Finally Finished

Good evening. Well it's early evening. I just finished Today I shall Live in Faith late this afternoon. Man those butterflies were hard. I was so happy to finish the piece. Tomorrow my sister in law will pick it up and it will be made into a pillow and our local Child Evangelism Fellowship can sell it at a craft sell this Sat.

Last Saturday I went out to eat with my brother and sister in law and my niece and her family. We celebrated Melissa's birthday. Afterwards we went to Melissa and John's house. I played 3 different games with little Katelyn (7) and of course I lost them all.

It looks like spring may be coming in. There isn't any snow in the forecast and they say now through June it's suppose to be warmer then average. Good. I was really sick of the snow.

There isn't much happening right now so until next time.....Happy Stitching!

First finish of 2017

Good Afternoon. I have finally gotten my stitching mojo back. I laid down America for now....I just couldn't get into it and picked up this piece. It's part of Kitty in Window Seasonal series by Eileen Gurak of HandBlessings. I really liked doing this piece and will do the other 3 in their appropriate seasons this year.

I'm now doing a kit that I had called Today I will Live with Faith. It is so pretty, it has 3 butterflies, and I love the colors. It is not going to be an easy piece to do but it's going okay. The pattern is a little small and hard to make out with all the backstitch lines but I have my magnifying glass handy and that's helping a lot.

I babysat my brother's cat, Snowball, for a little over a week while my brother was in hospital. I just couldn't leave her home so I had a friend help me and we brought her here. Things really went better than I anticipated. Before when I attempted to have her here things went so poorly that I had friends come and take her. This time Snowball and Saturn were pretty good. There was very little hissing and growling. I kept Snowball in a kennel when Saturn was roaming around the apartment but when he went into the bedroom to sleep for awhile Snowball let me know by meowing and looking towards the bedroom. It was so cute, and of course she was let out. Both Snowball and Saturn figured out how to open the bedroom door so I did have to watch for that. I really think had I had her a couple days longer though she wouldn't need the kennel as the two were getting along, even kissing each other.

There is a lot of flu and colds going around here. That's the problem with mild winters, everyone seems to get sick. So far I've been lucky but so many of my friends have gotten sick I'm surprised I haven't caught anything from them. Knock on wood.

Things are going great at the cat shelter. We saw a lot of cats go out and unfortunately many have come in. We are filled to the max right now so need to get the cats adopted out. In Feb. our FIV cats and black cats were only $25.00. The black cats sold pretty good we have a few left. People are afraid of the stigma of FIV cats. They are afraid they'll catch the Aids virus from the cat and no they can't. However we do not encourage people with young children to see the cats because young children do have a lower immune system then us adults. We don't encourage people with other cats in house either but some have adopted them and things are going well. Just because they have the virus does not mean they will get aids and it's not a death sentence for the cat. If kept inside the cat can live long healthy lives. Though we do encourage taking them to the vet at least once a year and if they do get the sniffles or eye infection, uti, or other things take them to vet immediately. We've had the room for almost 18 months and all the cats we've had in there are still doing very well. It's some of our other cats that were healthy that got sick and died, but that's only been a few. And now we have a new Vet who keeps right on top of our cats. Like adults, the cats are getting colds and sniffles and our sick room is full. But then we just had 10 cats brought in to us from a hoarding situation 8 of them were sick. But they are all doing better.

Well, until next time.....Happy Stitching.

I am still alive and stitching.....sometimes

I know it's been a while. I just haven't gotten into stitching like I use to. It took me over a month to do a half page. I think it's because of the colors in the Empire State Building are so dull. The more interesting colors are coming up so it should go faster now. I thought for sure this page would be done and I'd be into the last section by now.
January was sort of an uneventful month not much happened. So there really hasn't been anything to blog about.
So until next time....Happy stitching.

Another ornament finish

Good afternoon. I'm finally stating to stitch again. I finished this in a week. Well....faster then three weeks. I hope to get two more ornaments done by end of the year. (Although this weekend is really busy so I don't know.
Tomorrow I'm celebrating Christmas with my niece's family and then we'll go to my sister-in-law's church's Christmas Eve Service. Her brother has a major role in it so she wants to go see that.
I had made a list of several cats I wanted adopted out for Christmas. No not all of them got adopted but I'm posting a picture or two of one of them. Our little monkey-kitty, Tianna. We all just adored her. She's a tiny little girl and very active. And she earned the name of monkey-kitty for a reason. She'd be the one that as soon as you went to the back area where all the cat rooms are she'd be at her door jumping up and down so happy to see you. And also wanted to run in the hallways and big room and the enclosed patio area. There was nothing too high for that little girl to reach. Oh she came to us with a severe eye infection and her owner didn't have the money to cover it so turned her over to us. They tried to save her eye, and after about two months decided to remove the eye before the infection took her life. Finally she got released to the floor. The one picture of her was at Halloween and they dressed her as a pirate. A cute pirate she was. The other is a picture they took for "Home for the Holiday's, featured cat of the day. You can see how tiny she is probably about 4 or 5 pounds at the most. She has so much energy she burns the calories off. I saw a rock climbing wall for cats and said we should get that for Tianna she'd of loved it. Anyway, she got adopted. The people were warned she'd be climbing up their curtains, climbing up the Christmas tree, and jumping on to the tables, and counters they said they had a squirt bottle. They had adopted from us before so we know she went to a good home. Here's a couple of pictures of her.

I guess I just have one picture of her. And of course I have to add a picture of my sweet Saturn. He's wishing everyone a Merry Christmas!
Well until next time...Happy Stitching. Have a Merry Christmas!

A Tiny Christmas Finish

Good Afternoon. Time can sure get away from a person. Here it is Dec. 19 and it's my first post in Dec. So much for hoping to have 40 posts this year. Originally I wanted 80 but reduced it to 60 then when I saw that wasn't going to happen reduced it to 40. I might make it to forty.

For some reason I haven't wanted to stitch as much lately. I don't know why. It took me 3 weeks to do this tiny piece. I do have a second ornament going that should be finished tomorrow or Wed. I am finding more time to stitch this week then what I have the last couple of weeks.

Everyone have their Christmas shopping done? I do! My sister-in-law and I went last Wed. and I did my shopping then. It's so much fun to shop for children. Sat. we'll have Christmas with my niece, Melissa and her family, then Sunday we'll have a quiet Christmas with just our brother and his wife after going to church. I have to work in the Nursery at church that day.
Hope we don't have a lot of kids.

My hip and knee are not healing as fast as I want. Although I think part of the problem is I do have Degenerative arthritis in the hip so that is a factor.

This year we haven't gotten as many cats adopted out as we did last Christmas season. We have the $25.00 special going but it just seems to be slower, Disappointing. I'm hoping they get more adopted out tonight and Wed. Sat. being Christmas Eve we aren't opening to the public but they will schedule a time any time this week if needed.

Well until next time....Happy Stitching!

A Quick, easy finish

Good Morning. I have a few minutes before I had to the Cat Shelter so thought I would post this piece. It was very quick and easy to do. I had made a piece for Madyson when she was adopted and my niece wanted me to do a piece for Katelyn too. I am hoping Katelyn will like this as it's not the colors she would have chosen. My sister-in-law who is also their grandmother will make both pieces into pillows.

Well....time is short so until next time.....Happy Stitching.

An UFO Bites the Dust

I finished this earlier this morning. It was a difficult stitch as there was so much detail and so muc backstitiching in it. But I did enjoy it and am happy I dug it out to finish. My dad's cousin saw this when I posted it on my face book page and asked for it so it will go to her.

I have dug out another UFO to get further on if not completed. Only it's not as old as this own was. (I started in 2008. It's the AUTUMN piece by Stoney Creek I started last year.

Well....until next time Happy Stitching!

A Finish and an UFO

This was a quick, easy, piece by My Big Toe Designs. I wanted something easy to do after spending 3 months on America piece. This piece made me think of my mom as even in adversity she rejoiced. Also when I graduated from High School I wanted a white dress with pink flowers to wear under my cap and gown. Unable to find one my mom found material and sewed the dress for me. I loved it and wore it often. The flowers in the border of this piece made me remember it because they were very similar to the ones in the dress. Funny what triggers your memory, things you had long forgotten about will come to mind.

I have dug into my UFO pieces and decided to try to finish 1 or 2 of them. If I could find the piece and the pattern, I was doing it. Well....I found the piece and pattern so am going to finish up this piece. I started it years ago for Love Quilts and for some reason never finished it. Probably because I made a mistake that seemed too hard to try to fix at the time. (That's usually why I lay down a piece, usually pick it up years later and the mistake was easy to correct then.) This book also has a fox in it I never finished....but have to find that piece.

Well until next time....Happy Stitching!

Page 14 of America Finished

Good Morning! I hope everyone has a safe and nice Holiday Weekend. It's the last weekend of the summer. Kids that haven't returned to school yet will be returning Tuesday. It's been a nice summer, I really hate to see it end, it went by too fast.

I finished page 14 of America and has been laid down until Jan., then I hope to work on it until it's finished, hopefully in early March. We'll see. Will I do another piece by Mystic Stitch? Yes, I already have it picked out. I've done 2 pieces earlier.

I just got home from the cat shelter. We have so many nice cats right now. We just recently got some new cats that are so sweet. We doubt it will take them long to be adopted.

Also have a lot of things coming up at church with the picnic middle of Sept., then Oct. Chilli cook off, November, Harvest Dinner and then in Dec. Holiday potluck. We are trying to have more activities for the people at church to get together, get to know each other. Our church is getting new people but some of the people that have been with us a while are leaving. I don't get it. No it's not the same church it was 5 years ago, and yes a lot of people such as my dad, who were real leaders have died. But when we decided to get this Pastor and the Worship Directors we knew what direction they wanted to take the church. People always say to me "If your dad was alive he wouldn't let these things happen." I don't know that....Dad was about reaching people. And to be honest, God never changes but He does reach people where they are at. So we have to give a little to reach people for Christ. Christianity isn't a bunch of rules and regulations.

Speaking of my parents today would be their 66th wedding anniversary. Their second one in heaven. We miss them there isn't a day I don't think of them. This picture I think is of them at time of 60th anniversary. I remember their 63rd anniversary dad wanted Meat Pie. It's a Finnish dish he grew up on and we did too. My sister-in-law made it for him and he ate it even wanted seconds. Dad was ain Hospice Care at the time and died 20 days later.

Well until next time...Happy Stitching. (My cat is about to kick me off the computer LOL!)

1,000 Hours of Stitching on America

Good Morning. Yesterday I reached a milestone on America, I stitched on it 1,000 hours! I started it Jan. 1, 2014 and hope to finish it in 2017 or early 2018. This is what I have done on page 14. See above post to see the top half of piece.

It's been a busy few days. Friday I got to see two nieces and their children. Michelle and her boys had just arrived back from a year in Sweden. (Her husband went on to CO to get their house ready plus he starts teaching again end of Aug. Michelle starts beginning of Sept.) It was a fun noisy day. My birthday was on Sunday so my sister was also at my nieces, and made me Coconut Cream Pie using our mom's recipe. It was sooooo good. I hadn't had it in years. I had posted on Face book I had 3 wishes, one was for my mom's coconut cream pie, 2) to go to Golden Corale on my birthday, & & 3 to have a cat or two adopted from the shelter. Friday was so much fun. It was nice to see the girls and kids again. The kids are growing. On Sunday I went to church and then my brother took me to Golden Corale. It was so good.

Sat. we did not get any cats adopted at the shelter but 7 of our cats and kittens that had been taken out to Petco got adopted. We were so thrilled at that. And since 3 of the cats were at the shelter first I count that as the wish coming true.

Monday my Sister in law came and got me and we went to Dutch Village with her two daughters. Six kids in all. Melissa has 4, ages 1, 6, 7, and 9. And Christina has two ages 1 and 2. Trice will be 3 in Oct. That was fun. The kids enjoyed the animals and rides. Little Trice kept saying in the car all the way there "We're going to see the animals." I think he had the most fun. He was fearless on the rides even loving the ferris wheel and another ride that kept go up, down, out in circles. I forgot the name of it. We were worried he'd freak out on that but he loved it, and he even knew he had to hold on to the rail and not the chains. Afterwards we went to Pizza Hut and had Pizza! We had planned to go back to the park but the 3 little ones were really tired. Isaac had fallen asleep, Trice and Ryker were too stubborn to give in and were getting cranky. Ryker fell asleep on ride home Christina and the boys will be going back to NC on Friday to rejoin her husband. This was an unplanned trip as Christina fell ill and since they had only moved to NC a few months ago they felt it best for her to see the doctors that had been treating the illness all along. It's an illness she'll have to deal with for life. She's doing much better now so will be returning to her husband.

Well....I'm going to go back to stitching. Until next time....Happy Stitching!

Pages 7 &8 of America are finished

Good afternoon. The top half of America is now completely done so I uploaded it in two parts so you have an idea what the top half looks like. I now have close to 1,000 hours put into this piece. I am going to start page 14 tomorrow, which I am excited about as it has much more color in it. Right now I plan to lay this piece down the end of Aug. We'll see how far I am on page 14 and how it goes.

I'm getting anxious to see my niece, Michelle and her boys and hear about their year in Sweden. Michelle and her husband, Scott are college professors in Chemistry and it was their 7th year. Every 7 years they get to take a year off and do research anywhere they want. They chose Sweden as their best friends live there. Scott is not coming here, he's going back to CO to get their house ready and plus his classes start earlier than Michelle's so he'll be getting ready to get back into teaching.

Our church is having Bible School this week. I'm not working in it this year but on Friday will be working at the picnic for them. That will be fun.

Unfortunately I think my one Hydrangea plant is dead for the rest of season. Hope it blossoms again next spring. My other one is doing pretty good, and my Tomato Plants are doing great (as well as the others). I even picked a couple of tomatoes a couple of days ago, but fear I did it a little too soon. I'll make sure the rest of the tomatoes are ripe before I pick them, they are not nearly ready yet.

Until next time.....Happy Stitching!

Update on America

Good afternoon. I know I haven't been around as much lately. For some reason I just haven't gotten into blogging like I use to. Also I haven't stitched much in the last 3 weeks until yesterday and today. I think I stitched more yesterday and today than I have the last 3 weeks. I definitely got twice as much done. Anyway this is my progress on pages 7 & 8.

My sister is coming in to town later today. So the next couple of days I won't get much stitching in. We'll probably just relax tonight, doing our running around tomorrow and then play games whenever.

My small garden is doing good except for one of the hydrangea plants. The first one that got planted just never really took off well. Now the one planted later is really doing good and new buds are even coming up. I'm hoping next year the plants will really do well. Everyone tells me it takes a year or two for them to really get going. I also wonder if the first one is getting too much sun. I've been pruning it but then someone told me not to prune it, just let it take care of itself. But I don't know some of those leaves and flowers are pretty dead. But like I said the second one is doing great and the rest of the flowers are doing good.

August will be a busy month. Several of my nieces and nephews will be coming in from out of state. Each week someone is coming in except for the first week and last week some will be leaving. I'm looking forward to seeing them again. I haven't seen Jeremy, who lives in AZ in 4 years.

Well...until next time. Happy Stitching!

Hope Sampler Finished

Good morning! I am just waiting for a friend and her daughter to get here so thought I would post my finish. I finished it a couple of days ago and just getting around to posting it. This will go to a boy at Love Quilts who has Religious as theme of his quilt. I have my America piece back now so am back to stitching on that. I finished page 9. Here it is:I never thought I would get page 9 done, that was by far the hardest page. I think it was because of the colors being so similiar. Now I'm doing page 7 which is a much easier page to do.

Last night my sister in law came with a new hydrengia plant. It is so pretty. The first one she gave me isn't doing that well but everyone says it will do better next year. So I'm not giving up on it yet. A friend is coming over in a few minutes and we'll do a little more work in the garden

Hope Sampler

Good afternoon! Boy! June did fly by! It is already July 1. I left my America piece at my brother's last week and don't have it back yet, so I decided to do the Hope Sampler in mean time. And may be doing a couple of other pieces before I get that piece back. Anyway this piece is full of improvisions. For one thing I don't know how to do the specialty stitches so the bands are just my own version of the bands on the pattern. Another thing the word Hope is also going to be improvised somewhat since the pattern is for 28 count and I'm doing it on 14 count. At least the Lighthouse will be accurate. This piece is going to a little boy at Love Quilts unless I decide I messed it up too bad, then I'll find another piece to do for him.

Last week I got to see my Aunt and Uncle at my brothers. It's been a year since I've seen them. We had a nice visit with them. We admired my sister-in-law's garden and all her flowers in front yard and back yard and my brother redid the sun porch and it is really nice.

I'm looking forward to the Summer Olympics. I like the winter ones better, but I do like the Swimming, Diving, and Gymnastic events and some Track & Field. I've been watching the tryouts so that gives me a taste of what the Olympics will be like.

Well....until next time...Happy Stitching!

Wild Flowers of the South Finish

Good afternoon! It's so nice outside although we are getting our share of rain. My garden likes that.
I actually finished this piece last week, just never got around to posting it. I love the way it turned out. It is so pretty, the picture doesn't do it justice.

My sister is here from other side of state. Earlier we went down to Lake Michigan. She has to go down there in the summer when she's here. Only we were surprised by the mist over the lake so we didn't get a clear view. We were also surprised by the waves pounding the shoreline. We didn't think it was that windy out. Tonight we'll have pizza. Not my favorite but our brother likes it so we'll have it for him. We were going to have it last night but we went to another brother's house instead.

Now this piece is done I am back to working on America. I only have a little left on page 9 but it's driving me crazy all the confetti stitching. Why do designers do that? Why do I like her patterns so much. I have about 5 more of them here to do and I've done 2 others. I love punishing myself I guess.

Well until next time.....Happy Stitching!

A Small Finish

Good afternoon. It is so pretty outside. I went out there and worked in my garden a little, trying to pull weeds out and get ready for some more flowers to be added. Plus a couple of tomato plants. I love fresh tomatoes.

I just finished this quick piece today and will send it to World of Charity Stitching when they call for flower pieces. I'm on a kick to do flowers. My next pieces is Wild Flowers of the South.

I'm also on a kick to stitch from my stash. I am determined not to buy any new patterns this year unless I buy Summer and Winter Bell Pulls by Stoney Creek. But I did buy a couple of books I hadn't planned on. But they were books I had and were in really bad shaped and I liked those two books so bought them from people who had them in their for sale albums.

Well until next time Happy Stitching.

Butterflies and Bunny Finished

Good Morning. I finished this piece early this morning. I loved every minute of stitching on it. It is very detailed but the back stitching made the piece come to life.

I have a Wildflower piece from a kit that has been sitting here so I'm going to do that. I'm doing great at on my New Years Resolution not to buy any patterns so far this year. I got a couple of pattern books that I had that were so damaged I got new ones to replace them. I think this book was one of them. Someone had it in their sale list, same with the other book.

Tomorrow night is our Mother-Daughter banquet at church. I haven't gone in years but this year I am going with another lady from church. I'm on the Board that planned it so I thought I better go. We are trying to have an activity each month, all of them involve food.....of course! We're Baptist and the joke is Baptist like to eat!

On that note, I'll sign off. Until next time....Happy Stitching!

HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY DANCE!!!

And yes I am shouting! This piece almost caused me to give up stitching altogether. It was a bear to stitch. But I stuck to it. So much frogging, so much improvising.....and all those quarter and half stitches! Fortunately the other 3 seasonal crosses don't have any quarter or half stitching and only one has back stitching so they look much easier to do. And I probably will do them.

After struggling through this piece I got out a Stoney Creek piece from book "On Butterfly Wings" It has a cute rabbit in a mailbox surrounded by flowers and the rabbit is looking at two butterflies. This one seems to be much easier!

They say it's spring but you can't convince us of that. We've had snow and will get more snow although our snow hasn't stuck it's just irritating we want spring. They say the end of next week it'll warm up. Hope that is true.

Man! My vertigo is really acting up again. I'm doing a little better, as long as I just sit or lay, and don't try to walk I'm okay. And if I stay off the computer, something about the computer makes it worse so I don't get on it much right now. And I love to play Word Chaos and Jigsaw Puzzle on Facebook. I can spend hours doing that.

My sister is coming to town this weekend, maybe. She's mandated to stay over to work if someone from 1st shift calls in. She's not too worried, as if you call in a weekend, you have to make it up the next weekend. So people don't usually call in unless they are really sick.

Well.....until next time.....Happy Stitching!

Happy Dance

Good afternoon! After a week of crummy weather the sun is shinning. We bit the bullet as far as the winter storm goes, it went all around us. We did get a lot of rain though. Now the next week is suppose to be nice, Right now 37 and 38 are at end of 10 day forecast but that can change by the time the days get here. It can go up.

I finished this heart piece a couple of days ago. It was a love-hate relationship. I loved doing it but hated the blending filament. It will go to one of the quilts being done for the Kalamazoo shooting victims.

My sister was going to come in on Tuesday for a couple of days but because of the weather forecast she didn't want to get here and then not get home Thurs. So she'll come a couple of weeks from today.

The last two Easters my brother and I went to another brother's house for Easter. This year nothing was said about it. But I think because of their daughter and son in law moving this weekend they will be busy helping them. So I'm just going to have Tim come here after church and we'll have a ham dinner. I've never made a good ham before but I think I bought a good one this time. (Usually I just buy canned ham and I didn't
like that as well as the real ham which I bought this time.)

With it being Easter, I decided to do a cross piece by Sudbury House. It had 4 seasonal crosses. I made a couple color changes because I didn't have the Silver Krenik but had another one that made the cross more rustic, plus didn't have enough 761 so used 760 instead. So both changes do make a difference on the appearance of the piece I can see that already.

Well Hope everyone has a nice Easter. Until next time.....Happy Stitching

More Progress on A Loving Heart

Good evening!
I have been stitching on this piece. I think I will have to do some frogging though as the two sides are not coming out even. I'm hoping it's an easy fix. I really like this piece so if I have to frog some to make it right then I will. There is a facebook group planning to do quilts for the Kalamazoo shooting victims and I'm thinking this piece will be perfect for one of the women.

Today I took my cat to the Vet. He got a clean bill of health. He was so sweet at the Vet's. He was making her pet him the whole time he was there even when giving him the shots (Rabies and FIV) and when clipping his nails. The Vet did tell me to watch his diet as he is over weight. He weighed 17 lbs. He's not a big eater but I was feeding him 2/3 cup cat food and she said to cut it down to a half cup. He doesn't like canned cat food or human food or like any treats so the dry food is all he eats. So that part is good. She said I could try diet cat food but some cats don't do well with it so she only recommends it if cutting down food doesn't work. Think I'll try to get him more active too. He sleeps most of the time like most cats.

One of these days I will finish off the Amazing Grace piece, that is so huge. A lady from our church gave it to me to finish because her eye sight got so bad. She gave me a bunch of other started projects and projects she wanted to do but couldn't. Well today she died. So I think I should get it out and finish it in her honor. Her stitching is so much better then mine, I discovered on Friends are the flowers....piece so that just discouraged me. Plus someone on line in a group I'm in told me my stitching wasn't what it use to be and asked me not to stitch for the group any more. So I just took myself out of the group. I will still stitch for Love Quilts though and a Quilts for Older Children and Adults. Although I haven't lately as I've mostly been stitching for family and will for a while.
Well...until next time.....Happy Stitching!