Ahhh... Spring!

What a beautiful Spring day!  I decided to bring out my anemic, spindly plants outdoors for some glorious sunshine!  My lemon verbena, thyme, begonia and avocado plants managed to survive the winter.  The sunflower plant was a mother's day present.  I can just hear little teeny tiny plant voices saying "thank you!"

I couldn't bring myself to throw out my two amaryllis plants.  I hardly watered them and they are still deep green and vibrant.  What does one do with amaryllis plants after they bloom?  I really don't want to chop it up and put in a closet for next year.  

Look at my coleus:

I can't believe they lasted the winter.  They will become bushy plants in no time.

My newest experiment is growing celery from the stalk.  Pretty neat, huh?  

This is my Kafir Lily plant.  The red and white flowers are fake, but look!  The orange flowers are blooming.  This plant is at least twenty years old.  I love it!

I can't wait for the big outdoor flowering plants enticing hummingbirds to my backyard.  I can't wait for fresh wonderful garden produce.  Life is awesome!

River Runs Through It Project

I'm really excited about this project.  I am in a River Runs Through It project with about nine or ten people.  We all have a specific placement of where the river goes and after that, there are no rules.  I've been inspired by Ann Bauer and Elena Stokes' quilts so I thought I'd combine the two ideas, then add a twist of my own.  This is my first attempt at the background:

I'm going to add pieces by stitching cross in the ditch instead of appliquéing them.  I hope it will look as good as in my head!  I'm not quite certain of placement yet. I couldn't quite find the right fabric for the sun so I thought I'd enhance it by painting with Copic markers.

My head is swimming with so many more ideas...

What Have I Been Up To Lately?

What have I been up to this last month?  Well, a lot.  I discovered a three zippered pouch pattern that really challenged me.  I had to follow directions, which is a challenge in itself.  I struggled and struggled and finally got it down.
This is the start of the of the outside:

This is the end result:

After this one, I decided to make another one:

Pretty neat.  The outside has endless possibilities.  It can be patched, embroidered, quilted...

I've also discovered another crocheted stitch I didn't know about.  It's thick enough for making hot pads and I really didn't feel the need to make hot pads, (ok, I made one just to see how it looks), so I made a tote:

It's hard to tell, but it's just thick enough to be awesome!  I lined about two inches on the top to hold down the handles but other than that, it doesn't need lining.  Again, awesome!  This is another I'm not finished with yet:

I'm in an embroidery block of the month.  Here are January, February and March:

They are so cute!  I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to put them together yet.  It'll be a wall hanging quilt so I'll probably add buttons and lace.  

This is what I'm working on now:

What is it?  Well, I'm in an international quilt block swap and the theme is Spring.  Coincidentally, the subject for my Journal Arts project for April is Spring. Woo hoo for me, two projects in one.  In all honesty, this project is an experiment for a bigger project due in a couple of months. I'm still mulling it around in my head.  That will be a post for another time.

I am done with row three on my Dear Jane quilt.  No picture yet.  I'll take one after I'm done attaching it to the first two.  

I'll end with two pictures of my Isabelle.  

I got a little shelving unit, (from a curbside) and I put it next to my rocking chair.  Isabelle is sitting where I put my coffee:

So that's what I've been up to.  My life is great. 

Slow Progress

My rearranging and organizing is coming along slowly, but it's coming along!  I'm really happy with it so far.  I moved my beading stuff to this corner:

You can't see my painstakingly tedious job sorting of the beads, but it's there. It only reminded me of all the neat, cool stuff I have. Note my totally awesome porcelain table.  $7 at a tag sale.  

I moved my fabric, once again.  The boxes on the bottom need to be upright because of a pesky cat who has no qualms of burrowing herself in them.

This is what I have to contend with.  If there is an inch of space, she will find it and sit there and then most inevitably, take a bath.

 I even sorted my buttons!  I know it sounds crazy, but it was actually fun.  I still have a few more to go, but this is the bulk of them:

 I saw this on Pinterest and I SIMPLY MUST MAKE IT!!!!!!  Soon...

Thanks for looking!

Unfinished Projects

I haven't posted anything in a while because I really haven't finished anything so today, I decided to show off my unfinished projects.

I love, love, love how my crocheted blanket is coming along.

I am making it extra-wide and hopefully, extra-long.  I love it!

I've been experimenting with knitting lately.  I figured out how to knit the continental way.  It's soooooooo much easier.  I wish I figured it out long time ago.  

I saw a scarf knited with the linen stitch which is k1, yfwd, sl1, yb then the second row is p1, yb, sl1, yfwd.  It's a nice look and all but it entails keeping track of each row.  I started to experiment and came up with this:

It's two layers of knitting, front and back.  All I did was do the first row over and over.  No concentration.  That's the way I like it!  

I cut out all my pieces to my "sunflower" quilt and put up on my design wall:

It's going to be great when I finish it.  I'm going to appliqué sunflowers on it. 

I saw on Pinterest a video from Missouri Star Quilting on herringbone half hexagons soooooooo, I needed to try it.  I used a jelly roll and came up with this so far:

I acquired a blue pin stripe king size flat and fitted sheets at a tag sale last summer for $5.  I'm thinking of sashing between each row and doing my favorite quilt-as-you-go.  I experimented quilting on an old quilt top, (no picture, sorry) and discovered I need a lot of practice, but it was fun.

I'm almost finished with this little project.  My fiber journal quilting club meets Tuesday night and this month's theme is "love."  This is what I came up with:

I'm happy with it.  It's got all the stuff I love; doily, handkerchief, lace, buttons, beads, crocheted flowers, embroidery, cats and bright colors.  

These last few days I've been feeling rather anxious.  Not sure why.  I've been wanting to organize all my neato stuff but found it too much of an overwhelming task.  This is quite ironic because when I was working, my job was to be very organized and I was damn good at it.  

Today was an awesome day.  I jumped in and made a total mess of my studio.

I'm rearranging and making a terrible, terrible mess.  It took time to make this mess.  I took things off of the shelf, read a couple chapters in a book, moved a table, had a cup of tea, moved more stuff around, read some more, put everything on the floor and then had supper.  I'm calm.  I feel good. Tomorrow is another day.

Last year, I was going to enter a contest with "Timeless Treasure" fabrics.  I was very excited.  I was very naive.  I was in way over my head.  The other day, while surfing Pinterest, I came across this quilt:

It's stunning!  I have all this fabric!  My ideas, and I had many, many ideas, was along this line, but I just couldn't make it happen.  My hat is off to the person who made this.  I hope she (or he) won because it's wonderful.

Ok, last photo.  This is my Molly, taking a nap with me:

She's so cute!

Thanks for looking!

Hey, Look What I Made!

I took a class yesterday at Lisa's Clover Hill Quilts on how to make V blocks.  I don't have the patience to make a full blown quilt, but I will make a border and bind it.

Ok, now I'm ready for some football.

Post Quilting Retreat

Whew!  I got back yesterday from my first sewing retreat at Camp Hazen in Chester.  It was awesome!

This is the view from where I sewed for three days with a total of about thirty hours:

The lake was fogged over all day Saturday but it was wonderful looking out all those windows.  Anyone who knows me knows how much I love windows!  I met so many wonderful people.  I can't wait to go back.  Maybe in March...

First I worked on this quilt.  I didn't realize the HUGE mistake I made until today when I put it up on my design wall.  Ugh!!!!  How frustrating!  I guess it would have been worse if I added the backing and stitched up the binding. I'm going to have to frog it.  I do like it though.  

I experimented with a technique from Ann Brauer I saw in a Quilting Arts magazine. It was going to be a wall hanging, but then I made it into a project carrier.  I love it!  The picture doesn't do it justice though.

Each strip is a finished 1/4 inch strip.  I braided the remaining fabric for handles and stitched in ziploc bags.  Love it!

I made a snap bag:

And I cut out thousands of teeny tiny one inch half squares.  When I say teeny tiny, I'm not exaggerating.

There are four sets of different colors.  I have an idea in my head that I'm not ready to share or even start yet.  It's on the back burner for now.

I worked on my crocheted blanket for a couple of hours in front of a fireplace.

Someone dropped off a few blocks at Lisa's Clover Hill Quilts the other day.  Lisa gave them to me and I made this cute little quilt:

It's a bit old fashioned, but all I had to do was come up with this neato design and sew them together. 

Let's see...  What else?  We were fed morning, noon and night.  I ate morning, noon and night. I read a few pages from the latest book I'm reading, For Time and Eternity by Allison Pittman in my sleeping bag on a bunk made for little kids. 

As much as I love my Isabelle, it was nice to be away for a couple of days.  She's punishing me, 

I mean loving me:

All in all, I had a wonderful time.  It was good to get away for awhile.  My dear friend Kitty was supposed to attend, but she came down with the flu.  We all did think of her throughout the day.  

Oh, my second amaryllis bloomed nicely.  You can't tell, but there are five red flowers.

Thanks for looking!

Brrrr!!!

Man, it's cold outside!  My boys are out ice fishing.  I think they are the only ones happy it's so cold.  Tonight they will be coming over for a nice turkey dinner.

My amaryllis is finally blooming.

And my geranium.  I never expected to see flowers on my geranium in winter.

I've picked up yet another crochet project.  This is my mindless, zen blanket.  When I'm feeling a little anxious or need to do some serious thinking, I crochet something.  I'm loving this so far.  Every row is a different color.  I'm using up my cotton stash.  

I'm procrastinating.  I need to go to the supermarket.  I also need to fill up the bird feeder for my poor freezing birds.  How do they do it?

Today or tomorrow I'll be organizing my future projects.  That's my new goal.  At least organize each project into a box or project bag so I can just pick up and move along.  

Thanks for looking!