Slow Sunday Stitching--Lori Holt Stitch Card Strawberry Finish

Slow Sunday Stitching--Kathy's Quilts blog.--See more sweet hand- stitching there. I have a finish to share. 

The Lori Holt stitch card project has had more attention and I have finished all the stitching I planned to do.  

I combined motifs from a different stitch card to fill up space on the prestretched Aida blank. I think it turned out sweet. A nice green ribbon around the frame should finish it off. 

These stitch cards are so cute.  I used single strawberries and modified the daisy motif from the top left stitch card.  Next I'd like to stitch the teacup, but likely will swap the cup and zigzag border colors, as I like green more than pink. 

Slow Sunday Stitching--Another Baby Quilt

 Slow Sunday Stitching--see more projects on Kathy's Quilts blog. 

After I finished the teal border on the Lori Holt Stitch card project,  I decided to add a few tiny strawberries in the corners.  I showed the first on a prior post, but ran into counting issues and it has been in time out the past week.  I think I will just go ahead and leave it be, add the last strawberry and see!

Other hand stitching today is quilt binding on a baby girl quilt made from 2.5" strips.  The blocks finish at 6".  My arms got quite a workout turning this quilt  1000 times to ditch stitch all the shapes. 

I had matching backing from the Meadowbloom line; I previously made quilts for another relative's granddaughters.

For the binding, I saved the light print strips that matched the background. 

All ready to stitch down on the back.  The sun is coming out so perhaps I will enjoy stitching on the patio. 

Slow Sunday Stitching--Strawberry

 Slow Sunday Stitching-- Joining up with Kathy's Quilts today with the project of the moment. 

Lori Holt Stitch Cards design.  She stitched her sample on a darker material than what I had on hand, this white Aida pre-stretched canvas. I added a few stitches with a single strand of green to make the strawberry flower stand out more.  Once I finished the teal blue border, I decided to add other motifs to the corners, from another card in the pack. 

The tiny strawberries are cute and fast to stitch.  I may also choose to add the flower and stem, from that same card, along the sides of the border.  Soon I'll need another project to stitch. 

We had a visit from our youngest grandson and our son this morning; Daddy was giving his very pregnant wife a break and they rode over on their bikes. 

Dane enjoyed a cinnamon roll, got his favorite toys out of the toybox, and talked up a storm, as usual. 

Staycation Sewing--A Finish and A New Start

I'm currently enjoying the second day of a staycation--my doctor boss is out of the office on a real vacation, and I took the opportunity to use saved PTO of my own.  

The long-term project of the bookshelf quilt has reached an end at last!  Yesterday I finally quit dragging my feet on stippling the black background of the bookshelves--and, as one usually finds when avoiding a task, it didn't take very long at all to do!  The quilt has had a bath and lacks only a label to be gifted to my niece, Emma. 

I am happy with the solid black binding and ended up not putting any stitching in the outer quilt borders--I wanted to keep the illusion of a wallpapered backdrop.

Stippling the black background was definitely better than leaving it unquilted--it lets the books and objects stand out more. Finished size is about 5 feet each direction, a nice lap quilt or wall quilt. Most of the ideas for this bookshelf came from the Fabric at Work guidelines I found online.  Pinterest and Instagram also had lots of inspiration input. 

Next task on this staycation is to get a couple of quilts sent out for quilting--and my sewing machine in for a maintenance service!

I've also started a new cross-stitch project. I bought some Stitch Cards at Superbuzzy not long ago; these are Lori Holt designs and are so sweet. 

I had one of these prestretched Aida blanks, so was able to get right to stitching. 

The gingham strawberry is all done now.  I did not have the teal floss color for the border--nor anything that would be close enough, so will just carry on with the leaves, flower and stem until I pick that up. I want to stitch all of these designs!

The new task is to get our next grandson's quilt made--he will be here in a few weeks.  I also have a great-niece due very soon and the rare opportunity to make a girl baby quilt is a nice change!

Bookshelf Quilting Started

Well, I didn't mean to disappear for so long a stretch--however there was not much going on in the sewing room to report, until last weekend.  I did finally make myself get started on the quilting of the bookshelf quilt for my niece, Emma.  This project is getting a lot closer to being a "real quilt" at last. 

I started by quilting in the ditch with black thread along the vertical center support of the bookshelf, and then inside the horizontal shelves, the base, crown, and outer edges, using the walking foot. That took quite a while and my arms got tired with shoving the quilt back and forth through the machine's harp.

The middle shelf took more time, stitching in the ditch around all the books and the easel.  I added quilting around the inner yellow border of the cherry embroidery, the black border, and the the top edge of the green outer frame.   Then I concentrated on the top right shelf--which was fairly easy.  There is a lot of lint on the black background fabric from the batting; a sticky roller removes it as I go.  

Two sections done--six to go...Lots more to do, but I am happy that it has finally reached this stage!  There are quilting decisions to be made regarding the bottom section's drawers, and I need to make and attach the knobs.  So far, I am pleased with the way it looks. It would be great to be at the binding stage by the end of the week...

Slow Sunday Stitching--Winter Bouquet Finished

 Slow Sunday Stitching--see more beauties on Kathy's Quilts blog. She's just starting a cute new stitch. 

I finally made myself finish up the last of the surface stitching on this DMC kit--Winter Bouquet is complete at last. 

The final areas stitched were the petal lines in the center flower, a few more white details in the blue sprays, and a couple more stems for the bright pink sprays, all in one strand of floss.  This stitchery consumed a lot of hours!  I haven't made a plan for the finishing as yet. 

This first photo was dated April 10, 2022, so it has been a long term stitch.  Of course, there were long periods where the project was napping....

Pondering the next project. I have a few kits on hand but none are striking my fancy just now :) We do have a new baby grandson arriving in a couple of months, and a family wedding sometime in the next year. In looking around Pinterest or Instagram, I see other stitchers' works with more reference line stitching than the North/South, East/West that I have always used, and am thinking about that as a help to keep the ripping and re-stitching down to a minimum!  Ok, off to the sewing room to work on the last borders for the Plaidish2 quilt. 

Bookshelf Quilt Assembly Progress

 Design Wall Monday--see more design walls on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts blog. 

The bookshelf quilt project for my niece, Emma, got a lot of attention over the weekend--this was mainly because of the rainstorms canceling baseball, as we would have spent about 3-4 hours Saturday at the park watching our older grandsons play!  I was determined to make a lot of progress. 

The bottom right section got a large reworking and some short, fat books to hold up an initial E, for Emma. I used Steam-A Seam to applique onto the black background and zig-zagged the edges. Some book spine details and staggered groupings completed this section. 

For one of the middle sections, I had framed this cherry embroidery I made a few years ago.  I wanted to pose it on an easel and there was a lot of decision making after I had already chosen the warm orange and green framing.   

This project produces a lot of messy piles, but I decided on the frame fabric and built it slowly. 

I liked the texture this brown and black print leant to the block. 

The simple easel  turned out pretty nicely, if I do say so myself :)  It also filled up a lot of the shelf.

After quite a bit more design and assembly, the six sections were finally ready to sew together by Sunday afternoon. 

I am happy with the focus items in each section.  There seems to be enough of the black background showing to highlight all the groupings.  The top and bottom shelf pieces are not yet attached as there is more to decide about an outer border, perhaps a crown and some feet for the bookshelf. Then, of course, will be the backing, quilting and binding to complete!

March Progress

Lots of sewing room time is being spent on the bookshelf quilt for my niece, Emma, which has lingered as a UFO for over a year, regrettably!

The Kitties got moved to the top shelf--we all know kitties like high places :).  I decided to make the top shelf a couple of inches shorter than the lower shelves, for variety.  Somehow in all the reshuffling the pieces have gotten, the shelves grew very tall.  The instructions I am working with specify shelves in the 9-10" range, but mine were at least 12".  This was making it necessary to add a lot of pieces to my precut blank strips.  While I like a lot of detail, I don't want it to be cluttered. 

The left side of the bookshelf is looking very good. Another grouping of leaning books helped fill up the middle shelf.  The pieces next to it are not in final arrangement or yet sewn to the "shelf" strips.  Emma's mom, my SIL, recently visited and felt my color choices were very appropriate for her girl. That was great to know :)  I sent a pic to Emma, too, and she was very excited with the progress. I am designing more objects for the right side of the bookshelf, including her first initial.  Since I missed my February finish deadline, I am aiming for March 31 now :)

Also seeing progress is the Winter Bouquet DMC cross-stitch kit. I had finally finished all the cross-stitches...  

...and have made a start on the outlining.  There is a LOT of surface work and outlining to do, but it is coming along. I have to reference the pattern symbols and colors frequently.  Much of the outlining is with this green shade in a single strand!  It will get finished, eventually...

Slow Sunday Stitching--A Floral Finish in Sight

Slow Sunday Stitching--see more handstitching lovelies on Kathy's Quilts blog. 

I am pleased to report all the main cross stitching is finished on the DMC kit I have been working on/off for what seems like months.  From the kit, you can see there is a lot of outline stitching and surface embellishment to do as well.

Here's where it was 1/15/2023:

And as of today: 

There was a break of a couple of hours before this pic, when I was ONE strand short of finishing the blue blobs at the top of design.  It is that brighter aqua, an unusual shade, and there was nothing in the several boxes and bags of my floss stash that was even close.  I tried substituting another shade, but it looked odd--so off to Michael's I went. 

We've been having a lot of storms in SoCalif so I brought my umbrella.  Coming out of the store, the cloudy sky was spectacularly dark to the northwest.

Opposite view brought a piece of a rainbow. 

I followed the rainbow all the way home. 

Slow Sunday Stitching--Flowers

Slow Sunday Stitching--see more lovely works in progress on Kathy's Quilts blog. 

I continue to add more stitches here and there to the DMC Winter Bouquet project.  There was a big stall-out after ripping a bunch, but I finally got the green centered flower on the left upper area right, fingers crossed!

I have started adding white to the flower center on the lower left.  One more large flower will then be added to the upper right.  Lots of outlining and detail over-stitching to add after all that!  It will likely BE Winter by the time I finish this :)  No matter, I pick it up infrequently and in no hurry to finish.

Kids went back in school this week--our school-aged grandsons started 1st and 3rd grade, and youngest grandson turned 2.  Time flies!  We are having a lot of hot muggy weather.  Our new windows do help with keeping the house cooler but don't do much for the moisture. Someday, I guess when our 30+ year old heater dies --we will put in AC :)

Ventura County Fair 2022

Hi, I'm still here, just haven't had much to blog about sewing-wise, as I haven't turned on my machine in awhile. Hubby and I chose the last concert night to attend our local Fair.  Parking was awful as usual but I was smart and headed for the furthest rows, where the earlier attendees might have already exited, and was rewarded by a nice, close slot.  Hubby does not walk distances very well, due to chronic back issues, so we stopped frequently so he could sit down for a few minutes.  We headed to the Home Arts building after eating some fish tacos for dinner. I went inside while Grant enjoyed a beer.

It was a pretty sad showing overall for Home Arts for the first Fair after the pandemic, which I attribute mostly to the change in submitting entries to ONLY online, but lots of guild members won ribbons.  

Lots of variety.  As usual, the lighting in this building is terrible, and I wish they had hung more quilts from the ceiling where you could see the entire quilt. 

There was a good variety to enjoy, both modern and traditional.  

Judy got ribbons for all her entries.  She hand quilts most of her quilts. 

I like this pretty bee quilt. Love the pollen on the bee's leg :)

Cute embroidered pillow and knitting.

Christmas beauties.  Love the big star and cardinal quilt, and the cabin in the woods with Santa.

Chris is another guild member who did well.  First on this small geometric...

..and on a really large quilt.  We had a class for this a couple of years ago and mine remains unfinished.  I really like Chris's setting. 

More beachy items in a booth. The seagulls in the quilt on the floor are cute. 

There was plenty of cross-stitch and embroidery too. This is so pretty and obviously took many hours of needle and thread time. 

The Jar embroidery quilt caught my eye, as I had entered a quilt with the top left embroidery design a few years ago!

Cute Easter themed stitcheries. 

Loved the colors in this sweet heart wallhanging.

We had a little time to wander around before the concert.  The usual beautiful landscaping and garden and animal exhibits were thin and the whole place looked bare.  Hope next year is better.  We made our way to the Grandstand for the concert as the sun was setting. 

I captured not one, but TWO different sunflares in the clouds.  

The second was faint, but still visible. 

We were far away from the top fans at the foot of the concert stage, but had a great view on the large screen.  The sunset seemed to last forever. 

Wider scene showing the crowd.  Lots of great music and we enjoyed the 1 hour show, free with Fair Entry.  The rodeo took over the Grandstand Arena for the rest of the Fair Days. 

We enjoyed our time but missed a lot of our favorite vendors and exhibits that were absent.  Hopefully next year's Fair will be further recovered and more popular than ever.  I will definitely enter something next year!