Frogging, Spring Flowers and a Quilt Show

In one of my recent posts I showed you the Pumpkin House that I am cross-stitching and stated that I had to audition several floss colors that were not the recommended DMC conversion color as the orange pumpkins at the bottom didn't contrast well with it. Well, I had decided on DMC 3779, but as I continued to stitch I realized that it was much too bright peach....almost pink. Back to the drawing board. I needed something a little duller. I finally settled on stitching with one strand of 3779 and one of 3771. The latter is a much duller peach, but when used alone the pumpkins once again did not contrast. With one strand of each floss, you can now see the pumpkins and the color is a much better match to the cover photo.

Spring flowers are in bloom here. My big bed of daffodils is in full bloom.

I have some pretty tulips around also.

I love my purple tulips.

Hubby and I drove to a quilt show about 45 minutes from home yesterday. It was a small show that was not a judged show. I thought you might like to see some of the quilts that I thought were interesting. This is called Passages. I love the graphic look.

This one is Star Shadows.

This guild, the Smithtown Stitchers, had a Row by Row Challenge with several of those quilts on display. This one was "Cakes and Candy and Pie, Oh My!"

This was "Creamsicle, A Study of Orange".

This "Butterfly" was a collage pattern.

So was "Sandy's EBBA".

There was also a House Challenge. I liked "Home Tweet Home".....

and "Pumpkin Cottages".

Finally there was an Ombre Challenge. These were the rules. 

The variety of quilts made was impressive. My favorite quilt was in this challenge, "X Ombre". 

"Light in the Darkness" was also a great quilt from this challenge.

There was one Log Cabin Quilt called "Opposing Logs". 

You know how much I love Log Cabin quilts. Speaking of which, I have committed spending 30 minutes or more most days on the Log Cabin Star quilt and I almost have the next 10 blocks completed. I am about to add the last log to each and then sew the y-seam.

I feel like I am coming down with another cold. It may just be allergies, but I don't think so. Hopefully, it won't knock me down like the last one did. 

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. 

Thanks for stopping by!

First April Stitch Along Update

These last 3 weeks went by way too fast and also awfully slowly. Since our last update, Hubby and I visited our son and his family in California for 4 days and came home sick on Palm Sunday. I finally started feeling somewhat better on Easter (no celebration though) and I finished my antibiotics yesterday. Hubby is still feeling very rundown, but no longer coughing. Never the less, there was little to no crafting happening for almost 2 weeks. That being said, this is where I was on Three Boats for the last update. 

This is where I am now. 

I thought I would have this page completed by the end of March, but I am almost there. Here is a closeup of the last page that starts just under the boat.

 Those stitches you see at the bottom are the bottom of the page. There has been an awful lot of confetti in this stitching and well....I was sick. Hopefully this page will be finished by the next update, but no guarantees.

Thank you to Avis at Sewing Beside the Sea for hosting this Stitch Along every three weeks and sending us the needed posting reminders. 

Grab yourself a cup of coffee or tea and take some time to visit the other bloggers below who are part of this stitch-along. There is a wide variety of stitching projects. These talented stitchers are from all over the world, so please allow for the time differences and check back for each post.

Avis, Claire, Gun, Christina, Kathy, Margaret,

 Jackie, Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Sharon, Daisy, 

Cathie, Linda, MaryMargaret, Cindy

Helen is taking a break for now. We will miss her posts.

Thanks for stopping by! 

 

Earthquake and feeling better

We had an earthquake! I was sitting at our kitchen table having recently finished breakfast when I heard a loud, long rumble and watch my water start moving. I thought it was a few heavy duty trucks rumbling down the street, but as I went to look out my dining room window I saw my chandelier slightly sway. No trucks to be seen. Hubby was getting out of the shower and was wondering what the heck I was doing on the first floor. I went up the stairs and said that I thought we had an earthquake. Sure enough we did. Thankfully there were no injuries anywhere and little damage except near the epicenter. We don't get very many earthquakes here in New York. The last one a few years ago had more of a rolling feeling. This one was just loud with some shaking. We had an aftershock around 6pm that had a similar rumble. I happened to be sitting in the same place for that one. It was an interesting Friday. 

Hubby and I are feeling better after almost 2 weeks of illness. I am finally crafting again. I have been stitching the Pumpkin House on and off. There was a lot of frogging this morning. Do you see the two peach colors on the outer edges of the house by the pumpkins? 

Those are two different DMC colors. On the left is 758 and the right is 3779. They are very close in color. I know that they are very pale. I had to audition these as the DMC conversion that the designer suggested was so close in value to the orange pumpkins that you couldn't discern the pumpkins against the house. It also looked nothing like the color on the sample cover design. 

I am not using the variegated flosses that are charted, but rather the DMC conversions as those are what I have. In the end I decided on the 3779 as the pumpkin was more visible. 

I think this is better. Obviously there is a lot more stitching to do in this color. 

I also finished the last ten Log Cabin Star blocks I was working on. I now have 131 of 196 complete. I have already started on the next 10.

 I want to try to spend at least two mornings a week at my sewing maching to get these done soon. 

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching tomorrow. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Slow Sunday Stitching

Happy Easter!

I hope you are celebrating with family and friends. We will be staying home just the two of us. 

There certainly hasn't been much stitching going on around here this past week. Last Sunday, Hubby and I were on a plane returning from CA. We had spent 3 days with our son and his family and enjoyed lots of snuggles and play with our grandson. I brought my Pumpkin House cross-stitch with me. I made some progress on the two flights and when our grandson was napping. 

 I added most of the red stitching at home this week.

We thoroughly enjoyed our visit, but I realized on the flight home that I was getting sick. I had a slight cough and a post nasal drip. I figured I was getting a cold.  Well, I have been sick all this week. That cold turned into an ear and sinus infection. I started antibiotics Thursday after I paid the doctor a visit. Later that day I came down with pinkeye also. (Our 9 month old grandson was being treated for this while we were there). Hubby came down sick Sunday night and went to the doctor on Wednesday as he gets ear infections lately with every cold.  I spent most of this week just lazing around reading or in bed. Didn't feel like doing much crafting at all.  As of Saturday afternoon, I had finally started feeling better, though a late afternoon coughing fit had me taking another dose of the OTC cough med. This is the main reason that Easter will be very low key this year. I am not even sure what I will be making for dinner. I haven't been to the grocery store since before our trip. Hubby picked up milk, potatoes, a rotisserie chicken and a couple of other small items one day. We've been having lots of take-out.

Speaking of groceries, have you ever tried storing berries in glass containers. I don't know what I was thinking, but I bought a bunch of strawberries, raspberries and blackberries a little less than a week before our trip to CA. I didn't want to pack them for the trip so I placed the strawberries in a mason jar and the blackberries and raspberries together in a glass storage container. I have read that the berries last a long time when stored like this.

This is how they looked when we got home. As fresh as the day I bought them. I am still using them on my cereal today. I will be storing my berries this way from now on. 

Since I wasn't feeling well and my eye was bothering me, I didn't want to work on anything that required thought so I finally made the Tweety latch hook into a pillow. I took some Tweety fabric that I had purchased and made two rectangles with one long end hemmed on each and hand sewed them to the back of the latchhook as I didn't want to ruin any machine needles trying to sew over the thick latch hook canvas. The two rectangles overlap on the back making it easy to swap out the pillow if needed.

It will sit on the daybed in my daughter's old room.

I think it looks adorable. That's another item off of the UFO list.

Does anyone know what these tools are used for?

 I was going through a storage box that I had and found them at the bottom. I think the small pointed oval is a tatting shuttle, but the others have me stumped....especially the scissors with the screw detail (it is hard to see in this photo, but it is by the bottom finger hole).

I will be joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Buttermilk, Spring and Slow Sunday Stitching

Although my header photo was up to date last Sunday for the St. Patrick's Day holiday, I forgot to make holiday post. So the buttermilk in the title is my reminder to show you the Irish Soda breads that I made last week. You can find the recipe under the baking tab at top.

 I used up what was left of the buttermilk to make Fluffy and Crisp Buttermilk Waffles from Brown Eyed Baker last Saturday. It was a new recipe for me and they were delicious. The leftovers went in the freezer for future breakfasts. 

We had the obligatory corned beef on Sunday without the cabbage. We are not fans of cooked cabbage. Mashed potatoes and a cucumber salad rounded out the meal.

You can see from my header photo that the embroidered/cross-stitched apron survived a washing without any bleeding. Yay! It is ironed now and put away. 

I am happy to say that my alternative method of joining the pieces of the final two logs of the Log Cabin Star quilt (Judy Martin's Timberline quilt) is working much better than what I was doing previously. 

Don't ask me why it too me so long to try something different. I now have 126 of the 196 of these particular blocks completed and the next 10 started. 

I have added a few stitches to the Pumpkin House. 

The roof is almost done now.

Spring has sprung and my daffodils are in bloom. I'm hoping the rainy days are light so I can enjoy them for a while. I would like some warmer weather also. We've had a few windy days in the 40s this past week. Not warm at all.

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching.

Thanks for stopping by!

March Stitch Along Post

 The last time I posted, I was almost finished with the third of 24 pages. This is what it looked like 3 weeks ago.

I had hoped that I would have the 4th page done by this post, but my daughter and toddler granddaughter came for a visit and this project was put away for a few days. I have made a good deal of progress on it though. The third page is completly filled in and I am well into the 4th page. It was helpful that there was a whole lot of one particular color that could be completed before changing floss colors again. I am working with a lot of flosses that are similar in color right now. It makes counting carefully imperative.

This is where I am after three weeks of stitching.

 I don't think I will finish this page this month as we have a trip planned and this is not at all portable.

Thank you to Avis at Sewing Beside the Sea for hosting this Stitch Along every three weeks and sending us the needed posting reminders. 

Grab yourself a cup of coffee or tea and take some time to visit the other bloggers below who are part of this stitch-along. There is a wide variety of stitching projects. These talented stitchers are from all over the world, so please allow for the time differences and check back for each post.

Avis, Claire, Gun, Christina, Kathy, Margaret,

 Jackie, Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Sharon, Daisy, 

Cathie, Linda, Helen, MaryMargaret, Cindy

Thanks for stopping by! 

Another UFO is done!

Yay! I finished stitching the apron. This UFO is off the list.

Please excuse the wrinkles. I still have to wash and iron it. I'm a little worried about the maroon floss running, but I will use a Color Catcher or two.

I decided that I needed another small piece to work on as Three Boats and the Log Cabin Star quilt are big. This cross-stitch is for me. It is the first of the Pumpkin House series. What you can see are the two windows on the right of the house.

I also finished the puzzle that I was working on. 

It has all of its pieces and I won't want to make it again so I have boxed it up, sealed the boxed and wrote on the bottom the date that it was last completed and that all the pieces are accounted for.

We had one, only one, nice day this week...warm and sunny. Hubby and I took advantage of the nice day and went for a walk in the local preserve. There were a whole lot of geese, a few ducks and a swan on the lake.

Hopefully there will be some more sunny warm days soon. 

I have started reading the book my daughter gave me for Christmas.

This is a new author for me. So far I am enjoying her writing.

I am joining Kathy for some Slow Sunday Stitching. Pop on over to her site to see what other bloggers are stitching. I need to give Three Boats some attention today. 

Thanks for stopping by!