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!

Adoption Heart finished

Good evening! I finished Mady's adoption piece yesterday. Just getting around to posting it tonight. I covered her last name and place of adoption to protect her and her family.

Monday Mady was adopted. It was such a nice short ceremony. About 30-40 of us showed up to support the family and witness the adoption. I think more than what they were use to, they had to find chairs for all of us. Most of us were related, plus the family Mady had lived with before and some of their relatives and som other friends were there. (Mady had lived with a family from John and Melissa's church and was a good friend of Kate's). One weekend she spent with Melissa and John and she went home saying she wanted to live with them. Things weren't going too well where she was. So they asked Melissa and John (knowing they had been foster parents) and in time Melissa and John said yes, then it had to go through the court system. It worked out well at their house and 1 year later they got to adopt Mady. In fact a couple of months ago 5 year old Kate said to Mady, "All I want for my birthday is to have you as my sister for good." One day before Kate's birthday, her wish came true. It was a ceremony I was so happy to witnessed and felt honored to be invited. Mady had wanted to announce her middle name herself but the judge didn't know that and right off the bat he said this is the adoption ceremony for "Madyson Jane........" Madyson had chosen the middle name of Jane as she hated the middle name she had. She wanted it to be after Great Grandma Jane who she never met but had heard about and wanted to keep her name going. We were surprised and thrilled for our mom. I could almost see Mom and Dad looking down from heaven and smiling all through the ceremony.

Afterwards we all went out to pizza. I'm fussy when it comes to pizza but this pizza was really good. Then my brother, sister-in-law and I stopped at an Amish store on the way home. We really like that store too bad it's not closer to home. All in all it was a great, fun day. Mady was queen and very excited and hyper.

This Sat. we'll celebrate Kate's birthday as it was Tuesday. Can't believe she is 6 years old already.

Today at BSF I worked with the 2 and 3 year olds. I never thought I would like that age, but these kids were really good for most part. I really enjoyed it. So much so I told them I would work anytime needed and even have me considering working with the kids at church again.

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

A Finish and a Start

Good afternoon! We've been enjoying some beautiful weather the past few days. So far this winter has been mild. Except for a couple weeks in Jan. it's been very mild. My brother says we'll get creamed in March. I tell him to shut up and it's just going to be a mild winter, it owes us after the last two winters. We'll see who is right.

Anyway I finished this piece. Another quick and easy piece for Feb. It was a fun piece. I'm not sure what I'll do with it yet. It just caught my eye a while back. And since I'm on a kick to stitch from my stash and not buy any new patterns except for 2 (Winter and Summer Bell Pulls by Stoney Creek) in 2016. I am so far stitching from my stash. So far so good but it's still early in the year. We'll see when it comes to this summer, but that's when I may buy the bell pulls.

Here is the start to
"A Loving Heart" by Stoney Creek Collection. Now that I've stitched on it a couple of days it's going easier. At first I wasn't so sure I made a good decision there. But it's so pretty. I can't wait to get it further along.

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

Two New Starts

Good evening. I have two starts to show. This one is Mady's heart for her adoption. I'll have Mady inside then on the side it will have her full name, date of birth, and her adoption date. I really can't show them until after her adoption is finalized. They want her full middle name on it and Mady won't be announcing that until the adoption ceremony. We only know it will start with letter J.
This piece here I just liked and decided to do it. Not sure what I will do with it yet.

Last Saturday my favorite cat at the cat shelter got adopted. She was an 8 year old deaf cat all white. She was a sweetheart. They tried hard to get me to adopt her as a second cat, but we can only have one cat here and as much as I loved Snowflake I couldn't get rid of Saturn for her. Besides I was a little worried that if Snowflake hissed at Saturn he'd beat her up. That was why she was returned to us the person had another cat who kept beating up on her, so they thought they better return her. This time she went to a family with a little girl who loved her and they have a dog but Snowflake seemed to do okay with dogs. We hope it works. I had already left by time she was adopted but I did get a little time with her on Sat. just the two of us when she didn't want to return to her room I got to pick her up, carry her she even put her head on my shoulder and gave me a little kiss and hug I think we both knew it would be last time we would see each other. I was sad she was adopted yet happy. I had wanted someone I knew to adopt her but that didn't happen. All that matters is she went to a good home and it sounds like she did. I was there when another of my favorites Goldilocks got adopted.

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

Another quick Finish

I know my needle is smoking right now anyway. This went much quicker and easier than I thought it would. I saw this a couple years ago and it caught my eye ....I've finally decided to stitch it. I'm on this kick to stitch from stash anyway and not get any new patterns this year..So far so good, but the year is barely under way.

I went to my brothers the last couple of days to make sure he's doing okay following his back surgery this past week. I can't get there this weekend so I think I made enough food for him to have left overs through the weekend, and I made sure his cat had plenty of food. She is really watching over her daddy. She knows he's not up to par.

I have decided on Madyson's adoption piece. I found a small heart and will put her name in middle then on side have her full name and date of adoption. I can't post a picture until after her adoption as she is still technically in the foster system until then. I'll have her full name on the piece and my sister-in-law will make it into a pillow for her.

Well....I'm going to go read some blogs. Until next time....Happy Stitching!

Shuttle piece Done

I finished the Shuttle piece for Nolan this morning. It really was a fast, easy piece to do. I enjoyed it. Now I'm looking for a piece to do for Madyson's adoption. Any suggestions? We just want it to be small something for her to remember the day by.

My brother had back surgery yesterday and everything went great. In fact he is home now. While talking to me on the phone I could hear his cat meowing at him. Scolding him for leaving her. I'm sure she's cuddling up to him now, she is a real cuddler.

Well....until next time.....Happy stitching. I'm going to go look for my next piece. I think it's going to be a piece by My Big Toe called The Journey to a friend's house.