New start....finally!

Well I'd held off on any new starts since November but I finally caved in! I have had "With My Needle" by The Goode Huswif kitted up for a couple of months. When I saw Heidi was kitting up the same pattern I thought it would be fun for us to do an SAL together. I absolutely love this pattern and fell in love with Terri's last year. (Terri of Chocolates for Breakfast). I think Heidi will surely get done before me but I am enjoying it so far even though I've only got the top band done.

"With My Needle" by Goode Huswife

Stitched on 36-ct R&R Antique Cotton with Needlepoint Silks

I'm making progress on my latest applique quilt too called "Winter Memories". Now that I've got it up on my design board I can see how it's starting to come together. It's a subtle quilt but I'm really liking it. That's the border fabric hanging on the right side.

And look at my latest purchase below!

I have been looking for some sort of curio cabinet to hang on the wall in my sewing room for awhile with no success. I have way too many little knick-knacks and tsotchkes I've gathered here and there and nowhere to put them. When I got my latest Pottery Barn catalog I finally found it! It was a bit too expensive but I had to have it. It's supposed to look like the cubbyholes they used to have in hotels years ago where they would keep the keys and messages for the guests. The funny thing is, when it came it had a little ding in one side and the varnish wasn't as nice as it should be, so I called up Pottery Barn and they gave me a 25% refund. Woohoo! Mr. Helpful Husband hung it up over my cutting table and I put some scrapbook paper that looks like antique postcards in half of the cubbies. Now I need to get busy and finish up some more pinkeeps to display in the empty spaces. You can see in the closeup my very first pincushion - the orange/brown/yellow one. I was into needlepoint for a bit in high school and I made this for my grandmother and stuffed it with sawdust from Dad's table saw. When my grandmother passed away it came back home with me and I've had it ever since. (If you're old enough you'll recognize the decade when I made it from the colors I used! LOL)

I've reached the halfway point with Plymouth Sampler and will get a picture of it up soon. It's so exciting to turn to the second page of the pattern!

A little of this and that..........

I finished the new baby quilt and am getting ready to mail it out - yahoo - another thing off the list! It doesn't look as feminine as I would like for a girl baby but the nursey has a jungle animal theme and the colors were right so I went with it. I quilted it myself this time with a swirly design. (click for bigger view). I'll machine quilt small quilts just not bed-size ones - it's too much work.

I've also been making progress with Plymouth Sampler - I've started construction on the third house, advanced a little on the wharf, and made it halfway through the bottom border. I had to do some frogging because one day as I was admiring my progress and looking at the photo on the pattern I realized I had done the water upside down! The dark portion should be on the bottom and the lighter blue on top -DOH! For a split second I considered leaving it that way but it would've bothered me so I had to take it all out and re-stitch it. Somehow when I wrote in the silk conversion threads on the pattern I got the 2 blues mixed up. For some reason I haven't felt like working much on Quakers & Quilts lately so no progress to report on that.

Finally made it the LNS to take a look at new stuff from Market. I didn't buy much this time....not sure why. I already have several patterns for smalls I want to stitch so I wasn't really tempted to buy any more and that seems to still be big with all the designers. I looked through the new Blackbird Designs book - nice but I wasn't tempted as it didn't seem like anything really new and different than what I already have. This isn't like me - usually I am ooh-ing and ahh-ing over everything. I just picked up the Loose Feathers pattern that had been waiting for me awhile (Winter Wonderland), some Crescent Colours floss and the LHN "Needle & Thread" pattern. Maybe it was the fact that last week I dropped off 2 quilts to be machine quilted by a longarm quilter, and while at the LNS on Saturday I dropped off 3 samplers to be framed. Just putting the deposits down was painful enough and I don't even want to think about the total bill! And that only makes a small dent in my framing pile I'm afraid but I'm committed to making progress this year with it no matter what! I guess because it's so expensive I tend to keep buying more stash instead of getting my finished things framed. (or it could be that I don't have much wall space either LOL)

Hope you all have a great stitch-y week!