Stitcher's Angel Needle Book

I finished my send gift to send my Stitcher's Angel recipient last night. I finished up this needle book.

I have an idea about my 3rd gift, just need an opportunity to make it.

Canning Season

This is what has been occupying a lot of my spare time recently. I started out making bread and butter pickles which we love. I gave part of them away when my family was here for the wedding in August.











I also made grape jelly from our grapes and gave a lot of these away in August when family was here for the wedding. My brother especially loves grape jelly.












Then my friend Jan, showed some pictures on her blog of some dill pickles they had made, and kindly shared their recipe with me. These are just delicious. I could barely wait for their curing time to dig into them! I am worried about running out of these, I think I am going to have to make another batch!
















And lastly, Allie shared her recipe for corn relish which I made last week. I still want to make labels for the lids, so these are still sitting on my counter. I haven't tasted this yet, but I know I am going to set this out at Thanksgiving.

Self-Portrait Blog Challenge

I recently participated in Marilyn's blog challenge. We had to create a 8 x 10 collage using
a picture of ourselves as a child. This was mine
finished project.

I used a combination of elements on Photoshop Elements, added some digital effects, did some stamping, and paper collage, and spritzed a paper doily with some color.

Stitcher's Angel Needlework Bag

I have just completed my first project for my Stitcher's Angel recipient. This is a needlework bag, and this is the outside.
I started this right after I signed up for the Stitcher's Angel project.


















This is the inside of the bag showing the various pockets, and pin cushion.
















This is one of the pockets on the outside of the bag, and even has a place to hook your scissors.














This is the bag all rolled up and tied.

















This needlework bag was a pattern I have made before, by Pat Sloan.

Giveaway at Retro Cafe

I just found out that Retro Cafe is offering this digital sheet giveaway:

I hope to have something creative to show tomorrow. The past few weeks I seem to have lost my creative muse, and can't seem to find it. I did do one paper type collage-swap using a baby picture of mine, which I will share later.

I have tons, and tons, and tons of things to do before November, and I hope I find my creative muse in the next couple of days.

TIF-August, TAST

I am still trying to catch up on my challenges. I finished the one for August last night.
Sharon's TIF challenge for August was about balance, what balance is to you, whether you maintain a balanced life, and how you balance aspects of your life.

This was the color scheme:




I have to say, that most of the time I maintain a balanced life, I am able to keep a lot of things
going at the same time. I was doing really well before our daughter's wedding, I was getting a lot of things done, getting ready for the wedding, working, and doing some projects too. Then I just sort of lost my balance. We had our granddaughter's birthday the week after that, for which I made her some gifts. We had our daughter's (the bride's) birthday the week after that. I had some computer issues (which I work on most of the day) which I got straightened out, but it took awhile. I had some Photoshop Element issues which I finally got straightened out, and some printer/scanner issues which I gout straightened out, but these all took time, and in the evening
I did not feel like doing anything creative.


This is my piece for August, representing me trying to keep all the portions of my life in balance. I think I have it back again and am trying to get caught up. The colors really matched the color scheme, although it doesn't show up very well on this photo.
'
Also for the Take a Stitch Tuesday, the balls were done using the barred chain stitch, and alternating barred chain.

TIF-JULY, Sticher's Angel

With our daughter's wedding in August, and preparations for that, time sort of got away from me
for July, although I did get my block pieced. Sharon's concept for July was "half", "way", "mark". I thought long and hard about that, but could not come up with anything to do with it.
I instead just pieced my block using the color scheme.





I am going to use this stitchery to make a needlecase for my
Stitcher's Angel recipient. I hope to get this made up in the next day or two.

KARRIN'S UGLY BLOCK

My "ugly block" is heading off today for a round robin with my small group of friends, Susan, Gail, and Moira.

I probably made this block more than 7 or 8 years ago, and it was sent off on another round robin with another crazy quilting group. This was how it came back home, with not too much done, and it has been in a pile of UFOs since. I added the piece of lace last night, but I am hoping my dear friends can help me "pretty up" this ugly block. It needs some major help! I have a lot going on right now, swaps, etc, and didn't have the time to make a new block.

N2G-CQI GRASSHOPPERS

Another long interval between posting, unintentionally. I use my computer to do my transcription all day, and have been having some issues. I installed some new memory. That was quick, and went well. My copy of Photoshop Elements that I use to crop my photos and do various things had problems. I have a lot of add-ons, and I needed to reinstall it, and add all my add-ons back in, which took about a week. Then my printer/scanner had problems, (it kept saying my scanner was not hooked up, but the printer worked fine). So finally got that problem taken care of. I have had pictures to share, but had not had time to share or blog, trying to take care of all the other issues. Hopefully all is OK now.



Back in February, I sent this block I made off in my round robin group in the Crazy Quilting International Group. We were all new to the group so we participated in this round robin. This is how my naked block looked when I sent it off around the world. This was my cottage garden block. The little cottage I had originally painted as a watercolor for my mom, I scanned the image and printed it on silk fabric and added it to this block.





This was what my block looked like when it came back to me the end of July. I am thrilled with the results! My heartfelt thanks to my fellow members of this round robin:

Virginia from Spain
Kari from Maryland
Sandi from Washington
Carol from Florida
Sherry from Minnesota.