A Little Mondy Catch Up

 I am a bit of a lazy blogger. There, I said it. It's not hard to sit down and write, but I need photos, so sometimes, I put it off. It's all the downloading and editing that gets me every time. So anyway, that said, here's what I have been up to since I was here last:

The art museum in Raleigh has an exhibition every spring called Art in Bloom. My daughter really wanted to go, so of course I went with her. It was breath taking. These are just a sample of the pieces that were there. All made from fresh flowers, and inspired by works hanging in the galleries there.

Then we took a couple of days mid-week to go to the beach. It was pretty quiet, since it's still not terribly warm there yet. This is the obligatory under the pier shot.

I picked up tons of shells. I always say I won't, but then I do. I promised Miss N I would bring her some.

A beautiful east coast sunrise. The beach is actually facing south, so you have to look to the left to see this.

The view from our front porch. We spent a good deal of time sitting there and listening to the waves. It is so soothing. We did hang out down on the beach as well. Saw some deer there on our last morning. I have never seen deer at the beach before.

On the home front, I got my dining table back from my daughter, and I painted the dirty old white legs this gorgeous blue. It is a chalk paint.

And,I made these covers for the arms of my couch. I bought some Essex Linen to make the covers with.

This is what they are covering up. Years of kids and cats and dogs. I am pretty happy with my new covers.

And finally, I finished my March installment of Pas de Deux. Again, Blogger has rearranged all my pictures here. This is the center star piece for this month's block.

It began as this. I am trying really hard to use only scraps for this quilt, but I needed peach colors and I only had two in my stash/scrap bins.

This is the whole thing. The two strips at the bottom will be added later on in the construction process.

I love the color play in this quilt so far. Not a rainbow, but plenty of colors in each section are making for a very interesting piece.

That's all for now. It's laundry day, so I need to get going. Talk to you soon.

Never a Dull Moment

 Never a dull moment around here. I thought that as soon as we got moved in and settled, I would have lots of time to sew and catch up on sew alongs etc. Not happening. So much to do.

Since I have gotten back into embroidery, I decided to rearrange my floss into color families. In an effort to be able to still find them by number, should I need to, each color family is in numerical order as well.

I was finally able to finish the blocks for January for the Pas de deux quilt along with Rachel at Stitch in Color.

Tried a new recipe from the New York Times. Chicken pot pie with cornmeal biscuits on top. I can highly recommend it. Mad a half size and it was perfect for two.

Bought myself some tulips. I needed the spring happy colors in my apartment. These filled the bill.

I bought all four different kinds of cinnamon from Penzeys. I am teaching one of my grandsons to cook and bake and we are going to have a lesson on cinnamon. It should have some delicious results.

Still working on the perfect pineapple QAL with Gigi's Thimble. I actually have 4 blocks done, but I am going to be 3 weeks behind as of tomorrow. These take me almost 2 hours to finish one. I plan to keep chugging along though.

I am working on a new wedding quilt for a recently married couple. All batiks, which I almost never do. I think this will be stunning when I get done. Mor pictures to come.

My two oldest daughters have discovered the joy of antiquing. They bought me this early mother's day gift to help to display some of my many quilts.

I did finally get February's blocks done for the Pas de deux. I am waiting for some fabric for March's blocks. In spite of all the fabric I seem to have, a couple of colorways are lacking.

I put my crocheted blankets in the bottom of this cabinet that I used to use for linens. This apartment has linen closets in each bathroom, so yay! Blanket storage it is.

Still chugging along on my Schoolhouse Sampler. I haven't done much in the last week. I had a cold; the first time I have been sick in over 2 years and I just had no desire or energy to sew anything. I did take a Covid test just to be sure. My husband had the cold the week before me, so I know where it came from.

I started this little project about 6-7 years ago when I first learned to make colonial knots instead of French knots. I didn't think I would ever finish it, but something sparked me and I worked diligently on it to finish it. I must say that it did not end up as I first pictured it, but I am very happy with it. A good long rest in time out was what it needed.

And finally, it seems we have a rooster living near our apartment complex. I don't know where he comes from, but some mornings he is just there and the other day I got to hear him too. Don't forget tomorrrow is Pi Day. I am off to make my pie dough now! See you soon.

An Interesting Thing

 So, we have been in our place for almost 3 weeks now. We are happy with our choice of this place to live and are settling in. For much of January I was chomping at the bit to sew on my machine. I could not wait to get set up somewhere. I now have the almost perfect set up. (almost because nothing is ever perfect) But...I am having trouble finding my groove. I feel so much more drawn to the hand works I have been doing these last couple of months.

Mostly I am stitching on this Dropcloth Sampler. I have really been enjoying learning, or in some cases relearning these stitches.

This is the Schoolhouse Sampler from Dropcloth Samplers. It's getting close to finished now and I do have another one already to go when I finish this.

I also signed up for Rachel Hauser's Pas de Deux block of the month for 2022. I knew I would be starting it late, but I am almost done with January and I am hoping to get February done this week. Just in time for March's release. Lol

I taught my 14 year old grandson how to bake muffins last week. He did a great job! They were very tasty.

And of course I promised the littles some pink marshmallows for Valentine's day. Heart shaped of course.

I also signed up for Gigi's Thimble Perfect Pineapple block. We are supposed to be making a block a week for 36 weeks. I need to get two more done to be caught up on this one. Here's hoping.

And of course this crocheted blanket is still going on. I only need 17 more blocks to have enough to put it all together. So very close. 

So the plan is, to start sewing today and see how much I can get done. I am hoping that if I plan this as a sewing only day, I will get in gear and maybe start to get back in the groove. I also am hoping that I can get back to blogging, especially since there are so many projects to talk about.

See you soon.

Long Time No See

 Man, this moving thing isn't for the feint of heart. It seems to just go on and on. To be fair, we did actually move twice; once to my daughter's house and once to our apartment. We are still getting settled in, and will finally be getting the last of our stuff from California next week. 

The sewing room is set up now. I have actually done some sewing. Let's take  look, shall we?

First, there is this beautiful antique quilt rack that my daughters bought me as an early mother's day gift. I truly need a place to display some of my quilts and this fits the bill perfectly.

I have my ironing station set up here. I hung my favorite spools quilt above it. I had it hanging in my old quilting room in our house, but haven't really seen it in awhile. Now that I have the space, I happily hung it on the wall.

My second Penny Sample quilt found a place on a wall in the sewing room too. It's her first time bein hung up.

I set up my wooden crate shelves along  wall and added some smaller quilts above it. The shelves are still messy, but getting more organized every day.

Here is the sewing desk. I absolutely love being able to display my Kingfisher Quilt above it.

And just this week I removed the bridge table I was using for the computer and replaced it with this little cutie from Wayfair. It's a perfect size for just the computer. I do have my design wall up, but forgot to take a picture. It's sew nice to have this all set up again.

It has been 5 years since we have had a space all our own. I am enjoying this more than I anticipated.

 

I got out the rest of the magnetic butterflies that I bought while at my daughter's house and did a little "decorating".

This is the air return for the HVAC system. A metal cover in our living room. This is a perfect way to make it pretty.

And a few leftovers went on the fridge door. These are so pretty, I can hardly get enough of them.

And lastly, a North Carolina sunrise from a few weeks ago when we went to visit our other daughter near Charlotte NC. A cold winter sunrise, but so beautiful.

See you soon with my current projects.

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.