A Great Find!

Just had to post my great find of the week. I went to the local thrift store and found this beauty! And it works, sews like a dream. This little baby hums and stitches ever so fast! Nice neat tiny stitches. But the best thing about this is the cost, only $6.88, what a bargain. This is the third one I have found at the same store, and yes I bought each of them and they all work! I now have a total of eight machines one of which is an embroidery machine. And I do have my eye on a treadle machine that will be coming to live with me soon, also in working order. Anyhow, now to clean up the machine and she can join the others in my sewing room.Another great find and this one was for free! A friend of my aunts has a little shop that she sells vintage items and bric brac in gave me this 50's sewing box. The box still had some sewing items in it. How cute is this sewing box, I like the poodle on the top. My mom said she could remember these from when she was growing up. The color is a very light pink, I don't know why the photo did not show the true color.The velvet inside is faded but other than that the whole thing is in wonderful shape. No holes or bad spots on the case at all. I have also knitted some more on my shawl that I am making, so I am making progress on that as well. I have also knitted a couple more of my dishcloths that I have been making. Will post pics soon of those. But for now, here is my knitting project. I am so used to crochet being so much faster that it is hard not to have already completed this project or maybe I am just a very slow knitter. Anyhow, I just love the way the colors fall in project. This will be really nice when finished and I will be offering it on my Artfire site when completed.

I am also making pin cushions for the site as well as a few more offerings and will be posting about them soon. Well I have lots to do on today so I will get back to work. Have a good and relaxing weekend and will post again soon.

Happy Stitching Everyone,

A Little Updating

Wow! This month is already over and to me it went by really fast. This has been a really hectic couple of months for me and I am so ready for things to slow down to normal again. Anyhow, I do have some updates and things I want to post about.

A couple of months ago I signed up for a PIF from Mai in the Netherlands and today it arrived! I absolutely love what she made and sent to me. She is a bag maker and she made me the most lovely bag. She also sent along scissors with a name charm and yoyo charm, a small pin cushion and of course a lovely chocolate bar. Thank you Mai I absolutely love what you made me! I am working on the first of my three and will have it ready in a week or so. I will post updates soon about that. Now, here are some pics of my wonderful gifties. I forgot to mention the two rose pins that she made also in the pincushion.

Next is my pics of Gerry K's RR block for the ATG rr that I am in. This RR is on its last month and I have already started working on the last block in the RR. The last block I am working on is Ati's and then it will go on to her. I will post pics of it later. But in the meantime here is Gerry K's block after my work.
Some closeups of my work too!
I decided to do two spiders instead of the usual one. Hope Gerry don't mind.

Giveaway Time!

Chris Wheeler over at http://welovequilting.com/blog/2009/05/may-give-a-way/comment-page-2/#comment-1018 After you have left a comment browse around and have a look see at all she has to offer. Her and her husband have some quilts for sell as well on her site. A very lovely yo yo quilt that reminds me of one that my grandmother made about 30yrs ago before she went to be with the Lord. I am sure you will enjoy looking around her site.
Happy Stitching,

Today's Ramblings

Well I hope that blogger will let me get this posted with all the pics today. For some reason it has not been letting me post or view blogs on blogger. Anyhow, I will try once again. I have been busy working on some projects and of course Mothers Day has come and gone for another year! I hope everyone had a wonderful mothers day, I know I did. I cooked for my mom and spent the day with her and gave her a gift from all of us. It was a very nice day spent with mom. My two younger kids decided to take and pool their money and have portraits of them together made for me for Mothers Day! I was so surprised by what they did. They bought a really nice package and they are just wonderful. It has been a while since we had portraits made and this was the best gift ever! Then on top of all that my wonderful husband gave me EQ6 for my mothers day gift from him!!!!! He spoils me so! I have been wanting this program for over a year now and he just up and surprised me with it this past weekend. I can't wait to start using it. This is another little project that I am working on as it is still not quiet finished as of yet, but I did want to post a little pic of what I have been working on. Or I should say playing with new techniques. This little quiltlet is an experiment in shadow trapunto and has been a challenge for me to finish. I ran out of thread and then could not find anymore, therefore, I am adding dimensional rosettes at the top left corner. Since this is just a sample I am working on it does not matter that I had to use a different shade of thread to finish. It will stay here in my sewing room with me. I will be trying this technique on a larger scale in the future, maybe an 12x12 as this one is much smaller at 6x6. I have noted how much thread it takes and will not run out the next time. Especially if I use variegated thread. I like the way this technique turned out. I also made some post cards with this technique but cannot show photos until their new owners receive them in the mail. I will post pics of them as soon as I can.I have also started another shawl for my new store on artfire. I am knitting this one and am learning that it takes longer to knit a project than to crochet a project. If I was crocheting this shawl I would be halfway finished with it. But, I will keep steady at it and hopefully have it finished soon. I will give my artfire addy as soon as I have enough things to sell put up on site. Anyhow here is the progress of the shawl so far. I just love the colors, they remind me of soft heathery colors. And of course I am using my favorite thread from Lion Brand Yarns, Homespun. The colors are just luscious!That is my small update for now, I hope your week is going well. Mine is busy as usual and I do have a new toy to play with as soon as I load it onto the computer. Hopefully I will have time to do that sometime this week.
Happy Stitching,

A Giveaway from "Daisy Quilts"

Robyn over at "Daisy Quilts" is having a May giveaway. Her drawing is open to anyone with a blog and the winner will be drawn on June 8th, 2009. So you still have time to go over and leave a comment. The button for this drawing is on my sidebar and will take you to the correct post. Go ahead and have some fun.

Happy Stitching

Pin Cushion Swap

I have joined another swap!lol. This one is a pin cushion swap. I am already planning out my design for my swap partner. This will be so much fun and if you want to participate you should go here to sign up: http://www.quiltathome.blogspot.com/ while there take a look around Sandra's blog. Happy Stitching Everyone,

P.S.: I forgot to give the sign up deadline it is May 10, 2009 so go on over and sign up you know you want to.............go on now......thats it......just a click away and you get to swap a wonderful pin cushion.............hurry now, what are you waiting for go ahead and get off the fence!!!!!lol Am I convincing anyone? Hope so!!!!!!!

Joined A Swap

I have joined the "Spring Blooms Mini Quilt" swap over on Quilting Gallery. Sign up is until May 4, 2009. If you would like to be a part of this swap you can click the button on right for this swap and it will take you there. The mini quilt can be 12"x12" up to 24"x24" with the 12"s being the minimum size. This is going to be a fun swap and I have wanted to do a mini quilt swap for some time. Hope you will hop on over and join also, who knows we might be swap partners! Happy Stitching,

Can You Say Stash Enhancement!

Well I have been adding to my stash and thought I would post a few pics of some of my new fabric finds. I also wanted to post the bolt of fabric that my sweetie gave me for Easter. I will start with it first. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I have a love affair with Batik fabric and that I absolutely love all batiks. for Easter this year my sweetie added once again to my stash and this is what I received. The long one is the bolt of fabric it has 10yds. The small one is just 3yds, because they did not have much left of this. Just luscious.................

Then I find batiks in strips! I did a happy dance when I found these. Also could not resist the fat quarters that I found. Look at the wonderful colors.

Next on the stash enhancement list is all this st.patrick fabric I found for .50 cents a yard. I bought all they had of each kind. This will be made into wall-hangings and table runners for Christmas gifts that I am making for family. My sister goes out for all the holidays with decorations and such, so she will be getting some great goodies for Christmas.
Next is more stash enhancement: I love the paisley fabric and the stripe.
Next we have some more black and white and then a fq that I just liked.
Finally this is another RR block that I am working on. This one is Gerry K's block which she is calling "Gypsy Rose". I've already started on the block and have completed the outline of the paisley that she requested I add to her block. I thought I would add something to the middle of it but have not decided as to what yet. Maybe some silk ribbon flowers?????? Hmmmmm......... I am in the thinking mode on this one. I will post pics of what I decide as I go along. Anyhow, here is a sneak peek of her block as it stands now.
A close-up of the my work so far:A while back I received a package from Rengin at http://renginscolors.blogspot.com with some wonderful goodies. I sent her some fabric that she liked and in return she sent me some wonderful items. Thank you again Rengin for all the lovely things you sent. Look at all the lovely roses. They are just gorgeous.

I had never seen or heard of "Oyas" before, but this work is absolutely stunning! She sells this in her Artfire studio here: http://www.artfire.com/modules.php?name=Shop&seller_id=26343 you should stop by and see what she has and add some to your collection. I know I will be adding more to my stash in the near future.

Everything she sent is so beautiful. I will be making a wall hanging from these items soon for my home. The rose above is just gorgeous and look at those rose beads, they are handmade the pic does not do them justice. I am already planning the blocks that will be used, so stay tuned for the revealing of them. Whew! This has been a long post. I do have more photos but am not sure if I should post them or not. I have pics of all the fairy fabric that I have bought but am not sure if it will be ok to post pics of them or not. Anyhow, they are just beautiful and will post about them soon. Happy Stitching Everyone,

I'm Back!

I am much better now and my back is almost back to normal, still wearing a brace but will be doing that for some time to come. But I am better and I have been working on a few things while not being online. My internet connection modem had to be replaced again, but we think we have the item in question finally fixed. We shall see. Anyhow, I have been stitching and I have received some fabric that I have been waiting on. While sitting with my aunt in the icu unit I crocheted a lapgahn and here is the pic. It is made with Lion Brand Homespun in Heather. I just love this thread as it is medium in bulk, but is so soft and it always works up really nice. The photo does not do the color justice.

Next is a panel of Apple Blossom Fairies that I ordered. Of course I will be embellishing this and making a wall-hanging with it. The fabric with all the small fairies is for the backing that came with it. The backing:
And a closeup, I just love this panel! And I can see it all encrusted with beads and such!lol
Next is a block that I have been working on in a RR that I am in on CQI, it is Birds and Bees. This is the whole block after my work.
Here are the closeups of each area that I worked on. I completed two patches and two seams on this block. The first patch I did silk ribbon colonial knot roses and ribbon stitch leaves.
Next I completed a paisley in variegated pink thread and used fuchsia pink Czech beads for the center of each rose and on the outer border.
Next I completed a seam treatment with the Cretan stitch and beaded it with pearl beads.

Last but not least is a seam treatment of Double Chain Stitch with Straight Stitch as well. Done in variegated pink and the straight stitches in blue.

This is just a little of what I have been up to. I have also worked more on my redwork peacock that is my swip and he is shaping up nicely. I also have more fabric to show as well as more siggy blocks that I have received as well as those I have made in return. I will post those in the next couple of days. I also have received the next block in another rr that I am in called Anything Goes DYB, this block belongs to Gerri and is named aptly "Gypsy Rose". I will post pics of before and afters when I complete my work on her block. It has some of my favorite bold colors, so I am sure I will have much fun with this block. This is all I have for today, my youngest son turns 17 tomorrow and we are having a nice family day with him to celebrate. Happy Stitiching everyone,

Small Update

Well it has been a while since I last posted anything crafty. But alas things here have been really hectic. With my sitting at hospital with my aunt who is doing better but now has pneumonia and is back in hospital. She was only home for five days, but at least she is on the mend and not near death this time. While sitting at hospital somehow I pulled a muscle in my back and am now having to wear a brace and my back hurts most of the time. But I have been able to do some stitching on the RR's that I am in. The first RR is the one on CQI group and it is a Traditional Anything Goes RR. This is the block that I have worked on this past month. I hope that Lisa likes what I have done on her block. She had enclosed some crocheted flowers that her aunt had made for someone in the group to use. I decided to go ahead and use them. I did not embellish them much, just a little beading in the center of the flowers. I did not want to overdo the beading and take away from the beauty of the flowers themselves. I did enjoy working on her block. She had nice soft colors and wanted us to think spring. Here is what I did on her block. First I did a seam of feather stitching with beading.

Next is the crocheted flowers that I used. The seam directly above is one I finished along with the seam of butterflies on the right of the flowers. The seam above is chain stitched in Carons wildflowers with beaded flowers and then dragonfly beads in each half circle. The pink butterflies are done in variegated thread DMC #5 with pink chech beads.
The next RR is the Birds and Bees RR on CQI also. The first block that I had is Lyn G's and she wanted us to plant her a garden. Truthfully this block posed a problem for me as I did not really know how to go about planting her garden if you will. So with much thought I decided that every garden needs a tree. At least all my flower gardens have always had trees and those of my mother have trees in them also. So I decided to plant a tree in her garden. I did a tree with french knots for the green leaves and outline stitch for the tree branches and trunk of the tree. I have never made a tree out of french knots before and did not realize how time consuming it was! But I love how the tree came out, it is really nice and I will definitely be doing more in the future. Next I put little dots of color to represent flox at the base of the tree. At the bottom I tried to do flowers to resemble bluebells, but did not hit the mark on those. The other flowers were made to represent hollyhocks like in my moms garden. I hope Lyn likes what I did on her block.

Here is the tree:Next is the flowers

Last is the overall pic of the whole block.

I have no idea why one picture is so light and the others so dark. Hmmmm.......will have to find out why. I did crochet a lap-gan while sitting with my aunt at the hospital and will post a pic of it tomorrow. For some reason I could not upload it on blogger tonight. So I guess I will say good night and happy stitching everyone.

Another Giveaway

I have run across another great giveaway. This one is over on http://indulgeyourshelf.blogspot.com Be sure and go check it out. Laurie has some great stuff on her blog. Also you may want to check out her etsy store, she has some great vintage items on there at really great prices.

More about the giveaway she is having: it is one that I particularly like because it is one featuring one of my favorite actress' Audrey Hepburn and the movie is Breakfast At Tiffany's. She has included some other really cool things in the giveaway as well. I love Audrey and this is one movie that I do not have, so I really would like to win. Not only that, but I would like to have the vintage fabric as well. Anyhow, I put my name in and so should you.
Happy Stitching,