Ice Cream Social Sampler

 One of the many creative things I love to do, is embroidery. I love to have something stitchy for my afternoons and evenings. And one of my favorite stitching designers is Rebecca Ringquist of Dropcloth Samplers. I have done several of her samplers and I love them. The Ice Cream Social Sampler looked like so much fun, I couldn't say no!

The best part of these samplers is that there are no directions on how to stitch them. Use whatever colors you like, whatever stitches you want. This time, she offered a PDF of the pattern, so I printed and traced my own, and decided to use a light pink fabric for the background. The most fun of all was deciding what flavors the ice creams should be. Here we have rocky road, orange creamsicle and pistachio.

Here you can see the lemon soft serve. I decided to do all my ice creams in satin stitch. I just like the look of it. Other stitchers did different things on theirs. You can look on IG.

Mint chocolate chip in honor of my youngest grandson. It's his very favorite ice cream.

Vanilla was my first cone. I thought it was the best flavor to start with. When I was a kid, the local soft serve place only had vanilla, but you could get it dipped in chocolate.

I loved the explosion of sprinkles on this piece. I thought the item next to some of the cones was a sparkler, so I stitched it with sparkly threads and added some sparkly beads too.

                    Here we have chocolate soft serve and lots more sprinkles.

This is a picture of the entire thing finished. I enlarged the PDF a little bit and put it in my Q-snap frame and the size was perfect for me. I want to frame it, but I'm not sure about the glass beads being under glass. Oh, well, I'll figure it out eventually.

Here you can see the cherry ice cream with hunks of cherries in it. I loved doing that one.

This is back when I first started on it. We did the cones first of all. I did a sort of weave with them, as I think many of us did.

This was the most fun, and if you've never done one of Rebecca's samplers, you should try one. They are all tons of fun. So, until next time...

January Chilling

 So, here we are, two thirds of the way through January. We still have not made much progress with finding a place to live. So much of living life is getting in the way of the search. Weather related delays and children out of school for various reasons. We will get there, though. Not to worry. So then you might wonder what am I up to creatively. Well, mostly hand work still. I did take my machine out a couple of times last week. I did some much needed mending and put together a couple of my plus blocks that I had cut out an pressed before I left California.

Here are some of the things I have been working on recently:

First of all, I signed up to be in this Stitched in Color quilt Along for this year. It is a monthly block program, and while I can't get started just yet, I know I will have time to catch up eventually. I am going to spend some time planning while I don't have access to my stash right now.

I am still working on crocheting these beautiful Flora Granny squares designed by Lucy at Attic 24. I only have 23 more to go and I will have 100 of them. They will be joined to make a 10 x 10 block square throw. This is a great project to pick up and put down as needed. I am using all my scrap yarn from other blanket projects for this one. It's the quilter in me.

I have several other long term projects lined up. I am doing the pineapple  quilt along with Gigi's Thimble which begins at the end of January and I have saved all the clues to do Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt as soon as I have access to my scraps for that one.

I am also working on some embroidery. This is Rebecca Ringquist's Schoolhouse Sampler.

It is her newest release and I am having so much fun with it. I check Instagram often to see what everyone else is doing with theirs.

There are so many different and fun elements in this sampler. I am going slow and choosing my colors carefully.

I don't think I have ever done quite so many colonial knots in one piece.

I am really enjoying the pace and doing all this embroidery. It is a skill I learned as a child and I am so happy I did. I have definitely improved since then. Lol

I bought these fun butterflies on Amazon. They are magnetic and so it the chalkboard in my daughter's kitchen. You get about 80 butterflies in a pack and they are beautiful. We put some on the refrigerator as well.

And this little cutie turned 6 this week. It was a week of threatening winter weather and of germs.

We ended up getting a bunch of these because the little cutie pie above was diagnosed positive on Tuesday. So far, all is well and no one else has gotten sick. Yay for vaccines and boosters. Hoping to make it a few more days to be out of the woods. 

Have a great week, stay warm if you are in the cold winter weather. Talk to you soon.

Flying Geese and Embroidery

Now, the flying geese have absolutely nothing to do with the embroidery. But I decided to cram them both into one post. First, the flying geese. Rachel at Stitched in Color is doing a sew along of her Geesey Geesey pattern and of course, I had to join in. I have always wanted to do a flying geese quilt. This was my chance.

I saw a lovely rendition of this quilt using some of these colors. That was what grabbed my attention.

I used a no waste method of making the geese which I got from Melissa Cory at Happy Quilting. I love her method and the important thing was to make the geese the correct size.

The background, or "sky" in my quilt is made from some Kona white that I dyed in a Shibori style, using Rit dye in pearl grey. Some of them are lighter than I wanted, but over all I am happy with the way it looks in the blocks. I want to try dying again now that I have some idea of how it works.

 

I just had to chop off all the dog ears. Having them there bugs me. I need clean edges.

And yes, I worked ahead. I have started arranging them and looking at them to find the best positions for each one. I will be back soon with the finished top.

And now on to embroidery...

I found this book of embroidery vegetables that I fell in love with. I want to do a bunch of them to frame and give to my daughter. She has become quite the gardener during the pandemic.

But first, I need to finish this sampler from Rebecca at Dropcloth Samplers. It is almost finished. I have been working on this for months. Whenever I need a hand stitching project, I pick this up. I love hand stitching.

So I think that just about catches us up. Take care, and stay healthy.

The Week That Was

I feel like I do lots of stuff every week, but when I sit down to write about it, I struggle to remember what I did. Oh, well. Here is a brief look at my week.

 I finished the flower on my Dropcloth ABC sampler. I am really enjoying this piece of work. It is fun to slowly work my way through the elements.

 I wore my Mother's Day crown all day last Sunday. I made one for each of my daughters as well, and they sent me pictures of them wearing theirs. The idea for these came from Susan Branch.

 Another batch of confetti cookies was needed. We have had a couple of guys working on our front yard and I wanted to thank them for their efforts.

 I ordered some cherries for our cocktail hour. Our local liquor store was out and these are our favorites, so I found them on line.

 I am also building this kit of London's Elizabeth Tower. These are like Legos, but super tiny. We didn't realize that the size was so small when we ordered it a couple of months ago, but I have decided to persevere and do it anyway. This represents a week and a half of effort.

 I am still working on blocks for my Penny Sampler Club quilt. These are called bell flowers, but I had a couple of funny comments on Instagram. One thought they were tiny shirts and the other thought they were kimonos.

In baking, I decided to make my own puff pastry. I have never done that before. It was a fun experience and it worked out okay. I do want to try it again and see if I can improve the outcome.
So that's my week, mostly. Hope you are all well. Talk to you soon.

Monday? Really?

Sometimes the days chug by slowly, but sometimes you look up and it's Monday again! Weird. Well we are over one month in official lock down here and I am okay with that. I keep busy, but there are some days that I don't feel like doing anything at all. Like today. So, let me show you what I did last week.

 This is the beginning of my Hands 2 Help quilt for this year. I bought a bundle of Little Clementine a while back, but then I didn't end up doing anything with it. Not sure why. So when I was looking through my stash, I saw this and thought it would make a cute baby quilt. The colors are soft and the prints are so very sweet.

I finally got off my butt and made the bicycle block for the Penny Sampler Quilt Club. I added flowers to my basket, because that seemed appropriate.

 I have finally finished all five of the pillow covers for my daughter and I mailed them out this morning. I can show you this one, since she has seen it. Each one is different, but made with some of the same fabrics so they go together, but not matchy.

And this is the back with a zipper flap to cover the zipper. I love those bananas.

 This is the front of my Dropcloth Sampler. I am enjoying this bit of handwork.

           And this is the back of the sampler. Almost as pretty.

And this is the pile of oranges we picked, waiting to get juiced and zested and made into lots of yummy treats.
So that was last week. I am crocheting today, and baking cookies this afternoon. Hopefully tomorrow I will feel like sewing again. Have a good week and stay safe.

It's Thursday, What Else Can I Say?

Sometimes it's hard to think up a fun title for a post, when all it is, is an update. But I am glad to be able to be here and show what I am up to this week.

 First, I am still working on my Dahlia blanket. I have lost a little steam for this project, but still plugging slowly away on it. I am on week 4 of 6. The colors are so happy and I do love it.

This is one of the April blocks for the Penny Sampler Club. There are only two blocks this month and one of them is the bicycle I was so anticipating. It's larger and a bit more complex, so I decided to warm up with this one. I had all the pieces cut for a week, before I could make myself sit down and sew it. I don't know why I kept putting it off. I find that I am easily distracted by other projects many times and I have to reign myself in.

When my daughter got married, I made 100 assorted napkins to be used at the reception, and then for her family to keep and use daily. This is what they looked like new. They are not as clean and bright now after so many years of use and washings. But Miss N has latched on to the teal with white flowers here in the bottom row. For some reason there are only 2 left. They are the only napkins she will use.

So in an effort to save her mother's sanity, I made her these four napkins in pink and purple, her favorite colors. I will get them in the mail as soon as I can.

 I am also making new pillow covers for my daughter's pillows. I haven't recovered them in about 5 years, so I know they need a refresh. Choosing fabrics long distance was tough, but this is what we whittled it down to.

 Ad this is the beginning of the first pillow cover. I am making Dear Dottie blocks in her chosen colors for this one. Each pillow cover will be different, except for the fabrics. They will all come from that box above.

 My hand stitching project is this new Sampler from Dropcloth Samplers. I saw it on IG and just had to have it. I love having a slow stitching project to pick up as I want to.

And yesterday I started with the A. I am letting this lead me where it wants to go with the colors. I know this will take me quite awhile to stitch, but that's okay. I'm not going anywhere...literally.
Take care and stay safe.