Just Let Me Quilt issued a challenge! You can see a complete listing of the participants by clicking on this link to Carol’s post today.
Simple, right?
July 18
My plan for pictures was much greater than my ability to deliver. Still, I think you’ll get the idea! A few months ago, Jennifer Reynolds (Elefantz) posted a free SAL with a picnic cloth. There were four cute little houses, one in each corner. It is free, and still available at that link.
I decided to make it for a trip I was planning with my college roommate, but there are only two of us, so I decided to do two corners, and then use it with a special tea set I bought from Stash Tea makers of my favorite herbal teas.
Making the cloth was easy, following Jennifer’s directions. What came after was a little more trouble. First, there’s chemo. Second, there was a cancellation of plans with my roommate. Then … time just went by. When this hop came up, it seemed like the perfect time to finish!
So here are the two corners I did:
And the folded cloth together:
Now use your imagination for my cool pictures! Imagine it spread out on the grass with a burgandy tea pot in the middle. a tray of cookies, and two white mugs with little love birds in burgundy on the side. Doesn’t that make a pretty picture?
Click on the links above for other challenge-acceptors for July 18!
Thanks to Carol for hosting yet another wonderful blog hop! These ladies are all amazing!
Picnic Party Blog Hop Starts Monday, July 17!
Simple, right?
July 18
That’s the list of brave quilters who have set out to show us the best Picnic Party time ever! Thank you, Carol, for this great idea, and for being such a great hostess. It isn’t easy keeping a herd of cats, er … quilters, on a straight seamline, but she does it every time!
I’ll see you right here on Tuesday at midnight EDT from Tennessee in the United States. If there’s one thing we do well in Tennessee, it’s summer time fun! I can hardly wait to share my project!
(also posted on DesertSky Quilting)
Back From Traveling!
A fair amount of stitching got done in the car as I traveled along with Monica in York and Gettysburg, PA, as well as going to the Washington, D. C., temple and coming back home to Tennessee.
Here are my finishes, and there’s one more that’s partly finished, but no picture yet. It’s an angel for Sweet Land of Liberty.
Miss Bo-Peep is finished. She’s #6 of 12 or 20, depending how far I go. Little Boy Blue is next.
Frosty McChill #2 still needs eyes, mouth and buttons beaded.
Here’s a picture of the angel I’m doing for SLOL. This is from the pattern, not my stitching.
Frosty McChill #2
At least, it’s MY number 2, because it’s the second one I’ve finished stitching. I don’t remember if it is Melisa’s actual order, but it’s how I traced them. Scroll to bottom of post for links to all blocks.
So, finished, except for beaded eyes, mouth and buttons:
I switched to a Valdani perle for block 3, a slightly different blue. I’ll make a couple of blocks with this one, and then switch again. With shaky hands, the perle looks better.
Nursery Rhyme
It’s Bo-Peep time again! I didn’t do much embroidery this last week, or much of anything, though I sewed several days. I spent one day driving 100 miles up and 100 back, taking the Featherweight in for a cleaning, new LED light bulb (pricey, but bright!) and four new feet, since the old ones had mashed down somewhere along the way. It’s happy now.
While out, I did a little shop hopping and had lunch with the friend who went with me. A lovely day, and long overdue, since we hadn’t done anything like this in the last 3 years.
Bo-Peep Update: Barbara came today and we chatted and stitched. Bo-Peep’s dress got some work.
And here’s Barbara’s Luv Ewe, finished except for its eyes, which she plans to satin stitch. This is a free embroidery design from Pinker n Punkin. There are both a cross-stitch version and the doodle-for-embroidery version.
Click images to embiggen.
The Stitching Report
I didn’t intend for this to become either a weekly blog, or a weekly feature, but at least for the second week in a row, that’s how it’s worked out. I’m blaming the awful reactions to my chemo this last week! I did do more stitching than sewing, so let’s see what that looked like.
Oddly enough, I didn’t get an update shot on Frosty McChill Block 2. I’m not actually surprised by that, given how much time was devoted to sleeping early in the week. Click pics to enlarge.
Here’s where I laid down the stem stitch vine to hold some SRE. Doesn’t that Sassa Lynne fine perle look pretty? LOVE that thread! Sorry, I have no current source for it. It’s from Wales, mostly sold at weekend stalls.
Updated a little more on Thursday and Friday to this:
I’m having to relearn all the Silk Ribbon Embroidery skills my muscles haven’t used in a while, too. I’m grateful for my Silk Ribbon Embroidery Bible, available only used now. I am not an affiliate of anything or anyone, but I like to link things you might be interested in seeing.
I chose the Spider Web Rose because I thought it would be easier to relearn than some other flowers, and I was right. The French Knots will have a stem added.
I made no progress on the Supper Cloth or the Nursery Rhyme block. I did make some on the cross stitch, but I also decided, for the second time in my life, that XS is not for me. There’s no reason it should be, simply because I identify as a stitcher. I spent 4 hours making one bad daisy, and not enjoying it at all, so I don’t need to bang my head against that wall!
I will commission my friend, Moira to make the design I want from Melissa’s Salt Box series. I don’t really need more things to do. anyway.
The Stitching Report
Time to report in again. I did have some progress this week on a couple of things!
First, I finished the supper cloth to do Jennifer of Elefantz’s Little House embroideries. Yes, 3 weeks behind, but it’s ready now.
Next, I did finish Seam 2 on my first diamond for The Crazy Quilt SAL with Sharon Boggon. Yes, 10 weeks behind!
I didn’t get an updated photo after chemo time stitching on Thursday. I was working on a Frosty McChill block, which *is*, after all, block number two. Next time, I’ll have a pic and more progress on that.
That brings me to Cross Stitch. I tried it in my 40s and didn’t care for it. Lately, I’ve been reading Melisa’s blog at PinkernPunkin. She does a lot of creating of XS patterns and shares them free, because she says she isn’t a pattern designer. Could have fooled me! She made a Salt Box house in green last year that I fell in love with, and I want it enough to take the free XS class at my local library, and try it again.
I already know this still isn’t going to be something I invest the time to become good at doing. That little daisy is all wrong, and it took me over three hours to make it. I could have done a lot of other useful things with that three hours. I will practice on this piece and do the Salt Box, and then probably drop it again. I’m not investing in it, since I already had bazillions of threads. I even found a couple of pieces of Aida from when I belonged to an auto-ship group.
So that’s the story of my week. What’s yours?
Embroidery Projects
I’m working on several embroidery projects simultaneously … or not working on them all, as the case may be.
- I only needed to put the face on my Sweet Land of Liberty (SLOL) angel, and that’s done!
- Little Bo-Peep shows some progress – worked on Friday when Wanda came to visit. She made pineapple blocks on one side of the table, and I did Bo-Peep on the other side. I’m using the traditional DMC turkey red (498) in a size 8 perle. and using back stitches. These were drawn in the early 1900s by a ten-year-old girl.
- I pulled a Frosty McChill block off the pile I traced from Melisa at Pinker ‘n Punkin Quilting. I will start this block tomorrow. It isn’t second in the blocks she designed, just what was on top of the stack of traced blocks. I think it was the one I linked here. Maybe not. We’ll see next time I post about it!
- Last on the list, and I didn’t work on it lately, is my Crazy Quilt (CQ) block. Here’s a pic of where I left it.
Frosty McChill is Finished!
Wow, that took a lot longer than I expected. Two days at chemo (probably an hour each day), several sessions with friends at home (probably 3 hours), another few miscellaneous sessions from 30 minutes to 90 minutes = a finish!
Except for the snowflakes, I used two strands of DMC 796. For the flakes, I used 4 strands, which is why they are darker. Probably 3 would have been plenty.
And next, I started this Bo-Peep block while Barbara was here this afternoon. I did the mountain lines and mos of the staff in redwork, DMC 498, which is turkey red.
Finally, here’s today’s picture of my huge amaryllis blossoms, and one more to open!
Diamond Block One
My friend, Barbara, came over this week again, and we had a great 4 hours stitching. That included lunch of homemade potato parsnip cream soup and homemade bread with butter. SO good!
One of the things I worked on today was my first seam on the first diamond block from Sharon Boggon’s 2023 BOM. You may recall that I’m doing a different diamond setting.
The next things I wanted to do were clear and easy to think of, but when I wanted a bead to add in, that wasn’t so clear. The first one, the round one you see, was easy, but I had an idea about a sequin with a bead for the next part, only I couldn’t find a combination I liked. In the end, I did, but it took a while, so I didn’t get as much done as I’d hoped. And you’ll notice there’s no sequin.
Thread is a purple variegated Sassa Lynne fine perle (8) which I bought before 2010. I bought her experimental colors in 240-meter skeins, cut them into yards, and sell 10 yard skeins to my friends who liked the threads, too. The thread pulls through like cutting through butter, and has a slight shine to it. I can’t get them now, so I hope I actually did buy enough to last my lifetime of stitching, because I almost don’t want to use any other threads!
The purple matched the lace purple nicely, and set the bead colors for me.
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