Happy New Years and a Year in Review

I know that I have been the worst blogger lately, but there is no time like the present to try to rectify that, right?  I thought that one of the best ways to get back on the blogging wagon was to just start off with posting the Stitching/Quilting Year in Review.  2012 wasn't the best for accomplishing much, let alone blogging, but it was filled with other great things that ended up taking up my time.  Sometimes stitching tends to take a back seat.  If I tried to talk about my two month absence from blogging we'd be here all day!!  (Wow, where did that time go type of thing).  But 2013 is a new year and hopefully I'll get back into the blogging and stitching swing for 2013.  I'd make it a Resolution, but I stink at Resolutions, so I'll just say that I'll try my best!!

I recently had a couple finishes so I'll start with those and work my way down the list.  As I said, this hasn't been a stellar year for finishes, but at the same time, it's still been a good year.

Like a lot of other people, I joined Nicola's Scarlett Letter Challenge.  As most of you know, she's celebrating a milestone birthday and wanted to make it memorable.  I don't think that she realized what a overwhelming response she would get to her challenge.  If you're interested in joining, walk don't run.  There are some wonderful prizes each month and what I'm sure will be a wonderful gallery of finishes as the year goes along.  How fun this is going to be!  It is so exciting to see all the projects that people are working on while celebrating Nicola's birthday.  Being a huge fan of The Scarlett Letter, I knew that I had to jump on board (and the fact that when I went through my SL charts to pick out a "few", I discovered that I had a ridiculous number of their charts)!  And no time like the present to start actually stitching some of those babies!!  The first piece that I chose was Abigail Gould's Sampler of 1796.  A small one (what a concept - I actually stitched something small), but so much fun to work on:

Scarlett Letter's Abigail Gould's Sampler of 1796

DMC threads and 35 ct. Mystery Linen

This is what the original sampler looks like:

At first I was a little concerned about the colors of mine, but Marsha of the Scarlett Letter commented on my post on the SL Challenge blog that she charted from the back of the sampler where the colors haven't been affected by sunlight and the elements.  I love how dear Abigail ended up.  I've already picked out a "few" that I want to work on in the coming year and one of them will be my New Year's start.

The only deviation from the pattern that I made was to not stitch in the background with wool.  I like to stay true to a reproduction and not change things up too much, but the thought of filling in that background kind of threw me over the edge, so I chose a linen that I thought would be closest to the color of the wool.  She was such a quick stitch.

Next up - Charlotte Clayton - how I love her (those cats look like they could make a snack out of dear Adam and Eve):

Charlotte Clayton by the Northwest Sampler Guild

36 count Meadowrue and NPI Threads

Ann Hall by The Scarlett Letter

35 count Legacy Linen and DMC Threads

Martha Jones 1972

36 ct. Vintage Examplar and DMC Threads

And last, but not least, probably my favorite of the whole year:

Ann Rayner

32 Count Legacy Cafe Au Lait Linen and DMC threads

I love Ann - and even with those over one sheep, I loved every minute of stitching her.  Seems that I've had a real Adam and Eve theme going on this year.  Just to mix things up, I've pulled some non-A&E themed samplers for 2013.

On the quilting end - even though I have a few projects in the works, I only finished one - The Farmer's Wife.  The Cotton Club is waiting for borders and that's it.  Hopefully, that one will make an appearance in the next couple of weeks.

The Farmer's Wife Quilt

For all the headaches this quilt sometimes gave me, I love it so much!!

There were a lot of projects that I didn't finish this year - I'm a great one for WIPs, but I'm going to try to make 2013 also a year of finishing up those WIPs.  We'll see how that goes.  I always have grand ideas as the New Year starts and flounder by the end of January.  But it's a goal to shoot for - mainly to finish up these babies:

Trick or Treat Quilt

Blackbird Designs

(need to give this another name - it doesn't look like Trick or Treat to me)

Only 39 in the photo, but actually 46 finished.  This project was going to be my take along project while my daughter danced.  Her broken foot put a kabosh on that idea, but I think that she'll be starting up again in January, so there is hope for making a huge dent in these beauties.  I have about 100 of them prepped and ready to go.  Just have to take needle and thread to them.

And there are a couple cross stitch projects that I'd like to finish up this year - both Scarlett Letter pieces:

And All Was For An Appil

I don't know why I put this one down, but I'm going to try what Margaret did with hers and stitch the outlines of the motifs first and then do the fill in.  I was green with envy when I saw Margaret's finish.

Susanna Lane

I don't know why I ever put this one down either - probably due to the fact that I'm a Gemini and am constantly getting bored with things.  But she is so pretty in real life that I have to finish her up this year.

So there you have it!!  2012 in review.  I have to admit that I've missed everyone and their posts.  I've tried to keep up here and there, but since the time of my last post it seems like we've gotten from the end of October to the end of December at the speed of light!!  I hope to do much better in the coming year.

Thank you for stopping by and I hope that everyone has a happy, healthy and wonderful New Year's!!

Kind of a Quickie Post and a Giveaway!

Hi everyone.  I hope that you had a great Easter!  Ours was good although a little different with MIL still in the hospital.  Since my husband's family is Polish they have certain traditions that they follow as far as food.  With MIL not able to cook, it was left up to the rest of us to try to carry the tradition.  I'm not sure how well we did (I don't have a drop of Polish blood in my body so I'm not the best person to cook those things), but we were all fed (it definitely didn't taste as good as my MIL's food though).   BTW, thank you for your wishes for my MIL.  Her wrist surgery went well, although they also found that she broke her thumb on the other hand.  She's in physical therapy, and if her x-rays look good this Friday, they'll change the cast and send her home.

Since it's been so busy the past couple weeks with trips out to the in-laws and my DD being home for spring break, I haven't had a lot of time for my crafty pursuits, but I've gotten a little bit more of Ann done.  Are you tired of seeing her yet?

I'm on the home stretch - I finally made it to the final portion!  Although with all the grass at the bottom it's going to take me a while.  And you'll notice that my people don't seem to have heads (pictures are clickable)!  Since the parts to be filled in are over one thread, I decided to tackle that at the end.  I have a hard time getting any rhythm switching from over two to over one.  I hope to be finished with this by the end of next week, but I think that I'm being a little overly optimistic on that score!!  I know that I'm getting restless for her to be finished though as I've been rooting around in the overflowing stash for my next stitching victim.

I've also managed to get a little bit of quilting in.  Remember these strips:

Well, I managed to get them cut into even smaller strips:

And from there managed to get a few nine patches done.  I started with the colors I didn't like  - brown and green.  Not my favorite combination, but I wanted to get them out of the way:

This is going to be a very scrappy looking quilt.

Then I put together this month's blocks for the Cotton Club.  These are such fun little blocks to make and take no time at all.  I wish that I could get all the blocks at once because they're like potato chips - you don't want to stop sewing them!

So that's about all I've accomplished in the past couple of weeks.  Not as much as I'd like, but life gets in the way sometimes.  I'm anxiously awaiting my Phebe BOM to show up and it seems that I have managed to get a couple other people on board to do the quilt also.  This should be a lot of fun!!

I did have a surprise last week and won a giveaway on Kelly's blog.   I won the cutest pincushion from her:

Her blog is called Undeniably Domestic if you want to take a look.  She has a really cute blog and has the cutest curtains hanging in her kitchen window made out of aprons!  Thank you Kelly!!

I've noticed that I've picked up quite a few new followers and I wanted to say Welcome to all of you and have a giveaway.  I also feel a little bad because I haven't had much time to comment on everyone's blogs with all the things going on with my MIL the past couple of weeks.  I've been lurking but haven't had time to leave comments.  About a month or so ago, I passed by the Salvation Army.  Well, I really didn't pass by, I dropped off donations and ran inside to see what I could find.  While in there I found this:

A flower frog.  Sitting there all by its lonesome.  I already have one like this, but I couldn't just leave it on the shelf, could I?  So I brought it home and would love to send it to one of my followers.  I do have to warn that the base does need some cleaning up which I'm not sure how to do, but it's in really great shape otherwise.  And it needs a new home.  All you have to do is leave a comment that you'd like a chance to win it.  I'll probably include something to be put into it also!  What's a flower (scissor) frog without scissors?  I'll pick a winner next Sunday, April 15th.

Oh, and before I forget, Joanne at Serendipitous Stitching is have an Easter Treasure Hunt.  Follow the link to her blog for all the details.  I took part in the treasure hunt and you can see my clue in the post before this one.

I hope that everyone has a great week!!

Some Stripping, Stitching & a Possible Head Exam

Hi everyone!!  I have to thank all of you for your wonderful comments on the Farmer's Wife quilt.  I still look at it and can't believe that it's finished.  I'm almost sad that journey is over.  One little thing I didn't mention when I posted last time was that when I sat down at the machine to clean it up, oil her and start on a new project - the foot pedal took off like a demon with its tail on fire!  I don't know what I did -   I must have been pushing it too hard, but that foot pedal is shot.  Thank goodness I had another one from the other 301A that I have, and a totally new one arrived this week.  Can't be caught without a foot pedal!  But again, thank you for all your wonderful comments and encouragement while I was working on it.  But again I'm kind of sad it's finished - so sad that I decided to get myself into another mess - and this may be the reason I need to have my head examined:

The Phebe Quilt!!!  I have lusted (okay, maybe not lusted) but have have really, really wanted to do this quilt when I first spied it a couple years ago.  I know - truly crazy right?  I don't really know how to hand applique either (I have an inkling, but I haven't done it in quite a number of years - like when the dinosaurs roamed the earth according to my kids - so let's say I know nothing about it, shall we?).  But the quilt reminds me so much of a sampler in the middle that I just had to go for it.  How could I not?  So I ordered the pattern when I saw it and there is sat for the past couple years.  But the Gods must have been shining on me because I found a BOM program and it starts next month!  I can't wait, but I think I'm going to need a lot of encouragement on this one (and probably that head examination - this is one large project)!!  And don't look for any quick finishes on this one either - I have a funny feeling the applique part won't be until the fall when I have time to sit down with it.

Even though the weather has been beautiful and my trusty companion Bailey and I have gone on more walks and field runs than I can count, I did manage to get a little stitching in:

I'm making slow but sure progress on Ann Rayner.  Still loving the colors and can't wait to have her finished.  Although I think that is going to take a while.  I'm barely past the half-way mark on her and there is a lot of grass at the bottom, but with the absolutely stupendous weather that we've been having here the past couple weeks, I've been hard pressed to sit down and stitch!  I did find that I made a mistake counting in the right hand border so that's something I'm going to have to address soon (ugh-FROGS), but she is a joy to work on.

Now the stripping - no, nothing offensive here - this is a PG-rated blog, but I have been stripping - with fabric:

I had to keep myself occupied while waiting for Phebe so on a couple days when it wasn't that great out, I started stripping.  I only have to make about a bazillion of these things.  They will be cut up and made into Nine Patch blocks something like this:

This is a scrappy quilt and you're suppose to cut the strips into new strips and then put them together in a random order to make scrappy nine patches.  I'm still sewing strips, but maybe this week I'll get those finished up.

We've been enjoying the most unseasonable weather that we've ever seen in Michigan for March - like can you say 86 degrees on Thursday and temperature records broken all over the place?  It's been wonderful, and things have blooming right and left:

The bright side of all this weather is seeing everything bloom and green up and it was still winter!  The down side is that we're in for frost this week.  Not good and could play havoc with our fruit producers in the state.  Our state is big on apples, cherries and peaches, among other things.  Fingers crossed that they're very mild frosts.

And on another note, please send thoughts and prayers for my MIL.  She's almost 85 and took a tumble down her stairs this week.  Actually this is the second time she's done this.  The first time she was just scraped up a little, but on Friday she took another tumble and fractured her pelvis (hairline, thank goodness), fractured her shoulder and her wrist in five places.  She's in good spirits and will have surgery on her wrist on Tuesday.  That woman is a little spitfire and can run circles around me.  She's going to hate having to take it easy for a while.

Well, that's it for me this week.  I hope that everyone has a great week and gets a lot of stitching in and some great weather too, and thank you again for all your comments on the FW quilt.

And now I think I need to get back outside.  I just mentioned to Bailey that it might be time for another walk:

Is he smilin' or what???

A BAP Wrap - The Farmer's Wife and a Little Stitching

It's a rainy, dreary day around here, but as far as I'm concerned the sun is shining because.....drumroll please!!!!!.............. The Farmer's Wife quilt is finally finished.  Woo Hoo!!!  After two years of stitching, ripping out seams, throwing pieces around the room (yes, that happened here and there - oh, and some swearing - did I mention that?) and countless bobbins of thread, she is finished.  Please excuse any wrinkles, threads, etc.  She hasn't had her final cleaning up or pressing, but I couldn't wait to show pictures of her.  So if you click to enlarge the pictures, just pretend you don't see the stray threads or wrinkles.

And a birds eye view:

She's a big one.  I can't tell you how hard it was to manipulate her through the final row of sewing.  I would have loved to get a picture of her outside, but it's raining buckets!!  Perhaps in the future I'll take her out and shoot some more pictures of her.

As there are 111 blocks in this quilt, I can't show all of them, but I'll show a few that stand out.

The Block from Hell - yes, this one gave me lots of problems - it was the one that originally came out looking like a volcano.  After cutting out and piecing another block, it's still not absolutely flat, but it's going to have to do.  It also doesn't have points that are defined.  Why sweat the small stuff, right?

The Fun Block - again, the points aren't sharp, but after 110 of these little babies, I was happy to have it finished.  This was the last block that I finished up.  In the instructions I had from the shop who supplied the Block of the Month, they omitted this block - they had instructions for a different block included twice.  Once I figured out which one had been omitted, I sewed it together and breathed a sigh of relief - and also had a glass of wine in celebration (okay - I had two glasses, but whose counting)??  One hundred and eleven blocks finished.  This one was fun and quick.

The Pointless Block - yes, I kept it and didn't do it over again.  I tried - I honestly did - by paper piecing - but paper piecing and I don't get along on a good day, so here it is:

And a Basket block - what would a quilt like this be without a basket block?

I learned a lot working on this quilt.  It was quite an experience sewing blocks that finish up to 6" inches compared to most of the quilts that I've worked on where the blocks finished up double in size.  There were a lot of small pieces - and some blocks - like the Pointless Block had at least 50 pieces.  And you know what is so funny?  Is that after all the cutting, ironing, swearing, ripping, etc., I want to make another one - or one similar!  I truly must be ill!  LOL

Because I've been spending so much time on the Farmer's Wife Quilt, I haven't had a lot of time for stitching, but I have made some progress on Ann Rayner.  I'm working on this piece for Becky's Challenge:

I finally managed to get off the alphabets and on to some of the fun stuff.  Don't you find that alphabets seem to take forever???  Ann is such a fun stitch - maybe because I'm using a 32 count fabric for her.  It's been easy and relaxing to work on.

So there you have what I've been up to the past couple weeks.  I'm noticed that I've picked up a few more followers in the past couple weeks!  Welcome!  And I'll check on your blogs soon.  I've been having problems with my gadgets and can't seem to add or delete people, so I think that I'm going to have to work on a complete blog overhaul here in the near future when I can find some time.  And I want to thank everyone for all your wonderful comments on my last post on Sun and Moon!  I tickles me to read them and I truly appreciate all your kind words.

And one final shot - guess who decided to make my quilt his own:

My buddy Bailey.  You can tell by the expression on his face he knows that he's not suppose to be sitting on that quilt!  LOL

Hope you have a wonderful week!

Framing, Quilting and Misc. Stuff (Lots of Pics)

Happy Sunday everyone!!  After a taste of winter last Friday (one of the few that we've seen), it's a beautiful sunny day here.  Makes you realize that Spring is just around the corner!!

It's been a busy couple of weeks around Chez Roman recently.  Nothing earth shattering, but more that while trying to recuperate from this vicious bug, I took it easy - a lot of sleeping and a lot of sewing!  I've been so tired with this!!  But, I'm feeling much better now (thank you to all that left comments)!!  I know that I'm not the only one that has been hit by some kind of malady recently.

First, I finally took Sun and Moon to be framed and had it back in three days!!  That's record service.  It was sitting around here collecting dust and then one day a coupon for 60% off plus an additional $10 came in the mail, so there was certainly no reason to let it continue to collect dust! (Note: there is some white thing on the right hand cherub.  It's not there in real life but just may be a reflection of something - it's very bright here today).

The frame is just a simple one and slightly distressed, but I thought that it was perfect for the piece:

I managed to get a little more done on Ann Rayner.  I just have a little bit more of the four sided alphabet and the Greek styled border underneath and I get to the good parts!!

Because I haven't had a ton of energy (although it's starting to return now - just wish I could get rid of the plugged head and coughing), I decided to tackle a couple quilting projects.  One is a quilt called the Cotton Club that I had been receiving as a BOM:

Every month a blogging friend, Julie would tell me how she was caught up with the current month's blocks, and I was just staring at mine.  So I took action and cranked those babies out:

All 25 done!  I'm all caught up!!!!  But what do I see - Oh no, a problem block?  Do you see it?  Look on the lower right hand side.

Obviously I got a little over zealous in my pursuit to get these blocks caught up and wasn't paying attention to detail.  It's been fixed now!

Then I worked on the Farmer's Wife Quilt a little bit more:

Three more rows almost put together.  You'll notice that one row is shy of being finished.  That's because I have to redo a couple blocks which seems a shame.  One of the blocks looks almost perfect except that if I sew it onto the next row there won't be points on the side:

There's about 56 pieces in this darned block, but if you notice, the points at the bottom will be completely cut off when I attach it to the sashing that is between the rows of blocks!  UGH!!!  So I'm going to redo it.  I've been putting it off, but I really need to bite the bullet.  I've love to have this quilt completely finished.

Now that I'm caught up with the Cotton Club and because working on the Farmer's Wife consistently drives me up the wall sometimes (meaning I still suffer from Crafter's ADD), I picked my next project.  I had put this kit together last year and then got caught up in other things, so this is the next quilting victim:

I've already started slicing and dicing the fabric and I can't wait to put the pedal to the medal and start cranking this baby out!  I'm anxious to have this one finished before the nicer weather gets here.  I don't tend to sew much once the weather breaks and starts to really warm up.

Recently, I came across sewing article that is very much dear to my heart in one of the boxes I've been going through.  It's a sewing kit - owned by a WWII veteran.  That veteran was my father.  He was a Canadian (at the time - he later became a US citizen) and in the Canadian Navy.  I tried to find a picture of him in uniform, but they're somewhere buried in a box that I haven't gone through yet.

I do think that it's rather funny - if you click on the picture to make it larger, you will notice that the bobbins of thread and the large spool of thread are all made in the USA.  I suppose that I thought that they would have been made by a Canadian or English company.  Perhaps these kits were supplied by the US.  I guess that would be a good thing to investigate one of these days.

And last but not least, Nicola recently asked for pics of Fur Babies sleeping.  I didn't get around to taking pictures in time for her contest, but realized that I haven't posted pics of my Fur Baby in quite a while, so here are just a few:

The lion that roared at bath time (don't tell him I posted this - I doubt that he would love pictures during his toilette splashed over the internet - to be viewed by a bunch of stitchers):

Such a cute face.  And what a pink nose!!  Poodles and poodle mixes have a tendency for their noses to turn pink in the colder weather.  And notice those long eye lashes!!

Bailey with Catie:

And sleeping next to my stitching chair on his favorite old bedspread.  He's such a sweetheart and my buddy.

I know that there is a lot of talk about the evil word verification thing going on.  I've jumped back and forth about taking it off.  I think that it's off now.  I had turned it off and within three hours I got a lot of silly Anonymous comments.  I thought that they were actually appearing in my Comments section on my blog so I turned it back on.  But then I realized that they are being sent to SPAM so I've turned it off again.  If you comment and notice that it's still on, let me know and I'll make sure that it's turned off.

That's it for me.  I hope that everyone has a wonderful week!!  And again, thank you for all your comments.  I really love hearing from you!!

This Will Thrill You!

Okay, I lied - nothing is going to thrill you on this post.  I've had a miserable cold the past couple weeks and am just now starting to feel a little bit better - at least right now.  Ask me again in an hour and I might be sleeping again!  I think that I'm right in there with about a million other people running around with something, but this cold/flu thing has really kicked my butt!

So stitching progress as been minimal and also haphazard.  There was a little bit of knitting thrown in and a little quilting, but mainly cutting out pieces with the quilting in my more lucid moments.   When I'd sit down to stitch or knit, I seemed to fall asleep at the drop of a hat.

Ann Rayner is coming along slowly:

This sampler is much more colorful than I thought it would be.  Happy colors and I do like that I used a lighter fabric for her.  I would have been much further along with her, but a rather large frog came to visit and I had to rip out about half of the first alphabet and the golden dividing border because - well, let's just say that I didn't pay attention to detail and dear Ann added an extra stitch between one of the flower buds going across the top.  But I wasn't going to tear out the bud border, so....and of course, no one will be wiser (except people who read my blog)......I'm just extending the top border over one stitch and problem solved. I posted the second picture because there wasn't a stitch marked right under the left corner, and the more I look at it, I'm put off by it, so I'm going to put in a stitch there when I pull the color again.  I must really have an anal side to me because I like everything to be even.

After realizing that I had to frog out so much on Miss Rayner, I put her down in disgust and picked up another Ann - Ann Hall, although I didn't get much done on her either:

I just managed to get some of the grass in, the star-like motifs next to Adam and Eve, the dogs (except the collars) and most of the deer.  For some reason I got bored with that, and picked up a new one - well not really new, I've had it in stash for a while, but it kind of broke my resolution of working on WIPs - Janet Gibson:

Thrilling, huh?  NOT!  The only reason I haven't gone further on this is that I can't decide whether I should use two strands (the block is in two strands) or one strand (the vine is in one strand).  I know that a lot of stitchers will cringe at the thought of using two strands on 35 count, but that is my standard operating procedure.  But I'm using NPIs on this one and even though you can't tell by the picture, the fabric is rather dark (Meadowrue) so I'd like the design to pop from the fabric.  So decisions, decisions.  One strand or two?

So there you have it - two weeks of work.  As I said, I've been spending a lot of time either sleeping or just lazing.  But hopefully things will improve from this point on.  The only other thing that's really happened is  that my poor tired eyes have finally reached the stage of needing enhancement for distance.  Yes, I need glasses!  I've worn them for stitching, but never for distance.  Me, being a brave sole, decided that I'm too vain to wear glasses and need contacts.

Now, promise you won't laugh.  I went through the exam with flying colors - only took me 5 minutes to figure out how to put the contacts in and take them out.  Went joyfully skipping out of the doctors office finding everything to be so sharp - I could see everything so well.  Wow, does that red sign really say STOP?  Okay, I wasn't that bad, but I could definitely see an improvement.

Fast forward 5 hours and it was time to take them out.  No problem!  Or so I think.  I couldn't get them out!!!  I'm panicking - am I going to have to make a trip to the emergency room (I should note here that my eye doctor is an hour away so I couldn't just jump in my car and go down the street)?  What the heck am I going to do?  Okay, I tell myself to calm down and walk away and come back.  You whipped those babies in and out at the Doctor's office, you can certainly do it now.  I sit down ready to do battle and I still can't get them out!  OY!  Now I should mention that this was the day that my cold was rearing it's ugly head - my eyes were tired, scratchy, watery and I - well, I was at a loss.

But the problem was solved in short order.  My daughter had a friend over who wore contacts.  She washed her hands and whipped them out of my eyes in a nano-second.  I was embarrassed, but she tried to reassure me that it happens to a lot of people (yeah right - I swear I heard her comment to my daughter that it never happened to her.  They probably both had a good laugh)!  Anyway, I haven't put them in since.  Yes, just call me chicken!!!  Maybe when the cold is completely gone........

And last but not least, I have a new member of the sewing machine family.  One day when I went out on a quick errand, I passed an estate sale.  Even though I wasn't feeling my best, I decided to just stop in - you just never know what you'll find.  Well, I guess the Gods were shining on me trying to make me feel better because I have another addition:

This little machine is a tiny one.  And sitting next to her was a small spinning wheel.  I couldn't resist either one, and the price was so reasonable for both of them, I just couldn't pass them up.  I need to spend a little time today cleaning them up.  These sewing machines and I are going to have to stop meeting like this because I'm running out of room!

Well, that's it for me!  I'm going to try to slowly catch up on blogs today - as long as my eyes stay open.  I think that I've missed a lot over the past couple week or so!!  Hope everyone has a stitchy week - and stays well!