilt *done May 17th, 2007*
Finish Kassidi’s baby quilt *done May 17th, 2007*
Work on my cousin’s trip around the world quilt, get another 1/3 completed *yes*
Make my birthday block *no*

Bonus stuff! *finished Trilogy: Family, started Wave Quilt, finished LHN Pumpkins, mailed the birthday exchange gift to Barbara, happy birthday!!!!*

May was a pretty good month, a lot of time was taken up working on the Neighborhood RR, that border sure did take a long time to do! I am so glad that part is finished.

June Goals:

Stitch the June Bent Creek Snapper *done on 6/5/07*
Stitch two (I’m behind) Shepherd’s Bush ornament’s for the SAL
Put stitches in the Mermaids
Put stitches in The Four Seasons *yes, and finished the border*
Finish the Jayne’s Attic RR and mail it off *yes*
Work on my cousin’s trip around the world quilt, try to get the whole top pieced *yes, got top together*
Stitch and finish the 4th of July Exchange for the USEBB ship by June 22nd *yes*
Work on my wave quilt *yes*
Work on Neighborhood RR when it comes in.

*stitched Shepherd's Bush: Brave One, started Harbor Lights, made two quilts for charity through my church*

There are so many things I need to work on now, I keep starting these new quilts. I need to finish the quilts I have pieced, holy cow Heather! So this month I plan on working on my WIP's, I won't start anything new, even though I really want to. I won't. *stomps foot*