3 day weekend and lots of pictures!

I have been a busy bee lately. I finally finished my bee-themed exchange gift and mailed it off to the recipient. I can't show you yet until I know she's received it but I was happy with it, after a few bumps in the road along the way! I changed my mind twice about what I was making so it took me longer than I thought. I do enjoy making exchange gifts and always want them to be something I would be happy to receive myself.

I received this wonderful package from Cathy B last weekend. Isn't it great? Cathy had my name for the "What's the Buzz" exchange on the SBEBB board. She stitched this fob from Shepherd's Bush and included all sorts of fun items as well. I love the bee fabric she sent and also she included a cute hanging bee ornament I already have displayed in my sewing room. Since I have been accumulating more scissors lately I am excited to get a new fob! Thank you so much Cathy, I love all the things you sent. There's just something so exciting about receiving a package in the mail and especially when it's something stitched. :)

I finished up some more of my Shepherd's Bush monthly series pictured at the bottom of this post. I started these a few years ago but only got 2 months completed and a start on the third before falling to the UFO-syndrome. I'm determined to finish these this year! I am now done with 7 of the 12. I am using an old frame I have at home to size them and do all the mounting of the pieces on foam core. I do want to get a new frame made so that I can rotate the piece out each month. There's no way I'm going to pay for 12 framing jobs and I've no place to put them all up anyway. It's likely I'll end up with a white frame since each month uses a different color linen. It's been fun as I can use up some of the 28-ct linen odds & ends I have and get to stitch on some fun colors instead of just neutrals for a change. It's amazing how happy I get when I get to stitch on pink linen! I love pink but have none really in my house. My plan is to someday redecorate my sewing room in pink but that's a task for the future.

Oh happy day, a 3-day weekend is here! I'm so thankful. I hope all of you enjoy the Labor Day weekend and plan some fun activities. I am planning on spending some time with a quilting friend on Sunday to show her how to do some finishing techniques for cross-stitch. Making cording and things like that. Vonna if you are reading this, I gave her the link to your easel tutorial and she was so pleased with it. We're going to be making one on Sunday. Then I need to catch up with the Prairie Schooler Wreath SAL and a multitude of other things. DH and I will spend time with the dogs and generally relaxing, we're not doing any traveling this weekend. Both of our dogs swim well and enjoy playing in the pool.

I so enjoy blogging and hearing from all of you stitchers out there. Thank you for stopping by and have a safe and fun holiday!

New blog look

Well I was getting real tired of my old blog look so I fiddled around today and created a new scheme. Maybe the 'cool' colors will help me stay cool - I am so tired of being hot! In a few weeks we are off to San Diego for 5 days and I can't wait. We haven't been there in about 6 years and looking forward to visiting the Zoo, Sea World, and cooling off at the beach.

I went through a whole stack of old Cross Stitch & Country Crafts magazines recently. I tore out a few patterns I wanted to keep and tossed the rest in the recycle bin. Mind you, this is the second time I've had to do this - I got rid of my own years ago. Then a couple years ago I started collecting the annual stocking patterns through eBay. I was forced most times to buy a lot of 5 or 6 magazines to get the issues I wanted so I accumulated this whole stack of old magazines. It was fun looking back at how patterns have changed - so much of the 80's was ducks and country style in blue and pinks. CS&CC used to print a stitching cartoon in each issue. I cut them out and I plan to upload a few now and then. If some of you haven't seen them you'll appreciate them as only an obsessed stitcher can. :) There was no copyright on them in the magazine and they are about 20-25 years old so I'm thinking it will be okay.

A beautiful gift!

I want to share the beautiful scissor fob I received from a fellow stitcher I recently met on the phone. I shared an extra pattern and some fabric with her and she sent me this wonderful gift. Laurie I hope you're reading this because I lost your email address! I love the colors - pink is my favorite color and I have made several pink and green quilts so you made an excellent choice. In fact, won't it look good with my Gingher Jamie scissors?? :) Thank you so much!!


I'm almost ready to start on a group quilting project. I picked up some cute fabric and the charm collection from Moda's "Chez Moi" collection. (plus a really cute bag pattern!) The large flowered print is going to be my border fabric and the colors will be chocolate brown, pinks, lime greens, aquas and yellows. My picture was taken at night and the colors look a bit orangey but really they are quite pretty in person.


This little book is a romantic story about a turn of the century family in Mexico and it's all about a young girl thwarted in love. She takes her passion and puts it into her cooking instead. We watched the movie made from the story at our meeting last week. It's rather an odd little book, so far I'm not that impressed but I did like the movie alright. Each of us in our group are taking a chapter of the book and designing a section of the quilt to go with the story. We make copies of our design for everyone in the group, and then each of us sews their own quilt using their own fabric choices. We did something similar a few years ago using a set of 3 books about a pioneering family that quilted called "The Trail of Thread". Here is a picture of that quilt which is hanging in my sewing room.


The motifs and names of the blocks in the quilt relate to the story in the books. What I really like about this quilt is I can remember pieces of the story when I look at the quilt and I know which of my friends designed each section. It's a nice remembrance. I will post progress on this new quilt as we go along. We get our Chapter 1 assignment next month.

As far as stitching goes, I am working on an exchange gift right now. I am behind schedule so I need to step up the pace. I'm kind of designing it as I go so I hope it turns out alright!