WINNINGS

In December, I was the proud winner of one of Karen South's fabric and lace packages, and I wanted to show what I received. She drew 3 names after she hit 30,000 visitors on her blog. I have purchased Karen's packages before, and she always has the loveliest fabric and lace, and button packages. I was the proud recipient of being her not-secret sister years ago. And I was equally thrilled this time.









These came last week, and I just wanted to show my winnings.











As far as the Take It Further Challenge, I was working on it yesterday, and hopefully be able to post progress on it tomorrow.

I had taken a break for dinner last night, John had brought home some fish and chips from our favorite place. I enjoyed my dinner, and then as it was going to be trash day today, took the trash out. The bag from the kitchen was sticking up so the lid would not close and I went to push it down, and cut the last section of my right pinkie, in the last fold. I think it must have been one of those lids from all those cans I opened to make chili a couple of days ago. We got it to stop bleeding, but I spent all evening with a bandage on my finger, and didn't get anything else done. But am able to type this morning with a Band Aid so hopefully after lunch will be able to get going on my projects again.

YOU MAKE MY DAY AWARD

I've been tagged by Candi for the You Make My Day Award. Thank you Candi!

The Rules are to "Give up to 10 people whose blog brings you happiness & inspiration and makes you feel happy about Blogland." Beware! You may get the Award several times! Let them know by posting a note on their blog so they can pass it on. Here is my list of Blogs that make me happy and make my day!

Nancy

Sharon

Jan

Lea

May

Karen

Louanne

Janet

Leanne

Susan

New Year, New Challenges

I awaited eagerly Sharon B's announcement of the concept and color choice for the Take It Further Challenge. Sharon's theme for January is "the feeling of admiration for another". At first this made me a little anxious, because I wondered how I was going to come up with something for that concept, and thought I would just do something with the color choices. But the more I looked at the color choices, it suddenly dawned on me that those colors were the favorites of my friend Barbara. And Barbara is someone I really admire in her gardening skills.
Barbara is retired, so she has the time I don't have, to constantly be working in her garden, and she always has the most amazing gardens. When she lived in Sacramento, she was really close to the American River, and her soil was amazingly rich, as was her garden. A number of years ago, she moved to a retirement community in Rocklin, CA, and Rocklin I think was named for its soil composition. Barbara had a new challenge, the type of soil composition I have to contend with in my area. But Barbara began growing things in containers, and she still has an amazing garden, and she gives me samples when her garden overgrows!

So my January TIF challenge will be making a garden block, dedicated to Barbara, using the color scheme Sharon gave us, as these are Barbara's favorite colors. I think I will frame this when I finish and give it to my friend Barbara.

On the Winter Quilt Swap front, I have it probably 50% quilted. Hope to get some more done on this today, but not sure at this point.

I do medical transcription on the internet for a children's hospital in Florida. Usually I get up really early and get started (2 a.m.) and there is work to do when I get up. I have been up almost 3 hours now, and there has been no dictation. Since I transcribe 1000 lines a day, it looks like I am going to be sitting here all day. Recently I have had my work done by 9:30 to 10 and I have the rest of the day to play... And then this afternoon, I have an appointment with the dentist to get a crown on my tooth. A hunk of it broke off the day before my birthday in
October, but I had used up all my dental insurance for the year, so they put a temporary on, and I have had this temporary on since October. Well due to it being the new year, I have my allotment for dental available again, so today is the first step in getting this dumb tooth fixed.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EARLY

I'd like to wish everyone a Happy New Year a little early. Hope 2008 is the best one yet for everyone.

I have grandchildren Kyleigh and Jaeger coming over this afternoon, and spending the night tonight. Kristen and Jeff are having a party tonight, so the John and I and the kids get to have our own fun.

I also wanted to post my progress on the Winter Quilt Swap.

I have been appliquing the past couple of days, and last night I started quilting it. My recipient wanted a primitive Christmas quilt, and I had this pattern by Jan Patek for Father Christmas. I had to modify it a bit to make it work for the size requirements for this swap. I have had fun digging through my cupboard of homespuns again, and working on this while watching TV. I think when I finish this one, I need to start one for myself.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

May you all have a wonderful holiday, and the best in the coming year.




















I finished up 1 last Pollage yesterday, this one with a fairy theme for my daughter Kristen.

Katie by the way loved the frogs.

Santa's Sweat Shop Continued

The last few days I have had a chance to make a few more gifts for the kids. They love these sweatshirts and T-shirts so much, and my sweatshirts are all that Jaeger likes to wear. This is for Kyleigh, I have had the shirt since her BD in August but had not gotten a chance to embroider it until now.







And this is for Keaton.








And for Jaeger.









For Kyleigh's sweatshirt I decided to sit down and do some silk ribbon embroidery.








And last but not least, I made this Pollage for Katie, who has always liked frogs.

MORE GIFTS

I recently took a class on Joggles.com called Pollage, the instructor was Patricia Dibona. I involves painting background on canvas and adding photos, lace, charms to create a piece of art. I made this for my sister as a Christmas gift. I hope she likes it. I have 2 others I hope to get done, but probably not until after Christmas. But at least I can get this in the mail to Southern California tomorrow. I have done a lot of collage pieces, and the idea of this class really appealed to me, with painting the background.











I cross-stitched these little elf legs for my girls and made them into ornaments. This was again from the wXSw yahoo group, with stitch designer, Helga of Helga Mandl Designs.

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER, SANTA'S WORKSHOP

Three years ago, my friend Moira gave a group of us a link where we could purchase these laser cut nativity scenes. All you had to do was iron them on a batik fabric. I purchased 3 of them, 1 for myself, and 1 for daughters Katie and Kristen. That year, I did not have time to get them done, so I put the patterns in gift baggies for the girls. Forgetting I did that, last year, I ironed them onto batik fabric, but still did not have time to complete them, again put them in gift baggies for the girls. This afternoon, I finally finished up the project, and plan to give them to the girls tomorrow at Jaeger's birthday at the ice cream parlor, so they can get a chance to hang them this year. I say, better late than never!


Karrin's branch of Santa's workshop has been busy also on gifts for the boys: I purchased sweatshirts and embroidered some motifs on with my embroidery machine:

This is for Keaton



















This is for Jaeger

A LITTLE BIT MORE DONE

I have been working a bit more on my Encrusted CQ block for Sharon B's class. I added the gold bullion flowers along the left hand side, and I also beaded the lace flowers in the same area.

Meanwhile am working on a secret CQ block for one of my daughters at the same time.

Also after reading Charlene's blog this morning, I joined the wXSw yahoo group, and had also seen Susan make mention of it. A wonderful cross stitch designer, Helga of Helga Mandl Designs hosts this group and has stitch alongs! She has the cutest little ornaments. I started one this afternoon and am 2/3 through already.

Take It Further Challenge

Sharon B has posted her 2008 Take It Further Challenge: http://sharonb.wordpress.com/take-it-further-challenge/

Also have been working a bit on my block for her Encrusted Crazy Quilting class. I think I have taken off and unstitched more than you see here, but am still working on it. I was trying to get the spider web roses finished last night above the green lace, when Kyleigh and Jaeger called from Disneyland, the night before their trip back home. Jaeger kept telling me he had seen the "REAL Captain Jack" (From Pirates of the Caribbean). Can't wait to see them again.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Hope those that celebrate Thanksgiving had a wonderful one. Now that it is over, I can get back to stitching today, hopefully.

CQ RR

I'm working on a CQ RR with a group of friends,
Moira, Susan, Fran and Gail.

This is Moira's block, sideways. She sent us 2 of these strips, and a smaller block and we got to choose which what we wanted to work on.

Fran had already done some beading around the flow, and placed the lady bug, and did some ferny stitching up in the left hand corner,and put a piece of braid on this one.



I decided to finish this piece up. I made a cast on flower for the first time with some bead leaf buttons. Right beside that, I did a double herringbone stitch. On the other side I did a seam with feather stitch. And the scrolly red block, I stitched the scrolls following the pattern on the fabric. I also did a scallop seam beside that. Am getting this in the mail today for Gail who has another whole strip to work on. I loved the Moira's blocks this was really fun to work on.

Busy, Busy, Busy

I am in several round robins and this week, have been trying to get my blocks out. I am in a 15-month round robin with 14 other ladies, and this was my starting block I sent out for my nautical/seaside theme.













Also, I am taking Sharon Boggan's Encrusted Crazy Quilting class, and this is my block I constructed.

New Handbag

After I finished my last wooly flower project, my hands were anxious to start another wool project. I have had this McCalls handbag pattern for a few years, and I decided this was the perfect project to do before I got into Christmas projects.

The handbag is an overdyed blue wool, with wool flowers. I had the perfect handles I had painted the same red as the flowers. I went to put them on, and they were too big, 12" instead of the 7" I needed. So had to go find some other ones the right size. I guess I will have to make another bag to fit those handles now!

Jan's block

Nancy, NP asked what the words on this block said.

It says:
Grand Master
Flor de Washington
Reknown
Reina Perfecta
Extra Fina
Owl
Blue Gap

I am not sure whether these were cigars or what.

Surpise, Project Finished

Last week, I received a wonderful surprise gift from my friend Ms. Jan. It is a CQ block, it looks like it is all 1 piece of fabric, but has lovely feather stitches around each of these words. She said she got 2 of these about 10 years ago, and has 1 framed, and has given me the second one. This was the best part of my week, this wonderful surprise.











I have been trying to get things going for Christmas gifts. I remembered, in 2003, in Sisters, Oregon, I took a class with Margaret Peters, a cute little wool Santa wallhanging project. I meant to finish it last year for my sister, but didn't get to it. I remembered it again last week, and pulled it out, and discovered I was about 3/4 done. So I finished it up tonight. It is OK for me to show it here, my sister doesn't have a computer and she will never see this.

I have received a MEME tag! I am it!

Thursday, October 18, 2007

I have received a MEME tag! I am it!

Well I got tagged by Carole of Wippy's Place http://wippysplace.blogspot.com

Here are the rules which you must abide by if you are tagged.

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself: some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).

4. Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.

Ok here is My MeMe

1. I am married to the love of my life, for almost 32 years, and we have 2 daughters and 3
grandchildren.
2. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the ocean, and all things to do with it.
3. I Love to read, and could be called a book slut.
4. I love seafood, fresh bread, salads and soups.
5. I love crazy quilting, quilting, embroidering, crocheting, knitting.
6. I love to create with paper, stamps, paint.
7. I love to sail, and travel.

now my list of 7 to tag..

Gail: http://galynn-bhmc.blogspot.com
Candi: http://candiseyecandy.blogspot.com
Fran: http://sewfrantastic.blogspot.com
Susan: http://cq4fun.livejournal.com
Nancy: http://nancynearphiladelphia.blogspot.com
Jan: http://msjanquilts.blogspot.com
Sharon: http://www.quiltgranny.blogspot.com

FRAN'S BLOCK

Since my last post, I have been cruising from Vancouver to San Diego, visited MIL in San Diego, and gotten home again and back to work.

Yesterday, had a wonderful visit with Susan Nixon, Fran Regos and Candi Harris.

This is a garden round robin I am in with Susan, Fran, Moira, and Gail and this is Fran's block.

This is actually the second round on this block, and the first round, I had done the fence embroidery, the tree above it, and there is a ribbon seam between them.


This round I did the seam below Susan's spider web, and a hard to see wreath beside it.

I was able to show the girls this block yesterday, before I mail it off to Gail today. The girls' visit yesterday was the highlight that topped off my birthday week!

Moira's block, RR Vest

This was Moira's block I recently finished. I added a feather stitch on the left side of the kitty on the purple strip, and on the gold/orange strip I added a 2-color I think cretan. Both of these seams were done using the Sassa Lynne thread Susan Nixon has been getting.















In 1998, I was in a vest RR with a group of ladies, and this was my ocean vest I pieced. I still get compliments when I wear it. The ladies that worked on my vest fronts did such a good job.

We are getting ready to take off for a short cruise and I am taking this with me.

Susan's Garden RR block

This weekend, I finished up my second round with Susan's Garden RR block. The first round I had added the feather stitch and pearls going up the side of the block, and some hand-dyed floral lace right beside it.

This round, I found some nifty leaves at a scrapbook shop and added that, and made some Mokuba ribbon flowers. I also added some scallops above the picture, but they are hard to see.







Susan wanted to know what the inside of my jewelry roll looked like, and it is really simple,just pockets but it looks like this:

Jewelry Roll

A number of years ago, I participated in a bluework round robin and this was my block. Some time later, I was getting ready to go on a cruise, and wanted to make a jewelry roll so that my necklaces and everything would not get tangled up. This was the way it looked on the outside. The other side has a number of pockets I can put my jewelry in, then roll it up and it has ties.

A year or so later, I was in another round robin, in which you sent a baggie of items, and the person you sent to had to make a usable item for you and send it back. I made my baggie person a jewelry roll and she love it.

Kyleigh's New Bag

Last year, or the year before I was in an ocean round robin and this was my completed block. Kyleigh, my granddaughter absolutely loved the block. Her birthday was August 17, and for her birthday I incorporated the block into this tote bag, and she was thrilled. The next night, she had a sleepover and decided to carry her jammies in the bag.

KYLEIGH IN HER VEST

I finally got a chance to take a picture of Kyleigh in her vest
this past weekend. She loves it, as I knew she would.

I am busy working on a CQ entry for the fair, which I have a month to complete, and really can't share that at this time.

KYLEIGH'S VEST FINISHED!

I have been working really hard to get Kyleigh's vest finished the past couple of weeks. I wanted her to get a chance to wear it before school ended, as her class is The Dolphins.













This is the back, I know it is busy, but just what this
6-year-old likes.









This is a little more detail of the left and right sides of the vest. I found some cute buttons at a bead shop, it is sort of hard to see but the jumping fish on the left side in the seaweed is one, and the "Nemo" fish on the other vest side is one.

A COUPLE OF PROJECTS

I have been sort of side-tracked the last month, with the death of an aunt, out of town visitors for 2 weeks, and some house projects.

I also finished quilting a project for my granddaughter Kyleigh's teacher. Her class is called the Dolphins. So I put together a quilt for her teacher. I am waiting for Kyleigh's illustration for the label, and then I will post that picture too.

I have been busy working on a couple of CQ projects. This is 1/2 of Kyleigh's vest. Part of it is hard to see. I know this cotton vest will be washed so I have been cautious on the threads and things I am doing, on this vest for an active 6-year old. I think I will do some beading, too, but have not gotten to that. Kyleigh picked out some charms she would like me to use, but have not added those yet either. Kyleigh as I do love whales, and so I added the whale tale on this side.











I am also in a Garden RR with 3 friends, Susan Nixon, Fran Regos and Moira McSpadden, and this is Susan's block. I added the hand-dyed flower lace, and the beaded feather stitch going up the right side.