New start...

If your a member of Hooked on exchanging 2 and are participating in the pink exchange...DONT READ THIS...otherwise don't worry about it...



Anyways I am participating in the PINK exchange, and have been stressing over what to stitch. I was going to do a Lizzie Kate ornament type thing out of her Living with Charm series of flip- its, but then couldn't pick which word to stitch, I have done all of them together in a strip piece already (which is woefully rolled up in my craft closet waiting to be framed), and in general like Lizzie Kate but I was worried my exchange partner might not, from her blog it doesn't look like she does much "cutesy" stuff. Anyways this is the first exchange I have done, and I really wanted to make something that someone else would be excited to receive. So I drove the 30 minutes to my local favorite cross stitch store this morning and found this one. It is a Little House Needleworks design (a local AZ designer yeah!), and I am stitching it one over one on 36 ct linen. Its kind of hard to read since it is so small but it says "Be joyful in hope". In case you are wondering what that weird metal square is in the picture, that is the best part. It is a little 2 in x 2.25 inch frame to make a necklace out of the cross stitch. So I got the chart and frame this morning, and started it this afternoon at nap time. This is about 2 hours worth of work. I don't think I will work on it anymore tonight though, its so small I might go blind from it.

And this is the bit I got done on Autumn this weekend. I actually got more done but had to rip it out again due to it being 5 rows off, grrrrrr! Another thing that is making me slightly nervous (ok really freaked out) is the white banner in the middle is off and I can't figure out why. I started this piece years ago and had put it away for a while, and when I picked it up again this year I just started stitching from the right side of the center circle and have worked my way clockwise from there (does that make any sense at all?). So now that I am three-quarters of the way around something is not quite matching up. I have decided to continue on the outer circle since all those line up with each other, and then if I have to I will restitch the banner.

Mr. Stitcher hopefully gets home tommorow or Thursday from his Grand Canyon adventure. So I will soon have to share my after bedtime stitching time again. I have missed him (3 weeks is a long time) but have really gotten stuff done around the house while he has been gone. Its kind of been like a vacation for me too. But I am glad he is coming home safe and sound this week.

A little bit of progress....

So three more blocks done on the Autumn quilt, I think I will have to add it to my list of "will be dones" for this year. To finish it to a lap size quilt it takes 24 blocks, and they say three jelly rolls but I am starting to think it will take more than that (or I will at least have to add in some fat quarters.
I learned a valuable lesson today while working on it, and want to pass it along to the rest of the quilting moms out there...


"DON'T SQUARE YOUR QUILT BLOCKS WHILE A TWO YEAR OLD IS CLINGING TO YOUR LEG SCREAMING ABOUT HOW HER SISTER WONT SHARE HER POLLY POCKETS WITH HER...YOUR BLOCKS WILL END UP COMPLETELY WONKY!"

Yes the second block from the left is now 1/2 inch shorter than it should be. I am hoping that I can somehow make up for it with my first block which is 1 inch bigger than it is supposed to be. Normally my girls play good together and I can fit in an hour of quilting after school/homework and dinner. But today my two year old decided to be well... two.

This is the bit I got done over the weekend on my Autumn cross stitch. I have almost finished the cornucopia, which I was not looking forward to doing in the first place. I am going to try and finish it tonight and get to work on the back stitching. Mr. Bluestar has been gone for a 3 week rafting trip down the Grand Canyon. While I worry about him (I bet it's COLD down there) it has been kind of nice getting some cross stitching done once the girls are in bed and watch whatever Netflix I want that I know he wouldn't like (Sex and the City season 1 tonight).

Pink Pinwheels update

For the Pink Pinwheels quilt I had my daughter design one of the flowers since it is going to be her quilt. I went out and got plain pink fabric and a fabric marker and told her she could draw whatever she wanted. Its a little hard to see in the picture because the fabric marker was such a bright pink. She loved the idea though, I had to keep her from coloring in the whole petal pink.

And below is the final size of the petal blocks (7x8), there will be three rows of border stripes that go around this though. I have about 10 blocks left over actually so I think I am going to make pillows out of them. I have to say I am a little intimidated by this quilt. When I lay it out all together it looks huge!! I have about half of the blocks still needing flowers appliqued onto them, and then I will have to wrestle it all together. I have never sewn a quilt this big before and am getting worried about sewing everything together. I know my daughter (she's 6) will love it though no matter what it looks like, so that's the good part I guess.

~By the way thanks for the comments on my last post it really helped me make up my mind on the back stitching!

No willpower!

My willpower to not start another project lasted me a week. I bought this pattern last week while out getting more fabric for "Pink Pinwheels" and promised myself I wouldn't start it until I finished at least one of my WIP's. But today while out getting more fabric for Pinwheels (this quilt is taking a lot more black/white fabric than I thought) I saw this jelly roll called "Pumpkins and Spice" by Moda. Fall is definitely my favorite season and I had to have it. This is actually my first time using jelly rolls for a quilt and I am loving the convenience of having the fabric already in strips (cutting is my least enjoyable part of quilting). So this is my first block of the quilt, only twenty three more to go. I'm a little worried though, the pattern said a finished size block should be 10x 10, but after squaring mine up it measures 11x 11. I don't want to cut off anymore out of the outer strip though because then it will be skinnier than the other strips. So I think I am going to leave it until I see what size my second block comes out as and then make a decision. And this is the little bit more I got done on my Autumn cross stitch this weekend. The white banner underneath her will read "Halloween" once I do the back stitching. The cat is also starting to develop. I am debating whether I should do the back stitching on this as I finish each section, or after I have the whole thing done. It is a big piece and if I wait until the end it will be A LOT of back stitching. Also I think it would be better motivation to see each section "done" as I do them. Normally I do wait until I have all the cross stitching done to do the backstitches. Any opinions?

Silent Saturdays?

My first

As I stitched today on my Autumn piece, I was thinking of all the cross stitches I have done (more than a few started and never finished... yes I have my very own box of shame), and how I got started and I wanted to write a thank you. The one above is my very first cross stitch and it is almost twenty years old. It is a journal cover made with red corduroy, lace and of course my cross stitch. When I was eleven we had a Mormon family move in next door to us. My extremely old school Catholic mother referred to them as if they had come down with something possibly contagious. But I loved them, they had three kids and the mom was oh so crafty. She had a vegetable garden (I remember one summer helping her make pickles), and quilted and stitched. My mother knew how to stitch, her own mother did beautiful embroidery and my other grandmother made quilts, but she never enjoyed making things. She also never taught me or my sister how to stitch, it just wasn't something she found fun. But the next door neighbors mom did find it fun, and passed that love of craft on to me. So even though I don't know where she is now, thank you Rose McKuen. It is amazing to me she had the patience to teach a fidgety eleven year old how to make something so pretty and that I still treasure today almost two decades later. My oldest daughter, who is six, has been asking me to show her how to x-stitch, and I am not sure I am ready yet (I already paint with her and that takes up most of my mess tolerance). But I hope one day both of my daughters will enjoy making stuff as much as I do.


This is more of the Autumn piece, I have started the witch in the lower corner (the red will be part of her dress). I think she is my favorite part of the piece so I can't wait for her to be done, she has the cutest black cat sitting on her broomstick with her.

I got my sewing machine back yesterday, so in celebration I spent my whole morning sewing. This is my progress so far on Pink Pinwheels. I need to do 30 more blocks and 256 more petals, but its getting closer to done. After I finish the flower blocks though there are striped strips to add on as the border. It was exciting seeing how big it was getting, this is almost enough for a twin size quilt and I need to get it to a full size quilt.

This is one of my favorite flowers, I love the rose fabric. But I am debating whether to use it. When I laid the quilt out this fabric stood out to much because it is such a different shade of pink. Maybe I will use it for something else if it doesn't get used here.

And this is the bit of cross stitching I got done while waiting for my sewing machine to return. I decided to work on the Autumn piece first since it is the season. But I know I will not have this done in time to display this Autumn. That's ok though its still fun to work on!