MARCHing Along

I just realized that I have only posted once this month.  What a surprise that was.  I have missed you all and will try and do some catching up this weekend.  We got the peas in the garden on St. Patrick's day.  I was always told that was when you were supposed to plant your peas.  Although, I guess, if you live in - say - Maine - that probably is not when you plant peas.  Here in the Virginias, it seems to work pretty well.  The remainder of the garden still waits for spring.  And, speaking of SPRING (I feel if I shout it, it might hear me and come to me!) that stupid groundhog!  I hear that there is a prosecutor in Ohio who wants to try the groundhog.  Wants the death penalty.  Well, I think a life behind bars, eating nothing but wheat germ, would be a fitting end to that stupid rodent.  I am never listening to him again.  We're going to be freaking three weeks late  for spring, now; according to our local weather prognosticators.  AND, we have "Shovelable" snow coming tomorrow night into Monday. 

But I digress; there is needlework to talk about.

First, Peg C.  If you don't contact me before the end of the month, I'm going to draw another name from the folks who entered the giveaway and find someone else to send the Prairie Schooler chart to.

Now, the things I've done lately  . . . .

This chart came out of an old Cross Stitch and Country Crafts magazine.  I think it's charming.  See how they are marching?

A while back I showed you progress I was making on this crewel farm.  Well, she's all finished.  Zoomed in pics of the cornfield and the tomato garden; I think they're my favorites.

 I've been doing a little applique.  Above is the second block I've finished of the six I have.   When I was working on this the other night, I actually sewed one of the leaves to my finger.  That was a surprise! At the left is the next one I'm going to do in this Tulips in the Park series - yes, I know the picture is upside down, but you can still see the block, right?  It will not look like the finished piece as I have only half the patterns; but close.

This is Gentle Susan, the sampler I'm working on for Nicola's Scarlet Letter Year (logo in sidebar).  I cannot remember if I've actually posted this on the NSLY2 blog yet.  I have gotten a start on the next tableau down, but gave it up to stitch other things for awhile.

Yesterday I went and picked up a few things.  First, my granddaughter's quilt came home from the quilter.  Top is a peek at the quilt top and bottom is a good look at the backing fabric.  Siobhan (who is doing a LOT of applique lateley) told me that the fabrics are designed by Pam Kitty.  I absolutely LOVE the backing fabric.  Apparently a lot of other people do too, because when I went to the shop to buy it, I needed 5.5 yards, but could only get 5.25.  With a little fineagaling I was able to get it to be big enough through inventive pieceing.  This print reminds me of percale sheets.  I love it so much that I am sure I have a quilt like this in my bedroom's future.  I chose to have the quilting done in a petal pink.  Emma vascillates between pink and purple being her favorite colors.  My son, Mitch, says she'll be fine with the emphasis on pink.

I also picked up the label for the Civil War quilt.  That will be attached to the quilt sometime around beginning of April:

Also awhile back, I showed the in progress photos for this bag I'm making for a friend.  He is a former White House gardener and specializes in trees.  I think he's gonna love it.

          WOODLAWN


I have now been twice to the Needlework Exhibition at Woodlawn Plantation in Alexandria, Virginia.  It is held each March.   There's still time if you can make it.

What was on display this year?  Well, it seemed to be less of a variety, but very, very, very, very good.  Once again, it was a map that took my breath away.  It was an original design, US map.  I think that the linen was painted.  Then, in the Appalachian and Rockies section, the maker had done something like trapunto, to give it a 3-D effect.  Then, in two corners, there were heavily embroidered sections of landscapes.  It was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G!!!

Unfortunately, they had hung it high on the wall - well over six feet up.  The piece was relatively small.  I'd say it was about 9 inches high by about 15 inches wide.  Which, hung over six feet in the air, is not so big.  It was very difficult to make out the details because it was hung so high.  And it won one of the very prestigious awards.  I was sad for the maker whose work was under-appreciated.

Another piece that ended up being my favorite was a sampler called Susan Rambo 1839.  It has, as my friend put it, demonic looking squirrels on it.  But, I liked them.  My favorite part of it is the outer border.  It's very pretty.

Another that I saw was a personalized Christmas Garden sampler that was designed by Blackbird Designs.  The stitcher had stitched an on-point square in the center and put (I guess, her) one initial in it that happened to be a "K". 

 It's a shame that they don't allow even non-flash photography, because just the little tweaks that these stitchers put on their pieces make them look outstanding.

Let's see, they had a room where purses were on display that had been stitched.  One there was all beaded.  I felt quite put in my place in that room.  The thought went through my head that I'm just not that good, when there are stitchers - and finishers - that can do that work.

The only thing that they didn't have was quilts.  Of any kind.  Yet they have one on their booklet.  And isn't quilting considered needlework?  I don't know, maybe they host a separate quilt show sometime in the year.  Overall it was very nice.  I got to see lots of different stuff and be inspired by many wonderful stitchers.

Then it was on to In Stitches, (link to the blog) the shop that Glenna writes so well about.  The nice thing about going to In Stitches (link to the shop website) in late March is that they are fresh back from market with lots of new stuff!

I discovered two new-to-me designers, picked up a couple of things I've been looking for, and found some lovelies to add to my collection.  I will, throughout the coarse of the year, show you the new charts.  Here are the lovelies:

Little red storklette scissors and another red pair I could not resist!  My friends and I celebrated the birthday of one of us (not me!) with lots of wonderful prezzies and late lunch at TGI Friday on the way home.  It was a l-o-n-g day.  I'd left my house at 8:30 and didn't get home until after 6.  Just as I was getting to my highway exit, there was an awful accident - I was pretty sure it had just happened because there were still people milling about on the highway and emergency equipment was arriving as I was crossing the bridge.  A semi lost control in the lanes I was in, went across the median, across the southbound lanes, through a fence, across a road that parallels the highway, into a ditch and up into the back yard of a house.  It gave me chills, because I thought, oh, what if there were kids playing there?  Fortunately, it was supper time and all the kids were indoors, because they do, indeed, play there!

Had an appointment in Winchester yesterday and killed the afternoon running errands.  But, made it a point to get by one of my favorite thrift stores.  I found the above, Prairie Schooler, number 9, Johnny Appleseed.  It's in really rough shape, but I think if I iron it and then press it between some books, I should be able to get it back to good condition.   I don't have it in my collection and they wanted too much for it on Ebay, so it was nice to  just find it - for a DOLLAR!
I think it will look nice if I stitch it  up, changing the colors, like I did on Adam Names the Creatures (you can see that one in my header picture).

OH!  Almost forgot to tell you - I was able to find a copy of the Prairie Schooler Garden Samplers chart and sent it off to Maggee to give her a great day!  YAY!  So, we can call off the search.  

I will leave you with this.  It's sunrise and the black splotches in the field are the deer.  I call it "Deer Rising".  I love it when the sky looks like this.  I call it fire-sky.  The only time I see sunrises like this is in February or March.  In cold weather.  I think that it has to do with virga which is rain that doesn't reach the ground.  Except at this time of the year, virga would be ice crystals because it's so cold; right?  And I think that these sunrises are made because the sun is reflecting off thousands of tiny ice crystals.  I'm no meterologist, but I think that's what's going on.  All I really know is that if we HAVE to have crappy, cold, snowy weather; then at least we have sunrises like this one.

Hope you enjoyed!

Hope That Groundhog's Right!

 "Cause this days wasn't fun.  Dateline - Last Friday - We keep getting these Alberta Clippers; note to Alberta - you can keep your clippers, thanks very much!  This one came through, dumped about a half inch of snow (just enough to make the roads really dangerous and then the wind came in behind it.  Blew and blew and blew and blew!  Made it look like it was still snowing.  I took my quilts over to the quilters and passed a car up-ended in a ditch.  At first, all I saw was the State Trooper's cruiser and he was sitting on his backseat sideways, with his feet out on the ground.  At first, I thought there was something wrong with him, but as I came by, I saw the car.  Good grief!  Our back roads were really tricky and if you weren't driving smart, stuff like that could happen.  I am so ready for this to be last winter, it's not even funny.  And yet, there are still idiots out there wishing for a blizzard like we had three years ago.  Ugh, excuse me, do you remember that we couldn't get out of our houses for like three days????? 

 A friend of mine, my oldest friend, in fact, has a birthday coming up this year.  I found this chart and made it into this at right.  I used a 32 count Belfast linen, I think it is Amsterdam Blue, but didn't have a label on it, so that's just a guess.  I thought I'd use up some of the leftover Raven from Gentle Art that I have.  Well, I did, but I still have lots of leftover Raven.   It's going to be put in a regular photo frame.

 Oh, that reminds me - forgot to tell you, the Civil War quilt is at the quilters, as is the small tessellated quilt.  They'll be the first to be done and then I'll rotate in the one for my granddaughter's birthday.

 Customer has given me the tea towel, upper left.  It's Order of the Eastern Star.  She wants me to make something out of it.  So, The photo above is a print out from a blog - I THINK it's Gazette 94, I really, really think that it is, but if someone knows different, kindly let me know and I'll make the correction.

Anyway, I'm going to make it into the receptacle - maybe for mail?  I'm going to stitch the little bird on 32 count white Belfast using all five colors.  Then it will go between the two 30's prints to form the lower section.

 I was inspired by this project in the Sew Beautiful magazine.  But, I didn't like the style of the raincoat.  Good thing, because when I went to the sewing shop to look for a raincoat, it was only in the McCall's line that I could find a child's raincoat pattern.  Very frustrating.  Anyway, the SBM raincoat featured zipper teeth as trim on the raincoat.  There weren't many places to do that on the pattern I got, but I did do it in the raglan shoulder seams.  Don't know if you can really see that in the picture, but I used a yellow separating zipper - they have bigger teeth.  My husband thought that this was really cool.  Last summer I'd bought the fabric - the big polka dot and the floral to do a purse project.  But, the more I looked a the purse pattern, the more I didn't want to do the project.  So, had the fabric, and decided I wanted to use it for the raincoat (for my granddaughter, btw).  Neither fabric was vinyl.  So, I bought iron-on vinyl.  Sounds an oxi-moron, doesn't it?  Actually, it was really easy and initially I was super impressed.  I had to cut each piece from the fabric using the pattern pieces, then to iron vinyl to each piece and trim.  So, a lot of work.  But, few pieces, so it wasn't too big a deal.  The problem came when it was time to sew.  Being woman-handled so much during the sewing process, made the vinyl separate from the fabric AND it got really wrinkly.  I am going to try and iron it again, but don't hold out much hope.  There is a resource online for oil cloth in bright prints, so if I ever do this again (which I probably will as my granddaughter is only 6), I would get that to make another raincoat instead.  The iron-on vinyl would be really great for things you don't have to manipulate too much during the sewing process or something that is already made that you want to make more waterproof.  In the second picture, you can see the hood.  I went out and got a smaller polka-dot flannel that I made the lining out of.  If you don't line them, vinyl raincoats can almost feel clammy - at least, I think so.  You can see a bit of the yellow zipper teeth in that second picture.

A new project, is really an old one.  I love, love, love quilts by Piece O'Cake Designs.  So, back in the 90's I was very ambitious and thought I had enough time to do all these.  Fortunately I had enough sense to just put them away for another time - instead of getting rid of them.  I bought six of these Tulips in the Park kits - they come with all the fabric included!  Not enough for the whole quilt, but enough to make a lovely wall hanging.  These are applique.  So, I've gotten started with one (progress below).  This will probably be a slow go.

 







I don't like needleturn applique, nor do I like the way the fusibles make the fabric feel.  So, I baste under my seam allowances and then applique them down.  Makes for a lot of extra work, but it gets the job done for me. 



I also have the pattern for the Stars in the Garden quilt.  I have done one of the blocks and made a pillow.  I will enjoy making the whole quilt in the pretty bright colors shown.

 I like to use scraps of vinyl from photo albums and the like to make placement layovers.  This one is a mess from being folded up in a box for about 15 years, but it will still work.  I also have one last POC design, Flowering Vines.  I think that this will be my next applique project as it combines piecing with applique.

Here is my progress on Susan Singleton (whom I'm calling Gentle Susan) for Nicola's Scarlet Letter Year.  

Last year I worked on this needlepoint project.  I'm doing a really good job of clearing out all my unfinished objects.  This has become the scissor case it was meant to be, lined with red satin, it has coral ribbon ties and fits my Sajou scissors perfectly.   Front, back and inside.

Finally, this is my blogaversary month.  I think it's four years now.  I have a bunch of things to make into giveaways so keep your eyes peeled.  Hope you enjoyed!

Mid-January Update

You will see by the logo at the right, I have joined in on Nicola's Scarlet Letter Year.  I've been assigned to Blog Two.  I have decided that I will work on Susan Singleton.  To read more about that, head over to NSLY - Blog Two.

 I am getting set to make this purse, pattern by Indigo Junction, that was a shop model in my quilt shop two years ago.  That's how behind I am on my own projects!  The fabric is wool.  I got the liner fabric yesterday, but am still on the hunt for the leather that I want to use as an accent and also for the handle(s).  Winter weather may delay my road trip to the supplier for the leather until spring and reliable traveling weather.  That disappoints me, because the purse really is a winter purse.

 I have finished the second pre-printed project I was working on.  THANK GOODNESS!!!  I really pushed myself to do this and get it done.  I've used up almost all the variegated flosses I'd collected except for the nicest ones that I will save for small projects that will finish them off.  I think that this will become either a pillow or a framed piece that I will gift to my dauther in law.

This is a lovely present that I recently received.  Pin cushion on top, spool minders, and even a little drawer with tiny treasures.  The pin cushion may end up being replaced by a small biscornu that will fit in the receptacle.

The little gem inside the drawer was a sewing kit (see below) that opens to reveal first a little thimble, then further with a thread keep that has a needle case down its center.

This little JBW Designs chart has been in my drawer for awhile so on a scrap of Jobelan, I stitched it with DMC 321.  I omitted the words and will make it into a little pillow.

I've had more computer problems which I have only partially recovered from this last weekend.  That's what I spent most of my time doing, not projects in the sewing room.  So, alas, that's really all I have to show you this time.

This morning our low was 11.7 degrees with a wind chill that took us down below zero.  I suppose it will be even colder tomorrow morning because the wind hasn't stopped yet.  I feel really awful for everyone up in the northern latitudes.  Wherever you are, I hope you are staying cozy and warm.

Trying to Play Catch-Up - Again

When last I posted, I showed you the Hershey's Bar needlepoint in the blocking stage.  I was able to finish it for my husband, as a belated Christmas present.  It is an eyeglass case.  For he who is too vain to admit he now needs the glasses for more than just reading.  But, it's the only thing my wonderful husband is vain about, so I leave it at teasing him.

Front of case in the large photo above; the small photo above shows the business end where you insert the glasses.  At left you see the back view of the business end.  The back was made from a scrap of a man's wool jacket.  I added a pewter button that is a reproduction of the buffalo side of a "Buffalo Nickel" American 5 cent piece.  In the last photo you can see that a week ago, when I took these pictures, we still had a little of our day-after-Christmas snow on the ground.

 Now on to two things I want to share with you.  Ever since we saw the CEO of Yankee Candle on Undercover Boss we've been buying them; in spite of cheaper knock offs being more available.  But a few months ago I decided that those jars the candles come in are just too nice to pitch into the recycle bin.  So, I've been saving them and cleaning them up.  I have one (not pictured) that is a large jar with a rubber stopper sort of top on it that I've also rehabilitated.  You can see what I'm using the smaller ones for - buttons!  They're perfect because the jars pretty much seal up with those stoppers around the glass tops.

 I've been watching Martha's Sewing Room on PBS and have tried some of the designs of Kari Mecca.  I've also been purchasing Sew Beautiful magazine.  Well, I took the plunge and bought some new tools - whimsy sticks and both of Kari's "Whimsy" books.  I hope to be playing with these soon.  Right now I'm in the process of making my granddaughter a rain coat - with my own whimsy!

I have a friend who is an arborist.  As well as a geologist, an archeologist, an anthropologist, a former White House gardener, and all around good guy.  He just celebrated his 70th birthday.  Hopefully we will be able to pull off a big birthday celebration this spring.  On his birthday I gave him a small gift, and I hope to have this one finished for the celebration . . . it is going to be a canvas bag.  For his groceries, for his books, for his digging tools; whatever.

The bag idea was not mine.  You can see in the bottom picture that they made a bag in the magazine.  This past summer I was at a thrift store and found a stash of Cross Stitch and Country Crafts magazines.  I sat there the better part of an hour and went through each one, picking ones with charts that I liked.  This was one of them and I thought at the moment I saw it that it would make a great gift for my friend.  But, you see that they were really bland and did their stitching on white and used raw canvas.  I have done my stitching on Country French Tula, 10 count.  Their count was 7 so mine's even bigger.  And my canvas is GREEN.  I used the charts to stitch the trees, but I chose the trees - did even more than they did and did them MANLY.  That is to say, I didn't stitch any of them with the pink froo froo that they had done.  Can't wait to finish this up.

You'll also remember I picked up some quilt squares that were pre-printed and I was stitching on one of those.  Got one done - finally!

I don't know what I'm going to do at this point.  I will say that it was incredibly boring stitching this pre-printed panel.  I have no idea why, but I just hated it.  The other one I've been working on - the schoolhouse - I've been having the same problem with it.

Now to the quilting.  I'm going to eventually add another page to the blog here that will just have pictures of the quilts when they're done.  We had a fine day on Sunday.  The temps didn't quite make it to 70 degrees like they predicted, but we were nearly 60.  In the afternoon I ran out with armloads of quilts and hung them on the line to get decent photos.

This is the Civil War repro quilt that you can see SO much better now.  Sebastian, the cat, would not go away.  He kept rubbing up against the quilts and getting into the picture.

The backing fabric from Keepsake Quilting arrived last week, so I'm calling the quilter on Friday and this one will go in.

This is the Dick and Jane quilt (name of the fabric) that I made a few years ago.  It has backing fabric now so will also go to the quilter ASAP.

 

This is Froggy Fourth of July.  I made it back in the mid-90's and it gets its name from the patriotic frogs that are all over it.  It is a lap quilt or table topper size.  I've not shown this one before on the blog, so thought you might enjoy it.

This is Juliet's Ribbons, my personal Civil War reproduction quilt. This will be a wall hanging in our foyer.  My husband really likes this one.  And I'm pretty proud of it myself.  I haven't gotten the backing fabric for it yet (Hancock's of Paducah really let me down on that) so I'm going to my local quilt shop soon with hopes of finding something.

This is called My Little Red Tractor (based on the print on the fabric) and is a tessellated block.  I made it many years ago and gave it to someone as an unquilted table topper.  She returned it to me after several years never having used it.  People with no imagination don't deserve nice things like this anyway.  I've decided to have it quilted and use it myself.  So there!

 Last year I bought a fat quarter bundle at my quilt store.  It sat until I was inspired by a background quilt on the Fons & Porter show.  I call this Patty O'Quilt and it is my granddaughter's birthday present this year.  You may recognize the design from her Christmas stocking - I stitched it as the quilt on the bed!  Top left is the blocks that I did in a day.  Top right shows rows in progress.  At left are the white backgrounds that I pulled out (I didn't want to use them in the blocks so substituted the turquoise and orange you see in the top left) but I did use them to make the binding.  Here, below,  is the quilt top hanging out on the line.  I have to go through my stash to see if I have fabric I can use for the backing. I'm thinking not; and I'd like to find something white and sweet like the binding fabric.

Last of the quilts came out of my stash.  Several years ago I bought these panels at a quilt shop going out of business.  They are Robert's Baltimore Album.  The first part was easy, sew the two panels together to make the center or "album blocks".  Then I had to cut the other panel apart to make the swag borders.  This weekend I worked to attach said borders with mitred corners.  Only problem was I soon discovered the panel had been cut about six inches too short to make matred corners.  Huh.  Guess I know why I got it at such a good price now.  So, what to do???  I sat there looking at it so long that when my husband walked by the door of the workroom, he asked me if everything was OK.  Jackie knows what I'm talking about.

Finally, I went to the Fons & Porter show I'd seen just that morning.  It was about making easy LeMoyne Stars.  Well, I didn't use the easy method, lets just put that out there right now.  That means set-in seams. I have a jelly roll of Barbara Brackman's ReUnion.  They are Civil War reproduction colors.  They also happen to be the colors from the cheater quilt panels.  So, I zip zapped with colors and neutrals and made the "test" LeMoyne Star block you see here.  Those blocks will go in the corners.  There was no way I was ever going to be able to match that white background (as there about 50 billion shades of white) so I'll have corners and the swags will run between.

Here you can see the album blocks in the back, the swag border on top and the LeMoyne Star block I made to see if the colors went with.  My husband really liked this one too!

Our weather's been weird here.  Snow on the days before and after Christmas and then so cold afterward that it stayed for two weeks only to be melted away by a nearly 60 degree day.  When the warm air came in that morning, we were treated to super thick fog.

This photo was taken as the fog began to drift away from us, but you can see the top of the fog bank just at the top of the trees in the distance.  The sunny sky quickly went away and we were very dreary until about 3 in the afternoon.  Now cold air is coming back and we are expecting freezing rain over night.  Keep your fingers crossed that we don't lose power!  Hope you enjoyed!