WIP Wednesday, September 8, 2021

Hello Everyone! How is your week going? I’ve finally been able to get a little quilting in since Sunday. Our builder does an 11 month checkup and then does any needed repairs. This includes mostly painting and caulking. The first part of last week, my sewing table was covered while they fixed a few things on the ceiling and walls in the basement. So, I was able to get a lot of cross stitch in and I planned and kitted up some new small fall projects to work on in September. We also enjoyed some nice weather over the weekend so we visited a winery and then spent some time walking around Winchester on Labor Day. The weather has been gorgeous and I hope the cooler temperatures are here to stay!

Before we get started on all things fall, I did finish up the left section of Scenic Farm. I am absolutely loving this stitch.

Because it’s getting long, it’s hard to get a close up of the entire piece. I think I will be taking a break until next Monday morning before I start the last section. I plan to pull out Let’s Talk Autumn and work on that in the mornings. My plan is to finish Scenic Farm by the end of the year and I think I will make that.

This is where I left off on Let’s Talk Autumn by Hands On Design last fall. If I work on it in the mornings, I think I can make some good progress on it.

I’ve actually made a plan for my September stitching, which I don’t usually do, but I want to get some small pieces made, some into little pillows and a few other things. My plan is to start two a week, on Wednesday and Saturday. Of course, the first Saturday didn’t happen until Tuesday. The reason for that is that it was Blackbird Designs Weekend.

I made decent progress on In My Garden from the book, “Sewing Club” There was a mistake that had to be adjusted for, but it should be okay. By the time I saw it, there was too much stitching involved and I wasn’t going to pull it all out. In the book, this was made into a drum. I think it would be pretty on top of a box. I’ll have to see if I can find one the right size. I’m stitching this on 36 ct Winter Moon, 1 over 2 with some of the called for threads.

The first small I started, I finished too! This is another freebie from Melisa, Pinker n Punkin Quilting & Stitching, Fall 1869 Crock. I stitched it on 28 count Summer Khaki with most of the called for DMC’s. I did change the crock to CCW Eggshell and I changed the colors of the two small pumpkins at the bottom. This stitched up really fast. I haven’t stitched anything 2 over 2 on 28 ct fabric in a long time. It just seemed so easy. Everything I have been working on recently is 36 or 40 ct or 25 ct 1 over 1. Fall Crock is really cute and I’ll be finishing it as a pillow. Thanks Melisa for sharing your talent.

I plan to stitch all three of the Autumn Fields, Well Rounded by Hands On Design.

I got a very small start on the small one with the house, but I think it will go quickly. I’m stitching it on 32 ct, Smokey Pearl with the called for colors, 2 over 2.

Picture from Melisa, Pinker n Punkin Quilting and Stitching

My new start today will be another Saltbox from Melisa, Ophelia Manor on Punkin Holler Lane. This is the fall version, but she also has a cute Halloween version.

Besides the three Autumn Rounds, I plan on starting the smalls above during the month. From the left and around: “Autumn Skies” pillow by Hands On Design, the pumpkin and squirrel from “Autumn in Baltimore” by With Thy Needle and Thread, “A Raven’s Reply” by Luminous Fiber Arts and finally “Autumn In Amana” by With Thy Needle and Thread.

It may be two weeks before I’m back with a stitching update. We will be camping soon and it just depends on how much time I’ll have to get a post together. Yesterday, I did start a new fall table runner. I hope to show you progress on that before we leave.

Have a great rest of your week and thanks for stopping by.

WIP Wednesday, September 1, 2021

Hello Everyone and welcome to Works in Progress Wednesday! September is here and is shaping up to be a busy month for us. I’m also looking forward to some cooler weather by the end of the month. I do want to send out my thoughts and prayers to anyone who has been in the path of Hurricane Ida and the west coast fires. It is always heartbreaking to see the devastation these disasters leave in their wake. We will be getting rain from Ida as it moves up the coast, but nothing like the gulf coast unless it slows down or stalls.

Moving on to stitching this week, I fully finished two items and made good progress on a couple of more.

Fresh Picked Pumpkins got finished just in time for the end of Cross Stitch Camp hosted by Sheri, Colorado Cross Stitcher. I used most of the called for colors and stitched on Lori Holt’s 25 ct Vintage Lugana in Cloud, one over one.

I had the unpainted pumpkin from Target for a few years and finally found a good use for it. Most of the colors are mixed and then I used an Antique Wax on top. It turned the two lighter colors almost brown, so I repainted them. It’s not the best paint job, but the stitched piece covers most of it.

I’ve also had the pumpkin ribbon for a couple of years and finally was able to use that, too. I think it added just the right touch to the finish. It’s a little early for my pumpkin things, but I’ll be happy to put these out near the end of September.

In case you are wondering, that’s my Scattered Leaves and Pumpkins Pillow or Mini Quilt pattern that can be found in my Esty shop. Obviously, I don’t have the pillow insert in it yet. Making pillow covers are very versatile depending on how you make them. I almost always make my pillow covers with an envelope back so they can also be used as a table topper. The pattern does include instructions for just making the mini quilt without the pillow back.

My second fully finished piece is Harvest Chalk Full by Hands On Design and Priscilla Blain of Stitching with the Housewives. This was the first release in the Chalk Full series and the only full jar I’ve done to date. I finished it almost two years ago, and never could decide how I wanted to fully finish it. I finally decided this weekend that it needed to get done. I’ve also had the “frame” with a clip on it for a while, too. I either got it at Target or Kohl’s. The piece didn’t look good on the gray, so I painted it with some Opaque White Acrylic paint. It covered it enough and gives it a washed out look. For now, I stuck a few small sunflower picks between the boards. Harvest will be good to display through September and early October. Each of the Chalk Full patterns comes with a small and I’ve done them all except the Halloween one, Boo.

Moving on to my current works in progress, I only worked on two other pieces this week because I needed to finish Fresh Picked Pumpkins.

I made some good progress on Cinnamon Stars by Plum Street Samplers once I finished Fresh Picked Pumpkins. I did change the color of the pumpkins to Weeks Sweet Potato instead of GA Sarsaparilla. The chart was originally published in 2013. What I’m finding with some of these older charts is that the dye lots for the floss have changed over the years, especially Gentle Arts. I really do like my pumpkins to be orange. Most of the stars use the Sarsaparilla, but I will also be changing some of those out for a brighter color. The Sarsaparilla is the brown color on the left and bottom points of the star.

Except for the backstitching in this sections, the left side of Scenic Farm is finished! Yippee! The last bit of backstitching took me almost two weeks to finish, but I don’t think there is that much in this section. Once I have it finished, I’ll take a good picture of the entire piece so far. I hope by next week, I’ve moved on to the next section, but it is the Blackbird Weekend SAL this weekend (the first weekend of the month). I don’t know if it’s because this is almost a full coverage piece, but it the fabric is definitely skewed slightly. I will have to give it a good blocking before framing it to straighten it out.

I got a new book this week, Sisters by Blackbird Designs. What really drew me to it is the sampler on the bottom right. It’s got all that orange in it! I know I won’t get to it for a while, but I did just order some of the floss for it. I may have to stitch the basket on the left with the crow sitting on top of the berries and make a small pillow with it. That would be doable this fall.

I am also going to stitch one of Melisa’s, Pinker n Punkin Quilting and Stitching, autumn saltboxes. She has several to choose from.

That’s it for me today. I hope you are safe and well. Thanks for stopping by!

A Quick Quilting Update

Hello Everyone! I just have a quick update today, plus something very special to share!

Most of the early part of the week was spent quilting the scrappy rainbow quilt. After stitching in the ditch along the length of each strip, I free motion quilted a heart ribbon candy style design in the white strip. Then I used the point to point method in the dot strip, quilting diagonally from one square to another, creating a diamond pattern. I also used the fabric dots as a guideline to help keep the lines somewhat straight.

I purchased a green print fabric for the binding on both Rainbow quilts. I’m not really happy with it on either quilt. The color is more muted than the brighter colors in both quilts. I’m going to have to re-evaluate the binding before I can finish these quilts.

After I finished the quilting, it was time to start sewing the sashing to the County Fair blocks. If you recall, I had a group that were 8 1/2″ and a group that were 8 3/8″. I sewed the 8 1/2″ group first. Before I sew the 8 3/8″ blocks to the 8 1/2″ sashing, I will find the center of the sashing and match it to the center of the blocks. This way, the block points should line up in the final quilt top. Basically, these blocks will be 1/16″ shorter on each end of the sashing.

I also pieced together one of the Pirouette blocks from the book A Scrapbook of Quilts by Joanna Figueroa and Carrie Nelson. Three more to go, then I can put together the wreath.

Now for my special presentation…

My wonderful daughter finished her thread painted embroidery of Vance Creek Bridge! I’ve shown you progress pictures from time to time and she finished it last week.

She drew the design from a picture that she took of the bridge when we visited the Pacific Northwest years ago. It’s been a work in progress for her for over a year. She learned this embroidery method from watching YouTube videos, like so many of us learn new things these days. I can tell you that there are lots and lots of stitches in this piece.

I’m a very proud Mom! Even though we do not craft exactly the same way, she has picked up the crafting and sewing bug. She recently bought a thrift store sewing machine and has already altered a thrift store skirt to fit her. She expressed interest in making a table topper, so I gifted her the mat, ruler and rotary cutter to get her started. When she’s here in September, I’ll show her how to baste a quilt and make binding or even go more simple and turn the topper without binding. I can only hope she’ll find as much joy in sewing as I have over the years.

That’s it for now! I hope you have a great rest of your weekend. Thanks for stopping by!

WIP Wednesday, August 25, 2021

Hello Everyone and where has August gone? Do you all feel like time is flying? It seems like it was just the beginning of the month. And because it’s already the last week of the month, I did a little extra stitching on one project and skipped a few days on another.

On Scenic Farm, I finally finished the backstitch in the tree and moved on to the regular stitching on the far left side. Next I’ll fill in the stone side of barn and the rest of the buildings. I took a few days break from this because, like I said, the end of the month is catching up with me and I realized a deadline is looming.

As most of you know, I’ve been participating in the Cross Stitch Camp on Instagram hosted by Sheri, the Colorado Cross Stitcher. It seems every month, I’ve had lots of time to finish the project I’ve chosen, but then, all of a sudden, it’s near the end of the month and I need to scramble to get it complete.

I chose Fresh Picked Pumpkins by Barbie, Petal Pusher on 25 ct Cloud Lugana from Lori Holt as my project. I’ve made good progress on it since last week, but still have a little bit more to do. I am really enjoying stitching on the 25 ct, 1 over 1, and will be doing more of it in the future.

I think I want to fully finish it on this pumpkin piece, but I need to paint it. I’ll be working on that sometime this week so it’s ready to go when I finish the stitching.

Before deciding I needed to concentrate on Fresh Pumpkins, I finished the little bit I had to stitch in the urn and started on the the lettering on the Peace on Earth Sampler. The lettering is stitched 1 over 1 on 36 ct which is quite different than the 25 ct. The words are from the Christmas carol, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” and there are two stitched lines of them.

While we were at the local quilt show last week in the oldest house in town, one room had some cross stitch samplers in it. This was the only one I could get pictures of, but it appeared to be in good shape since it is over 200 years old.

On Friday, it will be time to get together with the community quilt group again. We meet twice a month, so that’s nice. I know I’ll miss a few of the get togethers in September and October, though. This retirement thing can be tiring! We thought August would be a quiet month, but between catching up on doctor and dentist appointments and going somewhere a few times a week, it’s been busy. I think we’ll be on the go until after Christmas now. What about you, is fall a time to relax at home or get out and enjoy the nice weather?

Thanks for taking the time to stop by today!

Quilting, Trimming and Organizing!

Hello Everyone! I hope your weekend has been a good one so far! This week I finished quilting the rainbow quilt, trimmed the County Fair blocks, and laid out a new mini quilt. On Friday, the local historical society had a free antique quilt show staged in the oldest home in Winchester. My husband went with me and we were both impressed with the number quilts on display in the house and the mill next to it.

This was one of my favorites, made with silks. The brown silk fabric was the wedding gown of the maker’s daughter (I think). The gown was made in the 1820’s, then the quilt was made in the late 1830’s or 40’s. I read the info, but can’t remember all the details, I just thought the quilting was exquisite in the open spaces and what a great memory to use the wedding gown in the quilt. It was in excellent condition compared to some of the cotton quilts.

I finished the quilting on my Moda Rainbow quilt, just using the straight line quilting. I told you that I planned to add more quilting in the white strip between the blocks, but after I finished, I liked the clean look it had. I’m going to wait on binding it until after I quilt the Scrappy Rainbow quilt.

I’m getting ready to start quilting this one, but haven’t fully decided on how I’m going to quilt it yet.

Once I finished quilting, I trimmed the County Fair blocks. The pattern is by Fig Tree and the fabrics are Christmas Figs. When I started trimming, I noticed, some blocks were 8 1/2″ like they were supposed to be and others were 8 3/8″. I had not cut the sashing pieces because I wanted to see what the block size would turn out to be. I think I have 17 of the 8 1/2″ and 13 of the 8 3/8″ I cut the sashing 8 1/2″ and will have to adjust the smaller ones by 1/16″ on each side. I can’t just trim the 8 1/2″ down because the flower points would be cut off.

These blocks were made over a 6 month period. I don’t know if I just sewed more accurately at some times or if it’s because I changed the Diagonal Sewing Tape by Cluck Cluck Sew. It was starting to peel up and it really helped when sewing all these flipped corners. I didn’t draw lines, just used the tape as my guide. I will go back and check the tape to make sure it’s in the correct position.

When I made the units for the County Fair blocks, I sewed an extra seam line on the large corners about 3/8″ from the original before trimming. I ended up with a lot of half square triangles that I was able to trim to 2″ unfinished. These are the ones leftover after planning a new mini quilt or pillow top.

I’m going to make the Pirouette Table Topper that’s in the “A Scrapebook of Quilts” by Carrie Nelson and Joanna Figueroa.

I will probably make this a small pillow and not add the border that’s on the table topper.

To help get a little more organized so my pieces aren’t crowed on the edge of the sewing table, I bought another rolling cart at Michael’s when they were on sale a couple of weeks ago. Now I can have the finished blocks handy with the sashing, all ready to sew and it won’t take up room on the sewing or ironing table. The blocks for the pillow are in the middle basket where I can pull out the board and work on piecing them while sewing the sashing and blocks together.

I’ve had another cart for several years so I can keep my sewing and quilting supplies close by. I also keep the thread containers in the bottom of the cart so it’s easy to change colors as needed. You can see my ironing table there ready to be used. With everything so handy, I do have to remember to get up and stretch every hour or so or I could sit there all day!

I felt like I accomplished a lot last week even though most mornings were taken up with errands. I’m going to try to get a lot accomplished this week, too. September and October are booking up fast with a few trips and a visit from our daughter.

I hope you all have a great week and thanks for stopping by!

WIP Wednesday, August 18, 2021

Hello Everyone! Welcome to Works in Progress Wednesday. It’s been two weeks since the last cross stitch update and I’ve worked on quite a few things. Over that time, we had the Blackbird Designs weekend SAL, I fully finished my saltbox, I had a new start and I’ve worked on some old and new WIPs.

Let’s start with the finish.

Last time you saw Katie Anne’s Saltbox, all it needed was a little stuffing. It’s now complete and will live with the others in a basket in my sewing room until it’s time to use them for decorations. I stitched it on 36 ct Vintage Country Mocha using the called for DMCs, 2 over 2.

Here are the four saltbox houses that I have stitched so far. You can find all the free charts from Melisa at Pinker n Punkin Quilting and Stitching. She has some cute ones for fall that she released last year that I need to get busy with.

We had the Blackbird Weekend SAL, #bbdweekendsal on Instagram, since my last update. I got a lot accomplished even though I only worked on it twice during that weekend. I’m stitching In My Garden from Blackbird’s “Sewing Club” book on 36 ct Winter Moon, using some of the called for threads, 1 over 1. I enjoy stitching this one and it’s hard to stop working on it, but with all the other projects I have, I am keeping to just the first weekend of the month.

In my last post, I showed you the project bags that I made for Lydia and me for our Cinnamon Stars project from Plum Street Samplers. I only stitched on it the day that I started with Lydia because I want to make sure I get my cross stitch camp project finished by the end of the month. I do plan on spending at least one day a week on it until the other one is finished, though.

Speaking of cross stitch camp…

I’ve made good progress on Fresh Picked Pumpkins by Barbie, Petal Pusher. I’m stitching this for #crossstitchcamp hosted by Sheri, the Colorado Crossstitcher. I’m stitching it on a new to me fabric, 25 ct Vintage Cloud Lugana from Lori Holt. I’m using some of the called for colors, stitching 1 over 1. The fabric is nice to stitch on, especially 1 over 1. The Lugana is a just a little stiffer than linen which makes the tiny stitching a little easier.

The older WIP is the Peace on Earth Sampler by Cottage Gardens Samplings. I showed you where I was last time with it and have made good progress. I just have to fill in the last two leaves to meet my goal of finishing the urn. This week I will go back to Flea Market Flowers (I forgot to take a progress picture) and return to this one the last week in August. I want to work on the words, which are stitched 1 over 1. I’m stitching it on 36 ct Vintage Country Mocha, 1 over 2. I’ve substituted a lot of the flosses because this was an early one for me and I used what I had on hand.

Of course I’ve continued on with Scenic Farm! Mostly I have been backstitching during the past two weeks! It does become a little tedious. I did go back and fill in the rest of the barn so I can move down once the backstitching is complete. I still need to backstitch more of the tree branches and the barn.

You can see what the difference backstitching makes when you compare last time’s progress with this week’s.

I’m going to leave you with my two favorite cars from the car show last Sunday. The temperature was nice to walk around and see over 400 cars. Thanks for stopping by and have a great rest of your week!

A New Project Bag and Some Free Motion Quilting

Hello Everyone! I hope you are having a nice weekend. It’s been a quiet one here and I’ve been able to get some quilting in, but we are planning on going to a local car show later today!

My friend Lydia and I planned (and did) start a new cross stitch project together on her birthday last week. I thought it would be nice to have a new project bag to go with it, so I made one for each of us. I wanted to use the same fabric in both, but didn’t have enough of the dot print that I really wanted to use, so they are slightly different.

This is Lydia’s bag with the fall dots. I believe it’s a very old Sandy Gervais fabric.

This is my bag, using the tan fabric. I’m not sure what it is because I didn’t have the selvage info, but another older one from my collection.

We started Cinnamon Stars by Plum Street Samplers and I made pumpkins on the bag because there is a row of them in front of the house (and because they were easier to make than stars!)

The fabric I used for the back and binding have little cinnamon colored stars on it.

I need to get back to some bag making for my Etsy shop. I have fabrics pulled together, but just haven’t found the time to make them. I really want to get a few of my larger quilts quilted before I make them.

Speaking of quilting…

I started quilting one of the rainbow quilts this week. This one is made from my collection of Moda fabrics. I decided I wanted to quilt straight lines, and then I’ll add something between the lines in the white sections. I haven’t decided what that something is yet, but hopefully I’ll have it figured out when I finish the lines.

I knew that I could not sew a straight line with my walking foot without marking every white patch. So, I decided to use the free motion ruler foot on my Pfaff QE 4.0 and the Handi Quilter Handi Versa Tool ruler. This ruler has a cut out so the ruler foot fits into it and it’s the perfect length so I can quilt across the open space. I then stitch in the ditch across the color patches. You can see that in the top picture, the lines are pretty straight. I’ll be quilting the straight lines for a few days. After quilting on the other side of the color patches, I’ll quilt through the middle of them. It’s been nice to get back to some free motion quilting in the past few weeks.

I expect most of this week will be focused on my quilting and maybe a little reorganization of some of my quilt projects. I’ll let you know how that turns out next week. Until then, I hope you have a great week and thanks for stopping by.

Calculating Setting Triangles for On-Point Quilts with Sashing and Cornerstones and the Quilty Stars Table Runner

Hello Everyone! Today I’m finally sharing the finished Quilty Stars Table Runner and explaining my method for calculating the measurements to cut fabric for setting triangles.

Just a reminder for how the table runner came to be made. I started with the cross stitch pattern, Stitchy Stars by Lori Holt. I liked the star blocks and thought they would make a nice small quilt. I looked through my Lori Holt books and found all but one of the star block instructions in her Vintage Christmas book. I was able to make a simple modification for that block from one in the same book. Next, I knew I wanted to use fabrics from my Sherri and Chelsi fabric collections for Moda.

I selected four colors plus the white background then chose floss for the cross stitch to match. I did end up changing the blue Aurifloss for a darker DMC.

I am so pleased at how well they match each other.

Once I finished the blocks, it was time to decide on the setting. I was either going to do a 3 x 3 block setting, which would require two additional blocks or an on-point setting which required one extra block. I went with the on-point setting making it a little smaller, therefore I can use it as a table runner.

The colors are also great for late summer going into early fall.

I had lots of fun free motion quilting the table runner on my Pfaff QE 4.0 using Aurifil 50 wt thread. It has been quite some time since I had fun quilting swirls and feathers.

Now for the fun stuff, a little math! I wanted to use sashing and cornerstones and I did not want the cornerstones to be cut in half on the outside edges when I sewed the setting triangles to the blocks. I wanted the whole cornerstone to show.

I have made several on-point quilts, usually from patterns.

If using a pattern, the instructions will tell you what size to cut the fabric for the setting triangles. The one above does not have sashing, so it is easy to determine. You use the block size for your calculations.

If the quilt has sashing and cornerstones, those have to be considered when calculating the size to cut your fabric for the triangles. Above is my original Moda Blockheads quilt I made in 2017 and 2018. I ended up designing the setting in EQ8. I cut the fabric the size my design told me to. You can see that there is only half a cornerstone on the outside edges. I didn’t pay attention to this at the time. It was only after I started sewing the triangles to the quilt that I realized what was happening. I knew that in my new table runner, I wanted the full cornerstones on the outside edges.

After a lot of research, I could not find a way to calculate the setting triangle measurements that I wanted. After trial and error and many calculations, I determined the way to do it. As I said, you need to use the sashing and cornerstone measurements to calculate a new block size.

I’ve added a tutorial to my Tutorial Page giving you my method for determining the new block size for calculating the size to cut the fabric for the triangles. Included in the tutorial are the formulas to use and also a link to a table that you might find helpful. I hope you take a look at it and one day you might find it useful in your quilting journey.

I’ll be back next week with a cross stitch update and hopefully some more quilting. It’s been busy around here as it always seems to be. Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by!

WIP Wednesday, August 4, 2021

Hello Everyone and welcome to another Works in Progress Wednesday! I hope you are having a good week. My husband and I took our day trip on Monday instead of Tuesday because the weather was sunnier and just a bit nicer. We went to Deep Creek Lake in western Maryland and had a pretty drive up and back. I took lots of pictures, but still need to weed through them. I’ll share a few on my next post.

In the past week, I started a new cross stitch project, almost fully finished one, and continued working on three others.

I’m almost finished with Katie Anne’s Saltbox by Melisa of Pinker n Punkin Quilting & Stitching. It needs to be stuffed and sewn at the bottom, then it can be added to the basket of other smalls. I used a small piece of 36 ct Vintage Country Mocha, stitching 2 over 2 and used Melisa’s called for DMC except the flower basket. I decided to lighten it up just a little. I love the seafoam green colors in the house. It’s time to stitch a new saltbox and Melisa just released a new house chart that is slightly larger than these pillows have been. You can check it out here and as always, Melisa is sharing it as a freebie.

My new start is Fresh Picked Pumpkins by Barbie, Petal Pusher. I’m using 25 ct Cloud Lugana from Lori Holt, stitching 1 over 1. It is definitely easier than stitching 1 over 1 on 28 ct, but is still not as fast as stitching 2 over 2. I thought I might be able to use the sewing method better than on 28 ct, but my stitches still don’t lay as nicely as they do with 2 over 2 stitching. This may take a little longer to stitch than I anticipated, but I still want to have it finished by the end of August for “cross stitch camp”.

Before the end of July, I wanted to finish at least the top section of Land That I Love by Theresa Kogut and I did. The blank area next to the flower is for a large flag so I decided not to start it now. I am going to put this away for a month or two and work on two other larger projects. I definitely want this finished by next summer, though! I’m stitching it on 40 ct Alabaster from Zweigert, 1 over 2 using the called for colors.

I also stitched on Flea Market Flowers last week by Lori Holt. I completed another flower section and started on another one. I’m stitching it on 36 ct Soft Porcelain, hand dyed by Misty of Luminous Fiber Arts. I’m stitching 1 over 2 with the called for DMC except for the yellow and orange. I thought they were just a little too bright so I toned them down. I plan on making this one of my focus large pieces this month.

Of course, I don’t count Scenic Farm as one of the large pieces I’m working on. It will be my morning stitch until I finish. I wanted to share how I’m stitching the heavy “confetti” parts. In the picture above, I’m stitching the stone end of the barn. I believe that there are three colors already stitched here. I determine what is the most used color and do that one last. When stitching places like this, there is a lot of looking back and forth from the stitching to the chart.

Once I have those colors done, then it’s easy to fill in with the last color. I probably have two strands left to complete the last color in this section before it’s time to move on to another part.

In an earlier post I mentioned that I wanted to pull out my larger pieces and concentrate on two of them during the month. This month I’ve chosen Flea Market Flowers and the one above, Peace On Earth Sampler by Cottage Gardens Samplings. This is where it was in November of last year. I hope to at least get the urn and all the flowers in it complete this month.

I’m also planning a new start next week with my friend, Lydia, on her birthday. We are going to stitch Cinnamon Stars by Plum Street together. I have the threads and just need to pick the fabric I’ll be using. More stones to stitch, lol! I’ve loved this chart for years and I’m glad to finally be starting it.

That’s all I have for now. I appreciate all of you stopping by every week as I share my stitching and quilting journey. Hope you have a great weekend!

A Quick Update

Hello Everyone! Can you believe it’s already August? I don’t know where July went. It seems we start off with a blank slate at the beginning of each month, but by the end, the calendar is full. We started a cool down yesterday and it is supposed to be a really nice week. We plan on going on a day trip on Tuesday to take advantage of some 70 degree temperatures in August. Because it was so nice yesterday, I didn’t want to stay inside and sew, so I took my stitching outside and had a very pleasant afternoon.

The only sewing I’ve done this week is quilting the star blocks in “Quilty Stars”. Here is a little peek at what I’ve done. It’s been fun to practice some free motion quilting on these small blocks. I think I will attach my ruler foot to my machine and practice some ruler work in the setting triangles. I did start working on my post for the setting triangle measurements, but I wanted to have some illustrations so it’s taking me a little time to work on those. I hope to have it out next week with the finished quilt.

Thanks to all your suggestions for the August Cross Stitch Camp (#crossstitchcamp) project. It was almost unanimous for Fresh Picked Pumpkins by Barbie, Petal Pusher. I’ll be stitching on the new to me fabric, 25 ct Lugana in Cloud from Lori Holt using some of the called for colors. I’m substituting GA Harvest Moon, CCW Pumpkin Harvest, Weeks Persimmon and DMC 597 for the called for colors that I don’t have. I’ll get a start on this later today. (Just a note, the picture of the design is a poor printout from my printer).

The camp theme for August is to stitch on a new fabric or use new threads. I will be stitching 1 over 1 on the 25 ct.

I hope you all have a great week and thanks for stopping by.