What I lack in experience....

Here is my confession for the day. I will try just about anything once. Which puts me square in the beginner category of most things. I'm OK with that...mostly. As the saying goes what I lack in experience I make up for in sheer enthusiasm! Though I have dreams of being an expert anything, I also have the attention span of a cocker spaniel and am easily distracted.
So my new thing for today is hand quilting. I just finished a table runner for spring, and thought to myself "hmmm it's small enough what a great opportunity to give hand quilting a try". So I just spent the past half hour hunched over on my couch stab stitching about 4 square inches of quilt. I managed to bend my sewing needle in half and also sew the skin of my middle finger to the table runner during that time. I am going to keep going on it, but for today I had to set it down. I feared I wouldn't be able to get my shoulders down from my ears if I didn't just put it down and step away. Someone out there tell me this will get easier! I'm not going to post a pic until it's done, and don't be surprised if the photo of it is oddly blurry.And this is blue bunny finished. I have already made my husband promise to teach me how to use his Dremmel to carve Easter eggs into the frame (the trying new things again) so I am making my own frame for it. Below is my new start. It's Uber Egg, from Bent Creek. I am in a spring mood, so my house is being redecorated as a giant Easter egg since I can't wait for the flowers and green grass to reappear!

Blue bunny

I never finished my blue bunny project, so now that I'm done with Walk in the Woods, I have picked it back up again. I ran out of thread to finish his little bunny tail, so I have been waiting on the mailman to deliver it. I ordered it from one of my favorite shops online, because I didn't want to drive the hour it takes to get to and back from my LNS here for just one skein of thread. I really like the color, but in the chart his spots are darker. So I am waiting to see what he looks like all done to see if I want to change his spots to maybe purple so they stand out more.



I was in a rush on my last post so I didn't get to mention my trip to the Phoenix Sewing expo last weekend. It was OK, it cost $30 bucks between parking and tickets for my mother and me. So I probably won't go next year. They had alot of quilting stuff, but really most of the fabrics weren't any cheaper than my local quilt shop. And I didn't see any fabrics I really couldn't find in my local shop either, so that part was just so-so. But what I did find were these two really cool patterns below. I had my three year old with me, and when we got to this booth full of these awesome dolls, and pumpkins, and all sorts of animals I think both of our eyes lit up. It was hard to explain to a 3 year old why we couldn't touch and play with all the beautiful dolls (it was a little hard keeping my own hands off them). So I bought my two favorite patterns and will be re-creating the awesomeness at home. I am a little worried though as my sewing expertise is definitely novice. But I figure the dolls are meant to look "quirky" so if I mess them up a little it will only make them cuter!

The top picture of the mermaid is by Elinor Peace Bailey, and if you haven't been to her blog its worth it just to watch the clip of her talking about her dolls. She is the cutest artsy funny old grandma lady, definitely the type of woman I aspire to be. And her dolls are so unique/creative/amazing. I so far have not been in to art dolls really, but at the Expo the details on all the dolls literally took my breath away and got my creative juices drooling. Anyway it's not the same looking at them on the computer, but her blog is worth it just for how funny she is.

Walk in the Woods is finished!

Yea!!! Walk in the woods is done! For a pretty large piece it actually got done really quick. Isn't it funny how some projects are just a breeze and then others take FOREVER to finish. I started this the beginning of December. It's all DMC threads without a lot of back stitching which made it an easy one to work on.
This is my Lizzie Kate exchange from Aubree of "For the Love of Cross Stitch". Wow she did such a great job on it. And it was such a cute idea changing the February part of it to say Stephanie instead. Also the finishing on it is awesome. That is my least favorite part of making stuff is finishing them, because mine never come out as perfect as I want them to be. Needle books like this are definitely still above my skill and courage level.
Anyways I love the little needle book and am very excited to show it off in my sewing kit! Thank you so much Aubree.