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.

TIF MAY, JUNE

I just realized, I never posted pictures of my finished projects for May and June TIF. I am trying to get caught up after the excitement and preparation of the wedding this past Sunday.

Last week, I gave away the project I had finished for TIF May, an eyeglass case as a play it forward gift on my blog.

I had intended to give this to my sister for her birthday,
but I decided the June colors were more of my sisters colors, so I gave this one away.








This was the TIF color scheme for June, and this I also made up into an eyeglass case. My sister loved this when I gave it to her for her birthday this past weekend.

I still have July's to stitch, and August's colors to put together.

WEDDING PHOTOS

I have a few photos of the wedding to share. These were taken by the grooms mother/family and they gave Katie the photos on a disc the day
after the wedding which she let me copy. But the images were set at 50" and I needed to scale them down, which I finally got a chance to do this morning.

Katie's sister Kristen is the maid of honor and standing behind her.
























We were getting photos taken by the photographer and by families at the same time.

DH John doesn't usually smile for any photos. He is looking good in a suit he hasn't been about to wear for awhile.

He lost around 18 pounds, and I had lost 27 before the wedding.






This is Kristen's youngest, Keaton, who will be 2 in October. When the music started, he was out dancing every dance, especially the fast ones. Keaton and older brother Jaeger were both out on the floor dancing with Kristen to La Bamba, it was the cutest thing. Jaeger has all the fancy foot movements, like Papa John used to be able to do. But Keaton consistently was dancing every dance.

I can't wait to see what kind of photos the photographer has.

A Couple of Giveaways

Sorry I have been away so much recently. Our youngest daughter was married yesterday. Had been concentrating on getting the yard, house and food ready for that celebration. The wedding was held in Victorian house in the older part of town, and went off pretty well. It was held in the gazebo. DH told me that DD went through a box of Kleenex before he brought her down theaisle. The bridesmaids came out, and I looked at matron of honor, DD1 and she had tears in her eyes, and I got teary, with no Kleenex. I was able to lose 27 pounds before the wedding and got a wonderful dress. It was a great day, and a great weekend visiting with family and friends. The last of the company went home yesterday, so DH and I have the house back to ourselves.

Hope to get stitching this afternoon after work. I plan to take my stack of beads, theads and everything else where it usually resides by my comfy chair and get stitching again. Also have some sewing to do in my sewing room for granddaughter Kyleigh's BD on Sunday. She wanted me to embroider some motifs on a couple of more hooded sweatshirts. I also plan to make her a dress or maybe 2.

This morning, came across a couple of giveaways:

Candace is celebrating her 100th post with a giveaway.

Lise is celebrating her 100th post giveaway.

Cheryl at Polkadots & Ric Rac is also having a giveaway celebrating her 1 year blog anniversary.

For Debbie in Maine, the winner

This is for Debbie in Maine, the winner of the eyeglass case:

I have tried contacting you 2 times through both addresses you have given me, and gotten no response. Your comments come right to me no problem, so I know the e-mail address on my blog is OK. Everyone else has gotten through that link with no problem.

I even tried contacting you through your second e-mail address with my alternate e-mail address and no response with that one either. I really don't know what else I can do. I have checked to see if you have been filtered out as spam in my e-mail program, and that is not happening either.

AND THE WINNER IS...

I have been very, very, very busy this week. DDs wedding is 8 days from today. I have done nothing at all stitchy in any way. Been cleaning, and weeding, and everything else. I bought shoes, and a dress.

But wanted to announce the winner of my eyeglass case and it is Debbie in Maine! Congratulations Debbie. I will get that off to you this week.

LOOK WHAT I WON!, GIVEAWAY, 100+ POST

My name was recently pulled in Cathy's Play it Forward contest, and my CQ goodie bag arrived in yesterdays' mail. This is what I received, and there are lot of trims I can use in my CQ. Thanks so much again Cathy, this really made my day!















As part of my own Play it Forward gift, and in celebration of my 100th (actually 104th post), I am offering this eyeglass case I just completed.

If you would like to win, just leave a comment, and I will choose a name next Saturday morning, 8/2/2008.

BRILLANTE WEBLOG AWARD

I have been honored by my friend Rengin with the "Brillante Weblog award, and I appreciate this award being passed on to me.





The rules for receiving this award are:
1. The winner can put the logo on his/her blog.
2. Link to the person you received your award from.
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4. Put links of those blogs on yours.
5. Leave a message on the blogs of the people you’ve nominated.

At first I had a hard time finding blogs I follow to receive this award, as the ones I checked
have already received it. But the below named blogs are some of my favorite ones.

I would like to award:

Carole

Jan

Karen

Lea

ChookyBlue

Nancy

Mrs. Goodneedle

N2G ROUND ROBIN-KARI'S BLOCK

This is the last month of the Crazy Quilting International "New 2 Group" round robin I have been involved in. This month it was Kari's block I was working on, and I am sending it home to her today. I did these cast-on pink flowers, the feather stitching around the circle, and the pink string-of-pearls stitching on either side of the circle.







This is a picture of the entire block. Kari had a fabulous block to start out with and the other 4 ladies before me have done a gorgeous job.

Stitcher's Angel, Secret Sister

I am joining Helen Stubbings (Hugs and Kisses) Stitching Angel project. If you are interested in joining you can find out more about it here. August 15th is the deadline for signing up. You can even stop by the blog every week for 7 weeks and get a new stitching project if you can't commit to pampering someone else.

TAST, VEIL, KYLEIGH'S QUILT

I realized this morning I have not posted for 3 weeks. We have been getting the house and yard ready for company in 3 more weeks, and youngest daughter Katie's wedding. The yard has been a little more problematic, as it has been sadly neglected for 2 years while I have been working long hours and also the fact that with the California wildfires, a large concentration of smoke has been in my area, making for almost a month of "bad air days", and that in addition to several weeks of hot, hot weather and some 100+ and even several 108 degree days. The back yard is almost taken care of, and then I can concentrate on some trimming out front.


I spent this week getting caught up in the TAST
stitching on Stitchin Fingers.

This was my sample of cretan stitch. One of the ladies pointed out that the second one looked like barbed wire, and it does.











These are my examples of the chevron stitch, and Algerian eye (starry looking stitches).















Wednesday afternoon was granddaughter Kyleigh's and my "special day" and I took advantage of her being her to model
the veil I made 36 years ago.

At the time I made this, it was right after Romeo and Juliet came out, and I made a "Juliet cap". I machine appliqued all the lace on the bottom of the veil.















This is the back of the veil, and shows the cap a little better.

DD Katie wants to wear my veil, but does not want the cap and wants it shorter. It is a little long by today's standards. My task tonight is to cut the cap off, shorten the veil, and attach it to a comb.














Kyleigh has been wanting to have a "special day" for several months because she wanted to "sew and quilt". My friend Candi several months ago gave Kyleigh and I a litttle Janome machine for Kyleigh to sew with and she just lives for the days she can come over and sew. With Kyleigh's gymnastics, swim meets, art classes, it is sometimes difficult to find the time, but we did this week.

A long time ago, I received 4" samples of fabric from quilt shops. I had a stack of these and I gave them to Kyleigh to sew together. (That is why nothing really matches). She decided that instead of a quilt this time, she could make this piece into a sleeping bag for her American Girl Doll. This time she even quilted it herself. I just drew some lines on the back of the quilt that she followed. While they were not 1/4 inch seams, they were pretty even. She did a really good job and we both had a blast!

TIF MAY

I finished stitching on the TIF for May. I plan to assemble this into an eyeglass case for my sister's birthday in August. She will happen to be here, to attend Katie's wedding 2 days later, so I have a couple of weeks to assemble it. This time I used the color scheme for the month of May.

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY

Happy 4th of July to all who celebrate it!

Have done a little bit of stitching, but mostly working on projects around the house that need to be completed before the wedding, which is a little over 5 weeks away.

Hopefully will have a few pictures of some stitching in the next few days.

TIF JUNE

Well my TIF for June still looks like this. I had planned to make this into an eyeglass case yesterday after I got off work, but it did not quite work out that way.

We have been busy doing things around the house that need to be done before the influx of relatives for Katie's wedding.
DH decided that the next thing he is going to work on is a problem with the French doors he installed. My buffet sits right up against the edge of the door he needs to work on, so I had to totally empty dishes, glassware. All the stuff on the the shelf above it, and some tins on another shelf. So this occupied my time, instead of my finishing this project up.






This month as I was thinking of stashes and the stories behind them, I was reminded I also have a stash of sewing machines which I just added to this month.

1. I have the old Singer my parents got me for the Christmas I turned 13. It is in a rounded wooden case.

2. I have a Singer Touch and Sew John bought me right after we were married. It was used but it ran great. This is the machine he still uses to sew sails, and boat-related items.

3. I have a Singer Featherweight. Right before my DFIL died, when he was becoming incapacitated with his Alzheimer's, I flew down to attend a wedding of a friend in San Diego, and stayed with my in-laws. I was big into quilting and asked DMIL if she had ever seen in her garage sale visits a featherweight, and I described it to her. That day we put DFIL in a daycare for the day, and went to a bunch of quilt shops I had heard about. While we were driving around, she told me she had gone to a garage sale and had seen a little machine in the garbage, and asked the people if she could have it, or buy it. They gave it to her. She got it tuned up for $65 and said I could have it, if it was what I was looking for. It was right around my birthday and she gave it to me!

4. Juki Serger. When my oldest daughter got married, she wanted me to make the 4 flower girls dresses, of this really slinky slippery fabric. Halfway into this project my Singer serger had a nervous breakdown and I ended up buying this Juki serger and it is so easy to thread and the tension is always perfect.

6. Bernina 185. This is my embroidery machine, but I also use it for regular sewing and love it.

7. Juki TL98. This is the machine I use for quilting. This is actually the 2nd one I got, the first one was a lemon, so they gave me the demo unit and it works like a dream.

8. Huskystar ER10 embellisher. This is my newest toy, I bought almost 2 weeks ago with my economic stimulus check. I having a great time playing with this, and hope to learn more about what I can do with it soon.